Long Haul Love (Trucker Love #1)

Chapter Thirteen

When Shepherd woke from their post-coital nap, he was hungry. He always seemed to be hungry around Brogan. He also remembered they needed to clean out the truck, and he needed to do a load of laundry because with only two pairs of jeans and a few t-shirts, nearly everything he owned was dirty.

He wiggled free of Brogan’s embrace and when the sleeping man reached out for him, handed him one of the spare pillows on the bed. That settled him down. Dressing in the clothes he had worn earlier, Shepherd silently moved around the room and out into the hall. As he descended the stairs, he said a silent prayer that he would not run into Brogan’s brothers.

Of course, his luck being what it was, the two men who looked nearly identical to his man were in the kitchen. Sam was sitting at the kitchen table with what looked like Brogan’s clipboard while Harry was standing at the stove.

“Oh, hello,”

he said as he stepped off the stairs into the kitchen.

“If you’re looking for clean clothes, everything is in the washing machine,”

Harry said. “The rest of your stuff is in the junk room.”

“You cleaned out Brogan’s truck?”

Shepherd asked, amazed that someone would do something so kind.

“We didn’t have anything else to do while we waited for you two,”

Sam said, looking up from the stack of receipts he was feeding one by one into a machine that looked like the scanner he used to save his pictures.

“Thank you,”

Shepherd said as he moved toward the doorway with a small metal “Junque Room”

sign over it.

Stepping into the room, he found three tables pushed against the other three walls of the room. Each table had a sign over it with one of the men’s names on it. Sam’s table was empty while Harry’s had what looked like engine parts on it, and a basket of clothes. Brogan’s table was piled high, not only with his things, but also with Shepherd’s backpack and duffel bag.

Unsure of protocol, Shepherd grabbed his bags and headed back across the kitchen to take them upstairs to Brogan’s room.

“Tell Sleeping Ugly that dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,”

Harry called up the stairs.

Shepherd laughed and finished climbing the stairs. He slipped into Brogan’s room and set his bags down. Brogan had rolled to his back, but was still asleep. He stopped for a moment and studied the sleeping man, wondering how best to wake him.

After a moment, he grinned and took a step back, just in case Brogan woke up swinging.

“Beep-beep-beep,”

he said in his loudest, most annoying alarm clock imitation.

Brogan jackknifed into a sitting position and looked around wild eyed. “What?”

he yelled.

Then he blinked and looked around again, taking in his surroundings and finally his brain clicked on and he focused on Shepherd. “You’re awake.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And dressed.”

“Yep.”

The man then looked at the bags sitting just inside the door. “And apparently you’ve gone out to the truck without me.”

“Nope. Only as far as the kitchen. Your brothers brought our stuff in from the truck and even started our laundry. Oh, and Harry says that dinner will be in about ten minutes.”

****

Brogan walked into the kitchen, preparing himself for whatever comments or advice his brothers might offer on his relationship with Shepherd. The Myles brothers were not known for their tact so he half-expected they would comment on everything from Shepherd’s hair to his being a non-CDL holder to anything else.

Shepherd followed him but did not seem as nervous about seeing his brothers again as he had been on their arrival. What had happened while he’d been napping and his man had gone looking for clothes?

A glance in the junk room showed their clothes were now clean, dry, and on the table in a basket, waiting to be folded and taken upstairs. The junk room and its separate tables for each of the triplets was something their mother had devised when they were in their teens. She claimed turning half of her sewing room into a place to keep all the things her sons left around the house and yard had kept her sane as they grew through their teen years. At the beginning, it was one table with lines dividing each brother’s space. After their deaths, the brothers expand on the concept, giving each brother an entire table for not only things they left around the house but also their mail and any laundry that was left in the dryer.

During dinner, he waited expectantly for his brothers to attack. It wasn’t until they had finished dinner and were eating the apple pie Sam had made that the brother began their interrogation. Only it wasn’t him they were focused on, it was Shepherd.

Though he wanted to step in and protect Shepherd from his brothers’ attack, Brogan forced himself to sit back and watch. If they were to be together, his man needed to learn how to deal with his brothers. Sam and Harry were as nosy as a pair of gossiping old women who needed to know everything about everybody.

“So, Shepherd…”

Sam started the inquisition. “What are your plans now that your father is out of the picture?”

Shepherd finished chewing and swallowing before carefully placing his fork on his plate. He wiped his mouth on the cloth napkin they used and washed every few days. That was another holdover from when their parents were alive.

The longer it took him to answer, the more Brogan wanted to step in and shield him. But he knew if he did that it would make Shepherd fair game for whatever other attacks his brothers might be planning.

“Well, since we’re going to be off road for the next week or so, I thought I’d work on the illustrations to the book I wrote the last few days. Hopefully I can get it finished and sent to my agent before Brogan leaves again. I also want to talk to my agent about working a deal with some of the larger truck stop chains to carry my books in their stores. Other than that, I thought I’d spend the rest of my time fucking your brother in as many ways as we can think up.”

“So, you’re not going to return to your life before?”

Harry asked this question.

Shepherd looked at Brogan and he returned the gaze but did not step in.

“No. My life before Brogan entered it was a time of hiding who I really was and waiting to break away from my father and really start living my own life.”

Brogan smiled, knowing that whatever they might have to face in the future, they would do it together. Tossing his napkin on the table, he stood and knelt in the space between his chair and Shepherd’s.

“I know it’s probably too soon, but you are the most amazing man I have ever met and I love you with everything in me. I’ll still be on the road three weeks a month, but you can go with me whenever you want. Will you marry me and be my road buddy for life?”

Shepherd wiped his cheeks with the hand he was not holding before he nodded. “I will want to use our trucking adventures for a new series of books. And I also want to get my trucker’s license so I can be a full partner in your truck.”

“Holy shit,”

Sam breathed as Harry whooped his approval.

Brogan nodded. “You’ll always be my partner, with or without getting your CDL, whether you’re with me or not in the truck. You are the other half of my soul, on the road or in the bedroom.”

“Then yes, I will marry you.”

Both men stood and wrapped their arms around each other before kissing like their lives depended on it. When they finished, Brogan took his man’s hand and pulled him out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

Sam called after them.

“Yeah, it’s your turn to do the dishes,”

Harry said.

Brogan did not stop walking as he called over his shoulder. “My fiancé and I are going to celebrate. We’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe.”

The End