The Strongest Hit.

Chapter 34: Cold Water

JUSTIN'S POV:

Hailey and I had another adventurous day in Alaska.
We took a helicopter ride into the mountains and a dog sledding ride with Alaskan sled dogs on a glacier.
After surviving a shark attack, dog sledding on a glacier seemed like child's play.
It was probably one of the best experiences of my life. Hailey and I couldn't stop laughing and smiling about it over dinner later, but we were also a bit wine drunk too.
Between the two of us, we drank 2 1/2 bottles over dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town, Vallata.
The Uber driver was a little concerned when I had to throw my wife over my shoulder, because she was already wine snoring by the time we got back to our dome.
Luckily he kept his mouth shut, because when I saw him looking at my wife's ass...I debated knocking him out.
But my girl needed to be put to bed.
I undressed her and tucked her in, she never woke up...still snoring away.
I needed to wind down and usually did by fucking my wife, but she was currently incapacitated.
So I took a blunt and sat on the steps outside, enjoying the fresh night air and the Northern Lights.
As I inhaled and exhaled, my body began to relax.
I realized that I hadn't called to check in on Charlie at all today.
I looked at my phone and realized it was on silent this whole day.
Charlie had called around 10:30pm Long Island time, that would have been 6:30pm Alaskan time. Right when Hailey and I were finishing our first bottle of wine.
It was midnight here so it was 4am there.
I'd just call and check in with him in the morning.
After finishing the blunt, I went inside and stripped out of my clothes and got under the covers. The heat from Hailey's naked body instantly warmed me up as I wrapped my body around hers. I was out cold seconds later.

I woke up to my phone ringing over and over.
My head was pounding from the wine consumption.
Whoever it was, was gonna have to fucking wait till later.
I turned my phone off and rolled back over, wrapping my arms around my snoring wife.
When I woke up again, it was to piss.
And after doing so, I grabbed a bottle of water and some ibuprofen.
I turned my phone on and realized it was almost 6am.
The immediate dings notifying me that I had multiple missed calls and texts had my heart racing.
29 missed calls from Fredo.
40 missed calls from Joey.
Zero calls from Charlie.
I knew then that something wasn't right.
I slowly got out of bed and walked into the bathroom and locked the door.
I turned the shower on to mute out my voice and was about to call Fredo, when my phone rang again.
Fredo was calling me.
I took a deep breath and hit accept.
Somehow I already knew that my short lived happiness was over.
That whatever Fredo was going to say would tear my hope to shreds.
I brought the phone up to my ear like it was a weapon that could hurt me.

"Fredo? What's wrong?"
A shocked breath left his chest before he responded.
"Justin! Thank God! You didn't answer and neither did Hailey.
Joey and I were about to call the police department up there to check on you two."

"We're fine, Fredo.
What the hell happened?"

Fredo was hesitant for a minute, and I was afraid to ask.
Like the minute he told me what happened, I knew my wife would suffer.

"It's Charlie...."

That's all he had to say, the dread washed over me in waves.
I instantly felt sick and leaned over the toilet as everything from dinner came up.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand before I spoke.

"Is he dead? Is he, Fredo?"  My voice was barley a whisper.
Waiting for his response felt like waiting for a Judge to give his sentence on your life.

"When he didn't come home by 10pm and didn't answer his phone calls, Joey and I headed over to the gym to check on him.
When we got there, we knew something was wrong."