Chapter 12

IN THE tradition of every good wedding, the groomsmen had planned a buck’s night for the weekend before the groom lost all his freedom. Naturally, we all knew this was just an excuse to get completely pissed, but there was always the chance of someone paying for a stripper if it was billed as a buck’s night, so Cameron had declared there would be a party at his house on Saturday night and no women were allowed—apart from the stripper of course.

In response to this, the women had their own hen’s night organized and I was a little jealous to think that their stripper would be better than any that turned up to Ben’s party.

Sunday Roast at my parents’ house was therefore brought forward a week as not to clash with the anticipated hangovers we all expected to have the weekend preceding the wedding.

I accepted that I was now unquestioningly gay, but I still needed to make the whole announcement to my family. They deserved to know upfront, and not to find out from my high school principal, who saw me on the train and told my brother’s footy coach, who told Mum’s best friend, who told my mother. Jay was wholly supportive of my decision to keep it quiet for a couple more weeks until the wedding was over. I knew my dad would take it badly, and it pained me to think that it would mean the end of any sort of relationship between us.

Dad would never talk to me again. And if by some miracle he did, it would be strained and uncomfortable. I wanted to save Dad the pain of my queerness, but at the same time I was fed up with living a lie. I loved Jay. I couldn’t ask him to live in the closet with me, even if people did somehow swallow the lie that we were only friends. I wanted to live in the open with Jay. I wanted to be with him every day. I wanted to ask him to move in with me. I wanted to make a life around him.

And at the end of the day, if it came down to giving up Jay or giving up Dad, I wanted Jay in my future. Dad had been in my life for twenty-four years; it was Jay’s turn for the next twenty-four—or hopefully sixty-four.

It would also mean the end of Sunday Roast for me. I knew that. I accepted that. I hated that. I knew Mum and my brothers would accept me as gay. They would be a little weird around Jay for a while, but they would soon come to love him, too—of this I had no doubt. But I wouldn’t be able to join the family anymore for meals. Our meetings would be away from Dad, perhaps at my apartment or at restaurants, carefully planned around Dad’s absence, and forever shadowed by his nonattendance.

So for the last time, I walked up the hill to my parents’ house and let myself in the front door. It was all completely normal—Mum cuddled baby Isaac; Dad chatted with my brothers, beers in their hands; smells of roasted lamb and crispy potatoes wafted from the direction of the kitchen.

“Liam!” Mum called me to her side. I slapped backs on the way to her, greeting my family for the last time with Dad looking on.

“Hi, Mum. Are you planning on feeding us today, or did you get distracted by the baby?” I hugged her gently, placing my customary kiss on her weathered cheek.

“Oh, go on with you. If the rest of you kids would hurry up and present me with some more grandchildren, I wouldn’t have to spoil this one baby!”

Cameron’s voice floated over from the other side of the room. “I’m having too much fun practicing the conception, Mum!”

We all laughed. “Well don’t look at me!” Alison scoffed. “I have two weeks to my wedding and I still need to lose another pound. The last thing I need is morning sickness on top of all the stress.”

I felt hollow at the thought of grandchildren. There would be no grandchildren from me for Mum to spoil.

The talk turned to the upcoming wedding and then moved on to the planned buck’s night. Alison shook a finger in our direction. “No strippers! You guys can get as drunk as you like but if I hear one whisper of a stripper at the party, then you are all toast!”

I groaned in mock annoyance at her. “You could’ve said something earlier! I’ve already booked and paid for three girls to come and shake their naked ta-tas in Ben’s direction! Ow! Hey! Ben, control your fiancée. She pinched me!”

Ben just raised a brow at me. “You deserve to be pinched. Only three strippers? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. How stingy.”

Cameron interceded for me. “Now, now, Ben. No teasing Liam today. I have a big surprise for everyone instead. Now that John has finally arrived, I can unveil it.”

“Surprise?” Mum’s voice was hopeful as she turned toward Cameron with a bright smile. I could see where her mind was taking her—grandchildren, where else?—but Cameron soon dashed her hopes.

“Yep! I found it a couple of days ago and it’s great. We all need to go in the lounge room to see it, though.”

So we all trailed into the room and took twice as long as a class of first graders to all find a spot on the sofa or floor. Cameron was fiddling with his laptop—a cable ran from the machine into Mum and Dad’s brand-new super-size flat-screen TV. Once everyone had settled down, Cameron announced, “I got this a couple of days ago at work. It was a great laugh and it was doing the rounds over e-mail. Someone loaded it onto YouTube.”

“You what?” Dad asked.

“YouTube,” Dale answered. “It’s a site on the Internet where people can load their videos and everyone can see it.”

Dad was still confused so I said, “It’s just a short movie, Dad.”

I watched as Cameron pressed play on the laptop and the short clip began to play on the TV, complete with sound. The clip’s name was “Kung Fu Fighting.” It became immediately obvious to the younger generation in the room that the clip was recorded on someone’s mobile phone. The camera work was shaky and the resolution not the best. I tried to focus on what was happening on the screen. The person filming had been taking the shot over another’s shoulder, and that person’s ear and hair were visible on the screen until the camera moved a bit more, showing the subject of the filming.

“Hey!” said Anita. “Isn’t that your train station, Liam?”

It was and I came over all cold as I realized what the clip was about. My palms began to sweat and I felt dizzy, unable to get up and make Cameron turn the damn thing off, unable to do anything but stare at the oversized screen and the subject of my continued nightmares.

I heard the audio. The sound was tinny, the voices far away, but amazingly clear.

“You poofters are revolting.”

“You shouldn’t be putting your pricks where you do.”

I opened my eyes, not realizing they had fallen closed, and focused on the picture. Thug Number Three and Thug Number One were pushing Jay between them, laughing loudly as Thug Number Two watched.

“Please, don’t….” I heard Jay’s feeble voice coming through the speakers and my stomach turned over with nausea. Jay’s face was visible in the film, fear and distress obvious. I was immediately able to identify Jay, his bleached-blond hair shining like a beacon under the station’s lights, his hot pink shirt and skintight pants exactly the same as they were that awful night. He was the man I loved, and he was about to get hurt.

Memories warred with the present as the clip brought it all back. I could smell the chill in the air that mingled with the faint smell of stale cigarettes. I could feel the pain in my leg I was experiencing that night as I got off the train, and I could even hear the dull roar of the cars on the nearby freeway. The events on the TV were so accurate, yet somehow different. Suddenly I realized that it was because the camera was recording the incident from a different angle from what I remembered. The person who’d filmed it was standing ninety degrees to where I had been. They must have been standing at the bus stop. With a sinking feeling, I realized that if the camera was capturing it from a different angle, then I was about to appear on my parents’ TV.

Thug Number One once again swung Jay in a large arc and Jay once again smashed into the wall with a loud cry. His cry was echoed from near the camera by witnesses in the watching crowd as they exclaimed their horror and fear. I didn’t remember that bit, because in my memories I was already running.

And there I was.

“You fuckheads!” I didn’t remember yelling that, but I must have, because it was captured there on-screen as Thug Number Two viciously kicked Jay. I saw me running, suddenly appearing on the screen from the left, hardly limping at all on my bung leg, my jacket flapping as I charged at the men. I saw my shoulder go down and catch Number One in the solar plexus, actually lifting him off the ground and sending him crashing into Number Two before they both went sprawling on the pavement.

“You leave him the fuck alone!” I remembered yelling that.

I could feel my family’s surprise and it was Candice who said what they all must’ve been thinking, “Is that…?”

But the tape rolled on. Thug Number Three turned and growled, “Who the fuck do you think you are, motherfucker?” before swinging a wild roundhouse punch at me. The camera had captured a couple of yells and exclamations from the crowd as I leaned back out of range of the fist. I knew what was coming and I watched myself on the TV, standing calm and cool as Number Three’s leg came up, and I followed the upward movement with my arm, caught his ankle, and once again flipped him backward like I was a ninja master and he was a disposable extra in a movie.

The camera shook a bit but managed to capture his inelegant introduction to the concrete floor before swinging around to secure footage of Number One’s encounter with the vicious handbag lady and Number Two’s surprisingly easy apprehension by a man older than my father.

I heard some laughter in the watching audience, both on the screen and in real life, but I was too busy watching the top left of the TV where I could see my figure gathering Jay into a protective embrace, rocking him slightly. The recording spun around again, leaving our figures and showing flashing lights of an approaching vehicle. The police had arrived and two uniformed men rushed from the car, one chasing down Thug Number Three, who was attempting to flee, the other dashing to save Number One from concussion-by-Prada.

The screen froze and blurred as the camera stopped recording, and the witness brought an end to the worst night of my life. However, the silence in my parent’s lounge room was deafening. The timer on the bottom of the screen showed that the whole thing had taken forty-eight seconds. It seemed a lot longer to me.

It was Cameron who broke the stillness. “Cool, huh?”

“Was that Liam?”

“That was amazing!”

“Show it again.”

“Liam, why didn’t you tell us?”

“When did that happen?”

My family was all talking at once, asking and commenting, but I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I pushed Ben aside and raced from the room. I barely made it to the toilet bowl in time as my breakfast reappeared for further inspection. I vomited until there was nothing left, my stomach ached, and my mouth tasted worse than camel dung. Dale was waiting for me in the hallway with a concerned look on his face.

“You okay, mate?”

I nodded, but the nausea threatened to come back again as I heard the distant replay of my voice, “You leave him the fuck alone!” My family was watching Jay get attacked again and again.

“Tell ’em to turn it off, can you, Dale? That stuff gives me nightmares and I don’t want to have to hear it again.”

“Sure, mate.” He hurried back to the lounge, and I heard the tape stop abruptly. In the bathroom I rinsed my mouth out and splashed water on my face. I knew they were waiting to interrogate me and I was right—nine pairs of eyes swung my way as I entered the room. I tried to catalogue their expressions—surprise, admiration, concern, astonishment, alarm, amazement.

Mum rushed to my side, a mother hen clucking over her chick. “Oh, sweetie. Are you okay? Here, sit down. Anita, can you please get him some water? Cameron, move back and give him some air, can you? Liam, sweetie, do you need something to settle your stomach? Antacids or milk or food?”

“I’m okay, Mum.”

“Are you sure, sweetie? You look awfully pale.”

“No, Mum. I’ll be fine.” Anita returned with the requested water and an unnatural stillness returned to the room. I saw Dad whisper something to John, and Ben elbow Alison, but no one spoke. It was worse than Chinese water torture.

“What?” I finally burst out.

Mum simply rubbed my arm up and down, saying, “Nothing, sweetie. We are just all waiting for you to tell us about what happened. You didn’t say a thing. You saved that poor man all by yourself and didn’t bother to tell us at all. Although I am not sure that I was impressed with your language on that tape.”

Ben snorted. “Yeah, Liam. Next time watch your mouth, okay?”

Several people snickered and Mum shot a dirty look over my shoulder. “Oh, hush up, you! I want to know why you didn’t tell any of us, Liam.”

“Dale knew.” The words were out before I could think the better of it.

Candice swung around and glared at her hapless spouse. “You knew?”

Poor Dale backed up and put his hands out in defense. “Thanks, mate. Just drop me in it next time. Yes, I knew that Liam had been in a fight, but he didn’t want me to say anything. Of course, I didn’t know he’d taken out the guys with so much style. That was totally awesome, mate.”

But Candice wasn’t finished with him. “So when exactly did this happen that I don’t know about?”

“A couple of months back. You remember when I had to pick him up from the hospital that night?” Dale replied.

“Hospital?”

I closed my eyes as it was Dale’s turn to dump me in deep manure. Mum looked at me in alarm. “You had to go to hospital? Dale took you to the hospital?”

“No, Mum. The ambulance took me to the hospital. Dale just picked me up.” Whoops! Note to self: engage the brain before speaking. We shouldn’t have mentioned the ambulance.

Mum’s voice rose in volume. “You needed an ambulance?”

“No, no. Jay needed an ambulance. I just went along for the ride. Didn’t you see the clip? Those idiots didn’t even touch me. I wasn’t hurt. It was just my leg. Just a couple of torn muscles, truly, Mum!”

Mum sank down onto the chair next to me. “I think you’d better start at the beginning, Liam.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Liar! “The guy in the clip is my friend.” Liar, liar, pants on fire! That guy in the clip is more than your friend. He is your world. “His name is Jay and a while back in July I was coming out of the train station and I saw those jerks pushing him around. And you saw, Mum. I raced in there to help him, but they crashed him into the wall before I got there. He was hurt—he needed stitches and was concussed something bad. So I rode to the hospital with him.”

Mum was rubbing her head as if there were a pain behind her eyes. Maybe it was some sort of parent-child telepathy and she could tell I was lying. “So why didn’t you say anything?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t want to make a fuss. Besides, you saw that clip. Jay got hurt because I didn’t get there in time.”

Candice had come up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “What do you mean, Liam? You rescued the guy.”

But I was already shaking my head. “No. He got hurt. If I hadn’t been a….” I spat the word out, “… cripple, I could’ve saved him.” The word cripple always tasted like ash on my tongue. Shame for not being a full man.

Her arm slid around me, warm and comforting. This is why I love her, even though she made a fool of me by dumping me for my brother. “I don’t understand. Why did your injury mean you couldn’t save him?”

I hung my head. It hurt to admit I wasn’t a “whole” man. It was awful because it was in no way any fault of my own. It had been a drunk driver running a red light.

“My leg had been hurting me that day,” I confessed. “So I was unable to walk as fast as everyone else. I had to stop and rest, meaning I wasn’t there when they started in on Jay. If I had been completely able-bodied, I could’ve stopped them before they hurt Jay.”

Mum sighed, “Oh, sweetie.”

I heard my dad from behind me, “That’s utter rot, son!”

Candice just squeezed me tight. “Have you thought that if you were two minutes earlier, then you would’ve been on the receiving end of a couple of punches instead? It would’ve been you in that ambulance on the stretcher. By coming late to the party you were able to take them all by surprise and take them all out without hurting yourself. I know you said your friend was hurt, but I bet you he was a lot less hurt than if you were lying on the ground bleeding while the three of them thumped and kicked him.”

I shrugged. John piped up from his corner. “Does this Jay guy blame you or something?”

I was quick to reassure them. “God, no. He thinks I’m some sort of superhero.”

“There you go, then.”

Dale was quick to follow with. “And you are, mate. You were bloomin’ excellent in that film! And you have me to thank for showing you those moves.”

My brothers all quickly jumped in, boasting they were the ones to show me my supposed Kung-Fu-Fighting skills, and I laughed. I felt reassured that I really couldn’t have done anything more for Jay on that night, and that even if it had been John or Cameron or Ben, the outcome would’ve been messy. My family was great and I was going to miss them when they found out what sort of friend Jay had become.

Of course, Dad ruined my happy buzz by remarking, “You ought to be careful what sort of friends you are making, Liam. That Jay looked like a downright poofter and if you are friends with him, people will think you are a fairy, too.”

“Dad!” Ben jumped in and beat me with his protest. “Don’t start this again.”

Thankfully Dad dropped the subject, although he frowned in my direction a few times over lunch, as if checking me for obvious signs of my descent into gaydom now I was friends with one. It seemed positively fateful then, that my phone buzzed loudly in my pocket just as Mum put dessert on the table. Sunday Roast could not be Sunday Roast without a large helping of apple pie, rhubarb crumble, or a slab of pavlova.

I pulled the phone from my pocket and glanced at the screen. “Jay Bell” leapt up at me and I scowled at the device. Jay knew I was with my family and that I wouldn’t be able to answer the phone and talk to him. I hit “Decline” with a feeling of guilt. What sort of boyfriend was I that I ignored him when he rang?

“Sorry,” I muttered to the room at large as I put my phone back in my pocket. It immediately began to buzz at me again. Jay’s name appeared and I stared at it with unease. What was up that Jay needed me at that very second?

I stood up, leaving the table and moving away, deciding to answer after all.

“Hello?”

Silence greeted me on the line.

“Hello? Are you there?”

Faintly, the sound of a small sob reached me. Oh, God. Jay was on the other end and he was crying. I scrambled desperately to think of what could be the matter. Another bashing? A car crash? Bad hair day? Body waxing gone wrong?

“Jay? Buddy? Are you there? What’s the matter?” The adrenaline started to pound through my veins, the fight or flight response to my Other Half’s distress. Jay was crying and I was ready to fight his demons. One drunken jerk in a restaurant? No problem! Three gay-bashing thugs? Bring them on! Ten gay-bashing thugs? Give me warning and I will bring my brothers for backup!

Another pathetic sob sounded down the line followed by Jay’s shaky voice. “Oh, Liam!” He burst out wailing then, upset and blubbering all over the place but not in pain. Dread swallowed me whole. Oh, no.

I lowered my voice, calming and intimate. “Jay? Babe? Talk to me. Baby, tell me what’s wrong.” A distant part of my brain starting screaming at me then, yelling that I had just done something stupid. I knitted my brow together. What?

Oh-holy-mother-of-all-clusterfucks. “Babe.” You just outed yourself to your whole family. You nong! You just called your secret boyfriend “babe” in front of your father.

But another sob came through my phone, piercing my heart, as I was too far away to help him. “Jay?”

Finally he gathered himself together enough to breathe and whisper to me. “It’s Grandma.”

And then I knew. Grandma with the emphysema hadn’t lived forever after all.

“Where are you? Are you at home?”

Jay sniffed and sobbed some more, but managed to squeeze out an affirmative. “Okay. Babe, listen to me. Hold on, okay? I’m on my way. One of my brothers will bring me right now. I’ll be five minutes, tops, okay?”

I spun around to my speechless family, their faces once again frozen as I confronted them. I automatically catalogued them again. They showed surprise, amazement, and astonishment mostly, but Dale was showing concern and Dad outrage.

I didn’t want to—couldn’t—deal with Dad right now. I searched my brothers’ faces. “I need a lift. Urgently.”

Ben was immediately on his feet, searching his pockets, but John waved him down. “I’m last in the driveway. I’ll do it. Come on, Liam. Let’s go.” I practically bolted for the door, John on my heels. My seatbelt wasn’t even fastened as John tore down the street.

“Where to, mate?”

“Osprey Drive.”

John flew through the roundabouts, barely stopping at the T-junctions, and broke the speed limits, following my directions. For once I couldn’t care less.

“This Jay? Is he the one on the TV?” John asked, pressing down on the accelerator.

“Yeah. I think his grandma just died. He couldn’t speak he was crying so much, so I’m not really sure at this stage.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

John nodded. “Cool.”

“I love him, John.”

“Good. Now which house?”

I pointed out Daisy, who was parked proudly in the driveway, and John screeched to a halt behind the god-awful car. I immediately spotted Jackie, dressed all in black from her spiky black hair to her black combat boots. My stomach cramped at the sight of her. She was curled into a ball on the grass, sobbing her heart out under a large gumtree in the front yard.

“John!” I was desperate to find Jay but I couldn’t leave the poor girl out there by herself. I pointed. “That’s Jackie. Can you try to bring her inside, mate?”

I bolted for the house, unsurprised to find the front door unlocked. Sounds of hysteria hit me, and I followed the noise to the kitchen. Carol was desperately trying to calm Jay down, but he’d obviously worked himself into a frenzy. His eyeliner streaked in two black lines down his pale cheeks as he paced and threw his hands around, shrieking and bawling at poor Carol.

“No! You take it back! She is not dead!”

“Jamie, pet….”

“She can’t be dead! She promised me!”

“I know but….”

“You must be lying!”

Carol attempted to take him in her arms then, but he pushed her roughly away.

“I’m not lying, love….”

“No!”

I rushed in and Carol wept with relief. I could see the grief in her face as she turned to me. She seemed completely lost. “Oh, Liam. Thank goodness.”

I gave her a quick hug and my protective instincts took over. Someone needed to be strong and I didn’t even question my actions. I began to organize things, quickly taking charge and providing an anchor for them all to hang on to. “I’ll deal with Jay, now. It’s okay. I know. My brother, John, is outside with Jackie. Have you rung Jacey? No? No problem. You go and ring her and I will sort Jay out, okay? I’ll put the kettle on in five minutes.”

Carol left with a grateful squeeze of my hand as I turned to my agitated boyfriend. He was still pacing, on the edge of hyperventilation—his eyes stressed and his hands twitchy. “Jay? Babe? You need to calm down now. Breathe, remember? Big deep breath in… and out… and in… and out. Good. Now relax; breath some more. That’s it.” I could see Jay’s awareness returning, so I moved in, and took him in my arms. He reached for me and collapsed. I had to brace to take his entire weight.

“Oh, Liam! They said she died! How could she die?”

I lowered us both to the floor, bracing myself back against the kitchen cupboards as Jay curled up in my lap, crying buckets of tears into my shoulder. “I know, babe. Let it all out. That’s it. I’m here now and it will all be okay.” We sat for endless minutes, one grieving and one comforting.

Finally John stuck his head in the kitchen. I’d forgotten all about him. “Hey, Liam. Is everything okay in here?”

“John! Sorry, mate. I forgot you were still here. How are Carol and Jackie?”

“Jackie’s just gone to the loo. Carol’s okay, holding on alright, I think.”

I nodded and nudged Jay off my lap so I could stand. It was John’s first look at my boyfriend and he wasn’t exactly putting his best foot forward. I helped him up and wiped the tears off his splotchy face, smudging the black even further. I kissed him gently on the forehead. “Feel better now? How about you go and wash your face, hmm? I’m going to make everyone a cup of tea.”

Jay was pale but nodded and obediently trotted off without even looking in John’s direction. I turned to the stove and lit the gas, then filled the kettle to the brim with water. I had a feeling we were going to need lots of tea. John was still lingering in the background as I rooted through the cupboard looking for teabags and that terrible green chai stuff Jay drank.

“Sorry, John. I guess you got thrown in the deep end, didn’t you. You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to. There is a bus I can take home.”

“Nah, it’s okay, man. I’ll hang about for a bit longer.” He hesitated a moment before venturing, “So that’s your boyfriend, huh?”

I snorted, setting out cups and finding the sugar. “Yeah. I know what you are going to say. Total fruitcake, right?”

John laughed. “I wasn’t thinking that, mate. I was thinking how bloody well you two fit together.”

Surprise was an understatement. I was staggered John would say something like that. “What?”

“Oh, come on. I’ve never seen you so paternal and protective. You waltz in here, take charge, and everyone listens to you. You have them all organized. And I saw in an instant how much you care for him. So he can be as fruity as a Christmas cake if he wants, as long as he is right for you.” John folded his arms across chest with a slight frown. “Unless, of course, he goes for Essendon. I could never like anyone who goes for Essendon.”

I laughed. “Jay is not really into football. I’m working on it, though. I told him he can come to your football games and perv on the guys as long as he learns the rules.”

John laughed. I found a tray and together we carried the tea to the lounge. Jay had curled up at one end of the sofa, his knees up to his chest. Carol sat staring blankly at the wall while Jackie sobbed quietly in the corner recliner. I dished out cups of tea as John sat on the arm of Jackie’s chair, rubbing her back slowly. I heard car doors slam and wordlessly made for the front door.

It was Trevor and Jacey.

“Hi, guys. Where are the kids?”

Trevor held Jacey’s hand. “My mother is with them. The kids didn’t need to be here for this.” I nodded my understanding.

The next four hours were hard, but we got through it. I sent John to the local shops to grab some finger food, and he arrived back with frozen pizza and quiches that we shoved in the oven to keep the troops fed. I doled out endless cups of tea and coffee and answered the door as people descended on the house who were strangers to me, but welcome family for Jay. Jay’s Aunty Faye and Uncle Tony arrived to discuss funeral arrangements and plans, and several cousins dropped by.

I answered the phone, spoke to people I didn’t know, wrote down phone numbers, promised to ring people with details, copied messages of condolence for Carol to read later, washed dishes, and soothed fraying nerves. I asked John to make sure he kept Jacey and Jackie apart, and he did a fantastic job. When tempers started to rise between the two of them, he simply created a job for Jackie to do in the kitchen.

I found a notebook for Trevor, and he diligently copied down the details to discuss with the funeral director who would come out tomorrow and meet with them all. Carol, Faye, and Tony compiled a list of people who needed to be informed, together with their phone numbers. Once I was sure Jay had it together, I sent him off with the top half of the list, and Jacey with the other half.

Finally, all was done that could be done. Carol looked exhausted, so with a couple of whispered words in sympathetic ears, the extended family packed up, and the house emptied. I sent Trevor and Jacey home to look after their own little family and sent John to the kitchen to cook a meal. Surprisingly Jackie followed, unwilling to be parted from her personal support person.

“Come on, Carol,” I urged, pulling her out of her chair. “Go and jump in the shower and relax for ten minutes while we put together something to eat.”

She stood and hugged me tightly. “Oh, Liam. I have no idea of what I would’ve done today without you here.”

I patted her back. “No worries. I’m just glad to help. Now scoot! Have a shower and make sure it’s hot.” I smiled as she left, and turned back to the room to see Jay watching me from the doorway, his eyes shining with joy at me. “What?”

He shrugged. “Just you. You really are a hero, aren’t you? You come in here and suddenly everything is fine. You make all the bad stuff go away until just the nice stuff remains.”

I scoffed and pulled him close, tucking him under my chin where I loved him to rest. “You are being ridiculous. I’m just doing what anyone else would.”

“No. You’re not. I don’t know how you came out of the womb so special. You aren’t like everyone else. No one else would be as nice to me as you. No one else would be my friend. No one else would take on three goons to save my butt. No one else would come into a house he barely knows and take charge of funeral arrangements. No one else would think to keep Jacey and Jackie apart to keep them from making a fraught situation even worse.”

I laughed at that one. “Keeping your sisters apart? Ha! That was simple self-preservation. Now, come on. Show me where your mum keeps the placemats so we can set the table for dinner.”