Popcorn, Extra Butter

"I talked to Miss Jamie and she says we probably should have waited 'til I got six months," Hailee admitted. "But what's done is done."

"Yeah, thought about that," Danny agreed.

The meeting got under way. Morgan's youth and lack of experience was blatantly obvious. He um'ed and uh'ed her way through much of the story and spent quite a bit of time talking about her drinking and very little time speaking on her recovery.

"So when do you pick up your six month chip?" Danny quietly asked as Hailee's small hand traced patterns on his upper thigh.

"Next month, the twenty second," Hailee whispered.

"Probably should have waited, but too late now," Danny said.

Finally Morgan ran out of 'um' and uh' and ended the torture.

Chips were given out, the Seventh Tradition basket was passed around and the meeting was ended with the 'Our Father.'

"Sweetheart, there's two stories," Mitch congratulated a very nervous Morgan. "The one you thought you told, and the one everyone heard. What I heard sounded fine."

"Daniel my lover, you are older than me," Hailee playfully sang as they stepped out into the dank evening air. "Do you still feel the pain..."

She gave him a soft kiss and got into the back seat of Jamie's car.

"Bye Duncan," Grace teased as she followed her best friend into the rear seat of the luxury automobile.

"Danny Lacombe, you are my hearo," Big Brian joked as two pregnant girls waved to Danny.

"Uh huh, and who's got an eighteen year old Jalapeno waiting for him?" Danny asked, referring to Brian's girlfriend.

"Carmen is almost twenty, thank you very much," Brian smiled.

Brian did not tell Danny, but he also had twenty two year old Philippe Montoyez, Carmen's brother waiting for him as well.

"Danny, damn it, I mean, Donny, or Darrel, we're going to Jade Garden; coming?" Mitch asked.

"What you want? No special order, no separate check!" Paul did an uncanny imitation of the surly waitress/owner of the Chinese restaurant.

The next Tuesday, Carter showed up at the Sundowner's Group meeting and picked up another white chip. He tried to make amends to Danny after the meeting.

His lips may have been apologizing to Danny, but it was clear Carter's motives were to manipulate Danny into letting him move back in to his house.

"Yeah, man, sleeping in my car sucks," Carter said as seven people trouped across the street to Chuck.

"Be grateful you got a car, huh?" Paul snapped.

"Hey, where's your girlfriend?" Violet asked.

"Fuck if I know, got arrested and bitch was gone," Carter whined.

"She and Grace are at their Lamaze class," Danny told Violet.

"What girlfriend?" Carter demanded, turning to Danny.

"Hailee," Paul said.

"Dog was running..." David started.

*.*.*

Jenny showed up at the Willingness Is The Key meeting a few weeks later, drunk, loud and belligerent. Jamie, Morgan, and Marjory took the woman out into the hall and had a quiet talk with her. But rather than ask anyone to put the woman on their couch for the night, Marjory called the Women's Shelter and had the head administrator agree to take Jenny Rose for the night.

Jenny became a regular fixture at AA meetings in and around DeGarde, sometimes sober, sometimes not, always 'borrowing' money. She jumped from bed to bed, dragging nearly every man she slept with into relapsing with her. Her favorite two victims are Carter and Little Brian. When Little Brian grows a backbone and tells Jenny to take a hike, Jenny finds Carter.

Danny brought Hailee her six month chip; she'd given birth to Danielle Grace Breaux two days earlier and couldn't attend the WITK meeting to pick it up. While he was in Jamie's house, fussing over his girlfriend and her baby, Grace went into labor.

"Y'all behave while we're gone," Jamie cheerfully warned.

"We'll just sit around and watch a movie or something," Danny joked.

"Make some popcorn. Extra butter," Hailee said.

"Oh God, oh God!" Grace sobbed, terrified.

"You'll be fine, just remember to breathe," Hailee called out to her best friend.

Hailee then kissed Danny again.

"Daniel my lover, you are older than me," she sang, linking fingers with Danny.

*.*.*

hree hundred and sixty four days after their first date, in their back yard, Danny Lacombe and Hailee Breaux married. Judge Marie Robichaux performed the simple ceremony. Grace was Hailee's maid of honor and David proudly stood in as Danny's best man.

The ceremony itself was a small one, a fact that did not sit well with many in the AA community. Many had hoped to be invited to the wedding, but both Hailee and Danny wanted it to be just a few close friends.

Matt, Danny's son did fly to Louisiana to attend his father's wedding. The reunion was a stilted, uncomfortable one at first; Danny had tried to maintain contact with his son, but Brenda, Brenda's parents, and Major Bob Chastaine had done their best to keep the father and son apart.

"You know, Da... Bob wanted to adopt me," Matt said.

"I know; your mom gave me the papers," Danny said.

"Why you didn't sign them?" Matt asked.

"Because I didn't have much at that time," Danny quietly said. "Didn't have anything really. You, you were the last thing I had that kept me human."

Danny looked at Matt, his son, looked and saw what he had looked like at twenty years old. Danny's eyes shone with tears.

"Bob got everything, Matt. Bob got my wife, got my boy. Bob got to see you all the time, got to see you every day, got to see you grow up," Danny said. "But the one thing he couldn't get, he couldn't call you his. You were mine, my son."

They did a quick rehearsal, Miss Jamie standing in as Judge Marie Robichaux. There, Matt met Grace, his future step-mother's maid of honor.

They stared at each other, brown eyes peering into brown eyes. Jamie did a quick little ceremony, then they went inside to eat the dinner that Emily, David's wife, and Rhonda, Mitch's wife had prepared.

Matt and Grace sat across the table from each other, staring at each other.

"You like babies?" Grace asked as she grabbed a biscuit.

"Yeah," Matt said quickly.

Then he thought about it. He smiled and shrugged.

"Don't really know," he admitted. "We live right off-base, not a whole lot of babies around."

"Want to meet mine? Soon as Jamie wakes up from her nap..." Grace offered.

"Make him change a diaper," Hailee suggested.

"No joke," Danny agreed. "Diapers will separate the baby lovers from the baby haters."

The real ceremony went off without any mishap, other than a drunk Jenny and Carter attempting to crash the wedding. But Danny had anticipated this and had hired Officer James Kowalski, retired, to act as security.

"Daniel my husband, you are older than me..." Hailee playfully sang as Morgan acted as wedding photographer.

The day after the ceremony, Danny drove his son to the Lafayette airport. For the forty mile drive from DeGarde to Lafayette, Matt was busily texting Grace.

"Thank you for coming, son," Danny said as they parked the car.

"Thank you for inviting me," Matt said.

"Love you, boy," Danny said, hugged his son, then watched the young man walk into the airport terminal.

Three months later, Danny saw Brenda for the first time in nineteen years as he and Hailee and Danielle flew out to San Diego for the wedding of Matt and Grace. He also met Major Bob Chastaine for the first time.

Danny couldn't help but smirk. Brenda had fought with a bit of a weight problem when she had been in high school. Nineteen years later, she'd obviously given up trying to fight her weight problem, had surrendered.

Major Chastaine had smirked when Matt introduced his father to his step-father. Danny's amused smile wiped the smirk off of Bob's face.

Then meeting Hailee, Matt's step-mother replaced Bob's scowl with a look of astonishment.

And Matt's last minute decision to have his father stand in as his best man really irked Bob and Brenda Chastaine.

"Not your wedding; it's his," Danny said, his smile really irking Brenda and Bob.

THE END.

*Author's Note: I write these stories for my pleasure; I post them here for your enjoyment. I do thank you sincerely for reading my stories.

I especially thank those that take the time to rate my stories, leave comments.

Hailee and Grace are characters from "Will You Buy Us Some Beer?" in the Mature category.

Dennis, David, Mitch, Paul, Marjory, Violet, April and Carter are all characters from Finding a Fresh Violet in the Romance category.

Jamie Baggett is a character from The Broussard Sisters series in the Group Sex category.

Big Brian is a character from Herb Garden in the Window in the Incest/Taboo category.

Little Brian is a character from Torn: Workboots in the Group Sex category.

Demarcus is a character from Waiting, Just Waiting in the Loving Wives category.

Have a nice day; go make some popcorn.

How much butter you use is up to you.