A Safe Place

Chapter Eight

When the sun started to set Jakes and Johnny headed down to the spot on the beach to start the fire. The rest of us headed down to the beach not long after them.

We were all out there talking for a while, Johnny must of suddenly realized how close Charlie and Briggs were sitting "I thought you two were broken up"

"No we never were. Yeah there was a bit of a rough patch but we got through that" Charlie informed him.

"Oh" he said embarrassed.

"How didn't you know that?" Paige asked.

"They haven't hid it" I pointed out.

"Johnny, I wasn't even here for months and I knew they were still together" Jakes stated. When we all said that Johnny just shrugged. We laughed about that for a little while.

"In his defense there has been plenty of times one or more of us didn't know something that was going on in the house" I pointed out after a couple minutes and everyone agreed. We all knew what'd gone on since I arrived here.

We were all talking to eachother still. As I looked around at everyone else talking, laughing and enjoying themselves, I could tell tonight was clearly helping us all to relax. Even Samantha was enjoying the fire, she was mesmerized by the light, color, and sound.

A couple hours later we all had gotten beers and kept talking for a while, "Hey!" Charlie called to get our attention, we looked over at her and raised her bottle "here's to finally taking them down" she said from where she was leaning against Paul.

"And to Mikey being clean for a year" Paul threw in.

"That was exactly a year ago?" I asked after we all took a drink.

"Yeah" he informed me.

"How do you know?"

"Because detoxing almost killed you, I remember when that was and I remember how long before that, that you came to me" He explained.

"Hopefully I never relapse" I stated and everyone agreed with me.

"Just try not to get shot again" Briggs joked.

"Yeah I'll do my best, thanks" I joked back, smirking.

It was only about an hour later, I was sitting a bit away from the fire now since Samantha had fallen asleep, everyone else had quieted down quite a bit. Charlie came over and sat down next to me "you've been over here by yourself a while" she stated.

"Yeah, well Sam's asleep." I informed her.

"Ah, you just don't want her to wake up"

"Exactly" I smiled.

"Was she asleep when you came over here?" She asked. "Cause I saw you come over here and appeared to be whispering something for a little bit" she told me.

"She was still awake, she was starting to fall asleep though, so I was getting her to sleep" I explained.

She nodded "were you singing to her?" She asked.

"Yeah, it gets her to sleep, she likes it" I shrugged but only slightly since Samantha's head was laying on my shoulder.

"That's sweet" she smiled.

"It took me a while to figure it out and once she was healthy it got easier and that's when I actually figured it out" I smiled, proud of myself.

She laughed a bit at how proud I was, "Well that's a good thing to figure out" she smiled, "I've never heard you call her Sam before" she pointed out.

"Well I don't a lot but I think I might, I like it for her"

"Sounds good, especially for her. I mean she is being raised by 6 federal agents, she's not going to be very girly" she pointed out.

I laughed slightly "that's true"

"Also her female role models aren't the girliest either" she stated, I nodded. We all headed back to the house about a half hour later, we were pretty tired from the day and so eventhough our fun had to end we had to sleep. It was a very fun night.