The Ballad of Gunlover & SpitFire - Part 2

You can check out part 1 here.

When my grandmother passed away, I had to fight my shop to get leave to go home. My First Sergeant intervened and I was able to come home. It was quite a shock, and I was so shaken I didn't have my head on straight when I left town. Gunlover came over to see if I needed any help packing, and when my ride showed up, I asked him to lock my house down for me.

Shortly after I left, he noticed I'd left my cell phone at the house. He found the charger, and part of the charging system for my laptop, and called my ride to talk to me so he could get my Moms address. He mailed all of those items to me...overnighted I believe. Meanwhile, he called me daily or more often to see if I was doing okay, to ask about my Mom, and tell me some random silliness to help cheer me up.

When my phone arrived, we texted so often during the events of the week, that people kept asking me who he was. I'd explain he was my best friend back in Holloman. Meanwhile, I made arrangements to keep my promise to show up for the guys birthday. We made it through the arrangements and the funeral, and I left for the birthday.

Okay this story is long, so I'm going to blaze through this part. I arrived, Single Dad picked me up, helped me check in. Over the course of the next 24 hours he: left me alone so he could party with his fraternity, got drunk and showed up at the hotel at 2-3am, passed out drunk on the floor while I tried to tell him go home, turned on the news the next morning to see an impending tornado.

He went out to go see if he could spot the tornado and lit up. He'd told me he didn't smoke, so I was stunned. This guy was everything he claimed he wasn't. A drinker, a smoker, a party boy...I was not happy to say the least. We had an argument about him smoking and he stormed off and left me there. Yep, that's right. Abandoned me at the hotel with a tornado heading directly for the hotel. I tried to call my Mom but the storms were wreaking havoc and I couldn't call anyone.

When the tornado let up, it had touched down right outside the hotel..bent the sign and everything. I called my Mom and told her what had happened...she wasn't happy with Single Dad either. I called Gunlover, and he was REALLY not happy. Single Dad came over later and started playing make-up games. He wanted to take me out to eat at a nice Italian restaurant...take me to the mall..take me to a conservatory. While we were at the restaurant, I was rapidly texting both my sister BookAddict, and Gunlover.

Suddenly I realized that over the course of time I'd fallen in love with Gunlover. And here I was having dinner with another man. To make it worse, as far as I knew, Gunlover had given up on me, and in a long-distance relationship with another girl. I ducked into the restroom and called BookAddict. She wasn't surprised at all...she'd noticed me talking about Gunlover while I was home for the funeral, and saw how he'd checked in with me to make sure I was okay. All she wanted was to talk to him herself, so she could get a feel for what he was like.

That night I couldn't take it anymore. I'm not a fan of doing things over the phone, but I couldn't stand waiting any longer. I called Gunlover and told him I was going to need to talk to him as soon as I got back to Holloman. Of course he doesn't like waiting, so he told me to spit it out. I said that I needed to be careful because I didn't want to come between him and his girlfriend. He laughed and said there was no girlfriend. She hadn't been able to handle the long distance thing, and had gotten back with her old boyfriend.

I carefully explained that I realized my feelings for him had changed. He quietly reminded me that he'd liked me from the beginning. From there, we'd been good friends for a while, so things moved swiftly. My grandmother passing away, and our military lifestyle had taught us that you never know what life will bring. Live like there's no tomorrow. I told him I loved him in April, May we told our parents we were engaged, June we got married. And we haven't looked back since. Jewel absolutely adores him & considers him to be her father.