The Shack: Ladykiller

I guess Mackenzie had expected me to either try to waffle or just not answer, she looked a little surprised. "So what are you doing here?"

"Looking to see if I can get some support in graduating from 'hook up' to 'steady dating.'"

"So this is like a job interview."

"Hmmm. Sure."

Seeing that she hadn't rattled me, she tried again. "So you had sex with my mom?"

"Yes. And we toured wineries on my motorcycle and fixed breakfast together and had a great time. Your mom is amazing." I thought Kathy's head was going to explode and I could see Mackenzie sneaking looks at her aunt. Apparently, I wasn't the only target.

"And now you want to date her."

"Yep."

"Isn't that backwards? Don't you take women on dates to get into their pants? That's what everyone tells me." she glanced over at Kathy.

"That's the way it usually works. Kind of went in the other direction this time."

"Are you always this brutally honest?"

"Not really, but I figure it's my only shot here. You're the most important thing in the world to your mom, so I'm putting it all on the table."

"So you won't lie to me?"

I met her stare. "Nope. Ask anything."

"Will you drive me over to get pizza in your car?"

"If your aunt and uncle agree and follow in their car and eat with us. I'll even pay for the pizza."

She put her hands on her almost non-existent hips. "Why do they have to come? Aren't I safe with you? If you are going to date Mom, I should be safe with you."

"You are safe with me. But you just met me, and you can't be sure of that. And it's a bad precedent. It's a bad idea to get into cool cars with guys you don't know."

"So I shouldn't trust you?"

"We've already established that I clearly have an ulterior motive and I am leveraging my considerable charm to influence you. It's a bad idea to just whole-heartedly trust me."

"Mom did."

"In her defense, she did have an entire squad of heavily armed women who would have come looking for her if she didn't show back up"

Mackenzie giggled. "I feel like Little Red Riding Hood talking to the Big Bad Wolf. Except you're after Mom's cookies." She cracked a crooked little smile that looked exactly like her Mom's. Kathy looked a little bewildered, but even she had a smile.

***

Thirty minutes later, we were sitting across from each other over an extra-large, extra cheese, extra pepperoni with none of "those vegetables that everyone else wants." John and Kathy sat next to us, but seemed to deliberately be giving us space. I suspected they'd had a very interesting discussion in their car.

Mackenzie wolfed down a whole piece in what looked like one bite before starting in again. "So now for the hard questions."

"The other questions weren't the hard ones?"

"Nope." She pulled another slice of pizza on to her plate.

"Okay, go ahead."

"Can you promise me that Mom is going to make it back?" I saw Kathy stiffen up.

I looked at Mackenzie. "Nobody can promise that. But your mom has one of the best squads I've seen, and they only have a couple weeks to go, so she probably will."

She nodded. She'd grown up an Army brat, she knew damn good and well that was the only real answer. "Okay, what do you do for a living?"

"I work for a security contractor, mostly doing sniper training. I can work from almost anywhere. But I've been thinking of opening up an indoor-outdoor range and gun shop. Somewhere." I looked at the teen-age girl watching us from a nearby table. "So are you going to have your friend join the interrogation?"

"What friend?"

"Girl in the blue t-shirt. She's been ghosting us since we got here. I assume that's who you were texting when you came down from changing."

Her eyes narrowed. "You don't miss much, do you?"

"I was a sniper for over twenty years, you don't survive very long doing that unless you have good situational awareness."

She waved her friend over. "Tessa, this Tony. Tony this is my best friend, Tessa."

Mackenzie and Tessa grilled me for the next forty-five minutes, with Kathy occasionally breaking her silence to sneak a question in.

I've been through counter-interrogation training and the instructors could have learned a thing or two from them. They were intent on prying everything out of me they could, from a detailed health history, to the state of my personal finances, to my favorite color.

Some of the questions seemed pointless, but I soon figured out why she wanted Tessa to help. Tessa's parents had divorced and her mother had remarried, making Tessa something of the expert on "Mom-is-dating-again" issues.

At the end of it, Mackenzie gave me provisional approval. Despite all the questions, I think her approval was mostly based on the smile her mom had in the picture.

***

Arrival Day was the usual organized chaos: a few speakers droning on a little longer than they really needed to, with both soldiers and family members just desperately wanting the ceremonial shit to get done so they could touch each other and know that it was all over.

Anne, a few pounds lighter and a few shades darker, noticed me, but refrained from saying anything until after she'd squeezed Mackenzie half to death and given hugs to both Kathy and John.

She finally turned to look at me. "Soooo, why are you here?" At least she sounded more puzzled than angry.

Mackenzie broke in. "We brought him. That way you can sneak over to his hotel room in case you need a booty call."

Anne's jaw dropped and Kathy started laughing at her and held up her phone, showing her the infamous picture. "Don't let your friends send pictures if you don't want your daughter asking questions."

Anne looked at the picture, then glanced behind her, looking through the sea of soldiers and family members. "Oh my God. I'm going to kill them." Then she looked at me. "But you must have called or something or they wouldn't have found you."

"Guilty. And yeah, it sounds a little stalker-ish, but I really wanted to see you again."

She frowned. "It does sound a little weird."

Frosty pushed out of the crowd behind her, holding the hand of a guy who I assumed was her husband. "Weird? Like wearing someone's dress shirt to bed every night for eight months?"

Anne turned a brilliant shade of red, Mackenzie started giggling almost uncontrollably.

I tried to get everything back on track. "I'm just asking for a few dates to see if, maybe, there's something there."

From Anne's face I could tell she was wondering the same thing.

Mackenzie looked at Anne very seriously. "You should probably do the booty call thing first, so you can think straight." I thought Frosty was going to die laughing.

Anne sighed exasperated. "Will you quit using that term?"

"I'm pretty sure it's the right term." Mackenzie looked over at her aunt. "The first time was a 'hook-up' because they didn't know each other, but now that they do, it'd be a booty call, right?"

Kathy nodded sagely. "That's right, Honey."

Anne narrowed her eyes at Kathy. "You're encouraging her."

Kathy smirked, then shrugged. "Maybe. Payback for all the crap you pulled on me when we were kids."

Anne shifted back to me. "You're serious? Based on one weekend."

"Based on one weekend and a long look at things."

"Even if we really hit it off..." She smiled a little nervously. "And I'm not saying we didn't. But we'd have to work a lot of things out."

"Your daughter covered that ground in detail, too. Her rule is that we try out dating for six months, no living together, and no permanent changes until after six months no matter what. She's pretty smart."

"She is." A quirk of a smile crossed her face.

Mackenzie gave a self-satisfied smirk. "If it all works out, next summer we need to go to Croatia to visit his family. Tessa and I already have a swimsuits picked out."

Anne looked like she wanted to object to it, but instead she sighed. "Maybe, we'll see how this works, okay?"

"Are you willing to try this?"

She nodded a bit hesitantly. "I think so."

I could see she had her doubts and I didn't blame her. How would she be sure a guy like me would settle down? She'd be worth it, but this could take months, maybe even years.

It would take patience. I could do patience; that has always been kind of my thing.

Post Production Notes:

The two readers who guessed closest on "God Laughs" were kimi1990 and sbrooks103x. Kimi aka "Kimmi" already appeared in the series as a child in Gun Gun Teddy Bear. This story is much later sequentially and she is the lawyer who also helps run K2 Security for her parents. Sbrooks103x appears as "Brooks" one of Wendy's henchmen. They both scored 6 out of 8 on naming the writers and both tagged me correctly as having written the initial insanity.

Thanks to sbrooks103x and blackrandi for the edits, and of course to my wife, aka The Missus, for all of her irreplaceable assistance with plotting and character development.

Some possibly unfamiliar issues:

OGA: Other Government Agency. Usually assumed to be CIA, but several less well known agencies fall under this designator as well.

Corporal versus Specialist: In the US Army, the Corporal and the Specialist are the same paygrade, but not the same rank. A Corporal is a non-commissioned officer and a Specialist is not.

The Armory

United States

M240B: Called the "240 Bravo" or just "the Bravo," is the US military designation for the FN MAG, a belt-fed gas-operated medium machine gun that chambers the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. Weighs in at 35 pounds loaded.

M249 Para: The M249 light machine gun, formerly designated the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, the US version of the Belgian Minimi. Some consider it more of an automatic rifle than a machine gun. The para version is lighter and shorter than the standard, as it is optimized for airborne, armored infantry and close quarters combat operations with a shorter barrel and collapsible buttstock. It has a reputation for being finicky about cleaning, and having issues with sand, and the 5.56X45mm round lacks the sheer power of a 240B. It is known colloquially as a "piglet," as it was initially viewed as the smaller sibling of the M60 machine gun, known as the "pig." It is significantly lighter than the 240B, at 20 pounds loaded

M16A2: A slightly modified version of the venerable standard issue assault rifle for the US military from Vietnam until the widespread adoption of the M4 in the 2000s. The A2 has a heavier barrel and three round burst rather than full automatic fire.

M4 Carbine: A shorter and lighter variant of the M16A2 assault rifle. It has a 14.5 in (370 mm) barrel and a telescoping stock.

M9 pistol: The Beretta M9 is a 9×19mm Parabellum pistol adopted by the United States Armed Forces in 1985. It is essentially a military specification Beretta 92FS.

Non-US

AK-74: The AK-74 is an assault rifle developed in the early 1970s as the replacement for the earlier AKM. AKs are the most common assault rifles in the world.

Dragunov SVD 63: is a semi-automatic designated marksman rifle chambered in 7.62×54mmR and developed in the Soviet Union. While not in the league of the top end true sniper rifles of the world, it is among the most common and has a reputation for reliability in difficult conditions.

Romanian PSL: Romanian military designated marksman rifle. Though similar in appearance to the Dragunov, the PSL rifle is based on the RPK light machine gun and has no parts that are interchangeable. This is the go-to sniper rifle for many countries unable to afford or support the true top-end rifles.