Sarah

The last people I expected to see walking into Millie’s hospital room were the women of the Kings of Korruption. A knock on the door had me looking up from my magazine, and in walked Charlie, Laynie, Ellen and Anna, each of them wearing hair nets and gowns, and carrying gifts for Millie.

“I hope this is okay,” Charlie says, holding up a giant stuffed teddy bear. “Ryker told me what room you were in, and the girls and I thought you could use some company. The nurses sprayed everything down with disinfectant, but once it dries you’ll never know.”

I stare around at the women I’ve been actively avoiding more and more over the past couple years. They call, often, but I rarely answer. Since we’ve been in this hospital, the calls and texts have been coming in daily, but I just haven’t been able to deal with them. I’ve been focused on Millie and her recovery.

Long ago, we’d all been close. Charlie and I had met when Mouse and I had first started dating. Being married to the president of the Kings hasn’t changed her a bit. She’s still as sweet and kind as she’s ever been, and though I’ve only seen their son once since he was born, she’s made several offers to have play dates with me.

Ellen is with the vice president of the club, Jase. She too is someone I used to love spending time with. Anna and I had never been friends, but Bosco’s told me a bit about her, and she’s Charlie’s sister, so she can’t be all bad. And then there’s Laynie. At one point, she was like a big sister to me. Her husband, Tease, had struck gold the day he met her. Mouse had died protecting her, and she had been there for me every step of the way afterward, even going so far as being there in the delivery room with me when I gave birth to Millie.

As time wore on and Millie grew older, I found myself feeling more and more separate from these women. They still had their men and were still a part of the club. They belonged. I, on the other hand, hadn’t even had a chance to marry my man. He never got to be an actual member, regardless of them patching him in after his death.

Ryker has always impressed on me how the club has my back, and Bosco’s presence in my life is proof that he meant it. But none of it has felt real for a very long time. Now that they’re here, though, I realize just how much I’ve missed them.

With tears in my eyes, I stand and rush toward Charlie, who opens her arms and folds me into them. That’s when I lose it. All the fear I’ve been swallowing down deep since Millie’s diagnosis, all of the anger at the injustice of it, all the loneliness I’ve felt as her only parent comes bubbling to the surface, erupting in a barrage of chest wracking sobs and ugly face crying.

“Why’s Momma crying?”

Anna moves to sit on her bed. “Momma’s just happy to see her friends. Oh, Paw Patrol? That’s my favorite. Can I watch too?”

“It’s okay,” Charlie says, squeezing me tightly. “Anna has her.”

Another body presses into me from behind, and I smell Laynie’s familiar strawberry perfume. My sobs get louder, as together they hold me, allowing me to give them everything I’ve been holding inside.

We stand this way for several minutes, the girls not saying a word as I give them everything, until finally, I have nothing more to give. As my tears subside and my breathing returns to normal, I slowly pull from their hold and look at the women that have always been there for me, even when I’ve tried to keep them away.

“I’m so happy to see you guys.” Using the palms of my hands, I make an attempt to wipe the tears from my face. “Sorry about the meltdown.”

Charlie pulls a Kleenex from the box on the bedside table and holds it out to me. “Honey, if anyone deserves a few minutes to fall apart, it’s you.”

I take her offered Kleenex and use it to dry my face. Stepping back from the doorway, I lift an arm and motion around the room. “Seating is limited, but come on in.”

One by one, they each approach Millie and give her their gifts, placing a mask-covered kiss on her head and telling her how big she’s gotten.

“I have cancer,” Millie announces when Laynie sits beside her on the bed.

Laynie’s sightless eyes soften. “I know, I heard. I also heard you’ve been very brave, and that the doctors have been taking good care of you.”

“I have a tube!” Millie pulls down the collar of her shirt to show Laynie the Port-a-Cath the doctors had placed in her chest.

Laynie’s head tilts to the side. “I can’t see what you’re showing me, honey.”

“Feel.” Millie takes Laynie’s hand and guides it to her chest. I watch as her fingers skim the skin up to her neck.

“It’s called a Port-a-Cath,” I tell her. “It’s a catheter that goes directly to a vein in her heart. They use it to deliver her chemo and take blood. Millie was a real trooper when they put it in too.”

“Uh-huh,” Millie boasts. “Is that for me?” She touches the present in Laynie’s lap.

“It is,” she says, handing over the gift. “You really are brave, Millie. I’m proud of you.”

Millie grins and opens the gift Laynie handed her and squeals. “Momma, look!” She holds up a plastic doctor’s bag, complete with blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. “I can be a doctor too!”

As Millie sets to work, yanking off the plastic packaging and playing with her new toys, Charlie turns to me. “So, what do the doctors say?”

I sigh and scrub my hands up and down my thighs. “Well, she’s been given her first round of chemotherapy. The cancer seems to be responding well, and her counts are slowly leveling out. They said that I may be able to take her home as early as tomorrow.”

“You don’t sound very sure about that.” Being blind, Laynie is always so much more in tune to emotions. It’s hard to hide how you’re feeling from someone who relies almost entirely on sound to understand the world around them.

“Just scared,” I admit. “And the house needs some work done to make it safe for her to live in, but I haven’t had a chance to even think about all that yet.”

“And you shouldn’t have to,” Charlie claims. “What kind of things?”

I hand her the checklist of things that need to be done in the home to ensure Millie’s recovery goes smoothly.

“Remove all carpeting, air purifier in bedroom, change furnace filter, scrub all surfaces.” She looks up at me. “Did you give this list to Bosco?”

Pinching my lips together, I sit up straight. “Bosco isn’t responsible for my house. Besides, he has his own life to handle. He doesn’t need to constantly be worrying about me and Millie.”

Charlie smirks and hands the list back to me. “I think it’s safe to say that Bosco would disagree with you. He loves you guys. Trusting him with this would make his day.”

He loves you guys.

A flash of memory plays in my mind of Bosco’s hard body under mine, our lips pressed together, passion making my heart float. That memory is quickly replaced by the woman at Club Chrome, clinging to Bosco’s arm. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

Laynie’s head tilts to the side. “Have you always been this stubborn?”

Annoyance ripples through me as the other ladies’ giggle. “I’m not being stubborn.” But I am. There’s no way in hell I can get those changes made to the house by tomorrow, if that’s when they decide to send us home. And I sure as hell can’t afford to make them, even if I had the time. I haven’t worked in over a week, and just yesterday, my boss at the shoe store had let me go. She’d been apologetic of course, but it didn’t suck any less. They just couldn’t hold the job for me indefinitely when they needed someone there full-time now.

“Who’s being stubborn?”

His unexpected voice has my body locking solid. Slowly, I turn to see Bosco leaning against the doorjamb, the brows on his handsome face raised high on his head.

“Bosco!” Charlie cries, snapping the list from my fingers and waving it in Bosco’s direction. Oh, God. “We were just talking about you. Have you seen the list of things Sarah needs done around the house?”

Bosco frowns and pushes away from the door. He takes the list from Charlie, his jaw clenched as he glances in my direction. His narrowed eyes never leave mine as he leans down and presses a kiss to Millie’s hair. I hadn’t even told him Millie may be coming home tomorrow, let alone that I need this work done.

I hate that I’m always relying on him. I hate that everyone just expects that Bosco will swoop in on his shiny motorcycle and fix every damn thing in my life. I hate that if he didn’t, my life would fall apart.

As Bosco reads over the list, his head tilted toward the paper, he occasionally flicks his gaze to me. I prepare myself for his frustration. I know it pisses him off that I don’t ask him for things. But instead of giving me a piece of his mind, he folds up the paper and tucks it into his back pocket. “I’ll handle it.” Then he looks at Millie and grins. “You ready to go for a walk, Tink?”

Millie’s smile lights up her entire face, the subtle gray hue of her skin seeming to disappear. We’re all silent as he picks her up, organizing the tubes dangling from her in a way that’s comfortable for them both. “We’ll be back.”

Grabbing her IV pole, he walks out of the room, Millie’s giggles echoing down the hallway.

Looking away from the empty door, I look to the women surrounding me. All of them are smiling wide, but it’s Laynie who speaks. “Somebody’s in trouble.”

Bosco

“Is that fucking nail polish on your thumb, dude?”

I shoot Jase a glare and give the carpet another yank, pulling a large section of it free from the floor. “Fuck off.”

Jase throws his hands up and grins. “Hey, man, I’m not judging. Just didn’t know purple was your color.”

I don’t bother explaining myself. I know Jase is just giving me a hard time to lighten the mood. It’s what he does. Jase is the Kings’ comedic relief.

Almost all the guys from the club are here, crowded into Sarah’s house, working through the night to get Millie’s home ready for her return. After leaving the hospital, I’d texted Jase to ask if I could borrow some tools, and before I knew it, they were all here, tool belts around their waists and ready to work.

“Laynie says the ladies will be here at eight in the morning to do the scrubbing,” Tease informs. “Means we got six more hours to get this shit finished.”

I fucking love this club. Yet again, they’ve proven to me that brotherhood doesn’t require a blood connection. These assholes are here for each other, no matter what. We might fight from time to time, and most of us want to kick Jase’s ass several times a day, but we’re a family—a family that gets shit done.

I look around the torn-up room. This is just one small area in the house that needs the carpet removed and replaced with hardwood flooring. Since Sarah doesn’t quite own the house outright yet, we’d needed the permission of her landlord. One glare from my man Reaper was all it took. He even agreed to pay for the new flooring, after Reaper had impressed on him that it was the right thing to do.

Jase grabs himself another beer and starts scraping the glue off the bare floor. “So what’s the deal with that honey you got workin’ over at Pimps? I thought you were savin’ yourself for Sarah.”

“Her name’s Rachel,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “And she’s just a friend.” With one more massive heave, I yank up the last of the house’s carpeting and toss it to the ground. “And since when are you so fucking concerned with the women in my life?”

Jase chuckles as he works. “Most of us assholes are fuckin’ married now. We live through you, our resident bachelor. You don’t fuck the bitches at the clubhouse, you don’t talk about anyone but Sarah, and suddenly you’ve got some hot new honey hangin’ off of you. Of course we’re all curious.”

“You may be curious, but it’s certainly not your fucking concern. If that changes, I’ll let ya know. In the meantime,” I point to a portion of the floor Jase had already scraped, “you missed a spot.”

I scoop up a heavy mound of carpet and head for the bin out front. Jase is muttering behind me, his scraper digging into the floor. I toss the carpet into the bin and take a seat on the front step.

There’s so much to do, and this is going to be a long fucking night. It pisses me off to no end when I remember the way Charlie had passed me the list, making it obvious that Sarah hadn’t wanted me to see it.

She knows damn well that I’d do anything for her and Millie, and there’s no way in hell she could’ve done this shit herself. Is it pride that keeps her from accepting my place in her life, or does she simply want me to go away?

That’s something I’d never really considered in the past. I’ve always just pushed my way in, did what I wanted, and waited for her to find a place for me in her life. It’s never crossed my mind that she doesn’t want my presence at all. That me being around her is a chore she’d rather not have to do.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Millie will be home sometime tomorrow and this house is far from being done. Chore to be around or not, that little girl is coming home to a safe and sanitized, carpet free home. The rest I can figure out later.