Notoriety: Suites and Whiskey: I

By Daniel Hicks

Brent Carver is a perfect example of the average thirty-three-year-old husband and father. He has a beautiful wife, two beautiful kids, and a career that is going great. When an unexpected note dropped in his mailbox offers him a way to express how he is feeling inside, Brent jumps at the opportunity. Now a part of something much bigger than himself, he must decide what is more importanthis own personal gain and luxurious new life or his beloved family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984530585

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Hicks.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-9845-3059-2

                eBook           978-1-9845-3058-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/23/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

776855

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

To my wife and daughters,

Thank you for seeing the good in me.

You will always be the light that I follow.

Chapter 1

I think that if I had to choose the days I loved the most, that I would eventually settle with deciding on fall days. The ones where a crisp breeze blows and the leaves crunch and crackle underneath your feet. I call these days hoodie days. I would put on a comfortable pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a comfy hoodie or hooded sweatshirt to be dressed for the weather. On days like that Abby, the kids and I would load up in the SUV and go to town, or to the park, or just drive around while eating ice cream. We haven’t had a day like that in years. Abby and I are deeply in love, or maybe used to be at some point. After two kids, Katie who is twelve and Max who is eight, I think we are probably right where any other married couple are at this point in our life. We’ve been married for twelve years. We decided it was time for marriage after 8 months of dating when she became pregnant with Katie. While she was only 22 and I, just 24, we thought we had the world figured out enough to make it work. We have made it work. I do construction for a local company based out of Marietta, and she does coding and billing for a local doctor’s office. The one thing besides the kids that she is proud of is that she was able to attain that associates degree before she started having kids. I always feel bad, as if maybe I hindered her; but she insists that our kids and our marriage are her greatest victory in life.

Abby was no model by any means, but she is definitely a very attractive woman. She always watches her weight and tries to eat right. She exercises frequently and invites her friends to join. On any given Tuesday or Thursday night you could bet she and her friends are running around the town. At 5’5" she was built in a pretty hot way. She used to drive me crazy when we made love. It used to be all I could think of. Lately though, I just couldn’t get a grip on things. The economy had taken a plunge, so construction was touch and go throughout the year. We made do with some of my veterans’ benefits from my stint in the Army, and Abby always worked overtime every chance she got. We didn’t have a lot, but what we did have was ours, and we didn’t buy shoddy things; so, the things we had were nice.

Our arguments had increased not only in frequency but with intensity as well. We never escalated to laying hands on each other, but we had gotten to the stage of throwing things. I knew she loved me, and she knew I loved her. Things were just tough. They were really tough.

Last night we had gotten into an argument. It was her birthday and I had promised her we could go out. However, I had gotten home late from work, and it had been a rough day. I promised to get into the shower, and we could leave but she refused. She said not to bother, and she could tell I was grumpy. I replied to her attitude with more attitude and before you knew it, I ended up throwing a lamp. I never really worried about throwing things because I rarely ever got that mad, and I never let myself get that angry when the kids were around. She ended up going to the bedroom and falling asleep while I cleaned up the lamp and drank a few beers on the back patio. While standing on the back patio, I noticed that the trash still needed to be taken out. Perfect way to end a shitty day; taking the trash out. I decided to walk around front and take it out. Last Saturday I had forgotten all about the trash and came around the corner running with bags of it as the trash man pulled up. He was less than thrilled when I asked him to hold on while I went around back to grab the rest of it. I’m sure he had tons of places to be. Asshole.

Lately, all I could think about were my twenties. Where did my twenties go? I lost them somehow. One day I was a young boy with the world at my fingertips and the next I’m either sweating my ass off in the heat or freezing it off in the cold. Construction doesn’t stop on account of the weather in Ohio. Cracked hands dripping blood, smashed fingers swollen three times what they should be, sprained backs, pulled muscles; it was all a part of the job, or at least I had convinced myself of that. I had used my knowledge of equipment operating to land a construction gig right out of the Army. It had consumed my life; every last damn bit of it. I was either working it or recovering from it. The beginning days were worse than now. There were a lot of long days when I first started. Low guy on the totem pole always gets in the hole first. Putting pipe together in the blistering heat or freezing cold is no easy pipe. Fifteen to twenty feet down; there no one there to help. Just you, your own thinking, and your own frustrations; plenty and plenty of frustrations. I suppose I should be thankful that I have had a steady job throughout the duration of my children’s lives; but what about my life? The second Abby knew she was pregnant with Katie, my life was put on pause. I wasn’t exactly angry, that’s what parents do; but boy did I miss out on a lot of things. I always wanted visit France, make love to extraordinary women, and always look out for number one. Number one hadn’t even been thought of in years; well, thought of I guess, but neglected just the same. While most of my friends were running the bars and hooking up with tons of gorgeous girls I was getting rest at night sitting in the cab of dozer or an excavator, working to buy diapers, formula, and new clothes. My god how quickly kids go through all three.

I started to get angry and I didn’t even know who I was getting angry with. I had made my decisions. No one forced my hand to do anything. I was in complete control of my life. I, Brent Carver, was in charge of my life. Right? Hell, I didn’t know! I had gotten so furious about the whole situation that I had zoned out and not even realized that I was standing there staring out across our street. I turned around and threw the trash bags on the ground. I stood there for a minute before turning back around. I had that weird feeling you get when you feel like someone is staring at you. When I turned around there stood my neighbor across the street. He was standing there in his robe looking out his window. He didn’t stand there for much more than a second or two. Once I locked eyes with him, he turned away. My mind wandered back to Abby; I started to wonder if we were yelling to loud and maybe woke him up. Nah, it was only 9:00 p.m. on a Friday, but then again, he was an older man, maybe he had an early bedtime. I noticed his robe most of all. His robe seemed like something out of a movie. It was a very classy robe. It reminded me of a robe that you would see at an Embassy Suites hotel; high price and out of my league.

By the time I had gotten drunk enough for bed, Abby was fast asleep. She looked beautiful and sexy laying there in her night gown. We hadn’t saved up enough money to purchase central air for the house yet, so it usually stayed pretty warm during the summer months. I laid down next to her and could smell the perfume that she had put on since she thought we would be going out tonight. I started to wonder what exactly we might have gotten into tonight. We probably would have ended up at Oak Berry’s for dinner. She probably would have drunk wine and I beer. We would have talked about the kids, our jobs, where we thought we would be in five years or so, and then maybe hit a bar for an extra drink or two. Upon coming home I’m sure we would have ended up in bed, not because either of us really wanted to have sex or had the energy to do so, but because that was just what you did. You went out, celebrated, came home buzzed, knocked the headboard against the wall a few times and passed out. That is society’s norm for celebrating when it comes to couples.

The next morning, I woke up with a crippling headache and an alarm clock that decided that even though the forecasted rain had canceled work, I should be up bright and early to pay for my mistake of not remembering to shut it off. I rolled over to throw my arm over Abby and maybe