Chapter 13
The ladies agree. Happiness is sliding up and down a fireman’s pole.
-Fact of life
Tai
“I can’t,” her voice cracked. “I can’t.”
I pulled her into my arms, wrapping her up so tight that her breath started to come out in pants, and not because of her sobs.
We’d done this numerous times the night before, and now I knew just what to do to circumvent the worst of her panic attacks, and that’s exactly what they were.
She didn’t want to let go of Colt, and this place, the home she made for him, was all he’d ever known. This is where they’d been happy. Where Colt had crawled for the first time. Slept through the night. It was full of their memories.
She buried her face into my neck, and I cringed when I felt her tears sliding down my skin and disappearing into my shirt.
I made eye contact with Winter over Mia’s shoulder.
Winter nodded, letting me know silently that she would take care of her.
“Why don’t you go with Winter…get your toes done or something,” I said. “And I’ll take care of getting all of this done, okay?”
She nodded, gripping her hands into the shirt at my back and tugging.
“Okay,” she said shakily. “Okay.”
The men that’d shown up, only ten minutes before, slowly slipped out of the room, giving us the privacy that we needed.
Winter was the only one who stayed.
She walked up to us and placed her hand on Mia’s shoulder.
“I have to make cookies for Cati’s school. Would you be willing to help me with that?” Winter asked. “Because, if I do it alone, I’ll just eat all the cookie dough and make about half the amount of cookies I would’ve originally made.”
Mia’s laugh was watery. “I don’t think that I’m the right choice for that job, Winter, because I can’t resist cookie dough, either.”
Winter’s eyes gleamed. “I think I’ve found my new best friend.”
Mia lifted her head from my chest, and then looked up at me with tortured eyes.
“Don’t…please…”
“I’ll take care of his stuff, baby. I promise,” I said to her.
She nodded, before lifting up on her tip toes to press her lips against mine.
Her lips were softer since she’d been crying, something I’d discovered in the past few days. I tasted the salt of her tears against my tongue.
With one final, slow kiss, she stepped back.
I looked over at Winter.
She hadn’t moved, but her cheeks were pink as she looked at me with happiness.
“What?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
I rolled my eyes, then walked to the table grabbing Mia’s purse and cell phone, handing them off to Winter.
“Just don’t get her drunk, I have plans for her tonight,” I ordered.
Winter held up her hand and said, “Scout’s honor.”
I snorted. “That’s Spock’s sign…the Vulcan salute, Winter, the live long and prosper one.”
Winter looked at her hand then shrugged.
Mia giggled, and I really loved her giggle.
I loved the sound infinitely more than her crying.
Fuck…I fucking loved her.
Oh, fuck.
“Take Mia’s car, though. We need Jack’s truck to transport boxes,” I ordered as Mia and Winter made their way to the door.
Mia stopped and picked up the pacifier she’d found last night that’d been sitting on the entranceway table just inside the front door.
She placed it carefully into the pocket of her jeans and walked out the door without another word.
Winter and I shared one last, long look before she followed Mia out.
“That was terrible,” Jack said. “I don’t know how you’re doing it.”
I turned to my brother.
“I… I…love her,” I said, hesitating on that word. Not because I didn’t feel it, but because it felt so foreign coming out of my mouth.
I hadn’t said those words to anyone since my sister had been alive.
I’d definitely shown Jack…or at least I hoped that I had.
“I’m happy for you man, but are you sure?” He asked. “She’s got a lot of baggage.”
I gave him a raised brown. “And your Winter didn’t?”
He closed his mouth with a snap.
“Point taken,” he said. “Now show me where you want us all to start.”
I delegated tasks to the few men who hadn’t been doing anything on such short notice, and then started on the most important part, packing up all of the items that were Colt’s.
Once I was done with the small stuff, I looked around the living room, at the crib, changing table and dresser.
Babies needed so much stuff.
“You can do it?” I asked.
Beau, who’d come up behind me, studied the wood of the crib, changing table and dresser.
“Yeah, I can do it, no problem. You just want a bench?” He asked.
I nodded. “I don’t think she’s ready for this all to go away quite yet. So yeah, just a bench. That way it’s still technically here when she wants it back one day.”
He nodded and picked up the crib effortlessly, then walked back to his truck and slid it inside.
We’d moved all of the furniture into the empty living room, being very careful not to damage any of the pieces.
Which meant I watched Bowe like a hawk to make sure he didn’t ding or dent any of it.
Once he was back I helped him lift the changing table, followed by the dresser, into his truck as well.
He closed the tailgate with a soft thud and turned to survey the house.
“She renting this place?” He asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. I just know she’s moving out of here and in with her mother.”
He nodded. “Nice place. I’d love to flip it if she’s the owner and wants to sell.”
It was a pretty cute little house. It had a lot of potential, just like mine did.
Although I couldn’t ever seem to find the time to work on my place. Or the money.
Which meant it was a little rougher around the edges than Mia’s was.
I had a two story farmhouse on the outskirts of Kilgore, about a half mile away from my brother’s place.
The paint was peeling on the outside and some of the shutters were falling off.
But the foundation was sound, and the floors throughout the house were polished and real hardwood.
“I’ll ask her if she’s interested in doing that,” I said.
It would probably be a pretty good investment.
Bowe nodded.
He did a lot of work on the side.
Being a firefighter didn’t pay very much, so a lot of us tried to supplement our incomes with other things in addition to our actual jobs.
Bowe and PD flipped houses.
I picked up odd jobs with another ambulance company, as well as other odd jobs around the community.
Just last month I’d picked up a job at a biker party as a paramedic and was on call in case anything happened during a mud volleyball game.
It’d definitely been…interesting.
“Alright,” my brother said. “That’s the last of it from what I can tell.”
I turned to study him.
He looked a little more worn out than usual, and it was actually quite comical to see him not at his best.
He was still recovering from donating his bone marrow, even though he tried to act like he wasn’t.
Sweat soaked his shirt and dotted his brow.
His dark black hair was messy, and the red bandana that was usually somewhere on his person was around his neck, catching even more sweat.
“She wants everything that’s in the back of your truck to go to her mom’s. Everything else is going to a storage unit off of Central Street.”
“Sounds good. Let’s do it,” Jack said. “I’ve been waiting for cookies all day.”
I grinned.
Jack was such a domesticated fool.
I couldn’t wait to be just like him.