“Abe, where are my keys?” I call out, not sure where in the house he is. I’m still unpacking and sorting out where I want things. So far, I’ve moved the sideboard three times in the last two weeks. And the bowl we leave our keys in has moved half a dozen times, thus my current situation.
“In the bowl,” he calls from the back room he’s converted into a home office.
Throwing my hands in the air, I call back, “And where is the bloody bowl?”
The sound of his chair scraping against the tiles as he pushes it away from his desk reaches me in the sitting room. He strolls in thirty seconds later, my keys hanging from his finger.
“Smartarse,” I mumble, snatching them from his outstretched hand.
“But you love me, and my smart arse,” he says, waggling his brows, leaning down to kiss my forehead.
“I do,” I admit. And I’ve never been happier. He fills me with a sense of contentment that I’ve never experienced before, as much as I’d like to smother him in his sleep sometimes. His snoring is proving to be our biggest issue as a couple.
He smacks my arse as I turn to leave. “Say hi to Will for me,” he says, walking backwards, returning to his office.
“Will do. Don’t forget Michael and Daniel are coming for dinner tonight. Did you ask Ash and Axel?”
His head pokes back around the corner. “Yeah, but Ash is on full bedrest from now until the baby comes,” he says. “We can take dinner to them tomorrow or something.”
I nod. “Okay. I’ll just get pizzas tonight then.”
Abe winks. “Sounds good, sweetness. See you this afternoon.”
Thursdays and Mondays are my days with Will. I take him books and comics to keep him entertained and keep his mind off his new limitations. He’s still in the hospital, but we’re hoping he’ll be released this month. He’s doing really well; it’s just his mindset that’s holding him back at the moment.
Michael is sitting with his feet propped up on the edge of Will’s bed when I arrive.
“Hey, it’s my day. What are you doing here?” I ask him, pressing a kiss to the top of Will’s head then rounding his bed to do the same to my brother, messing his hair before dropping into the free chair next to him.
He shoves my seat with his booted foot. “I can come whenever I want. Just because Little Miss Control Freak made a schedule doesn’t mean I can’t come on days that aren’t designated as mine. Besides, it’s not like I have a job to go to right now.”
Ellie is the one who made the schedule. Daniel, Michael, me, and Ellie take turns spending days with him so he’s never alone and so he doesn’t get sick of seeing the same face every day. It also allows Daniel and Ellie to carry on working. She insisted on putting herself in the roster. Though she mostly comes on the weekends, so the work part isn’t really an issue for her.
Will presses a hand over his heart. “Aw you miss me so much you can’t stay away, big brother. That’s touching.”
Michael rolls his eyes. “Shut up, princess.”
He gives Will’s bed a little kick, jostling him in a bit. Will snatches up one of his million pillows and smacks it into Michael’s head. I can’t stop smiling; this is the best I’ve seen him mood-wise in weeks. Then it’s on as Michael grabs one of the pillows and gives Will some of his own back.
Their little pillow fight lasts a few minutes until Will’s breathing changes.
“Okay, okay, I surrender,” Michael says, not letting on that he’s no doubt noticed Will’s depleted strength and the rapid inhales making his chest rise and fall rapidly.
Grinning, Will tosses the pillow behind his back again. “That’s right. I still got it. My legs may not work anymore, but my hands and arms do.” He waggles his brows, obviously proud of the innuendo he slipped in there.
The day he found out his penis is still fully operational was by far and away the best day he’s had since all this.
The guilt over Will’s injury still plagues me. If he hadn’t jumped in front of me, I wouldn’t be here right now. I blink away the sudden tears that try to escape. He hates it when I cry, so I’ve learned to control my tears in his presence. Michael’s hand touches mine briefly, letting me know that he feels it too.
We both feel responsible for Will being in this hospital, never being able to walk again. He’s only nineteen, and this is the life he has to look forward to. It kills me inside. He sacrificed his future for me, and he didn’t even really know me back then. I was just his brother’s half-sister. I was nobody to him. Yet he put his life on the line for me.
Dropping his head back on his pillows, he groans. “Come on! Drop the pity act. I’m fine, everything is fine. Dan promised me this wicked wheelchair. We’ve been browsing the net the last couple of times he’s been here. We found a pretty sweet ride, and he said he’ll get it for me so I don’t have to keep using the poxy hospital one.” Will’s smile brightens my mood, pulling me out of my self-absorbed funk.
“Can I see?” I ask, grabbing his laptop from the nightstand.
He pulls up the website, showing us the model he’s picked out, and as far as wheelchairs go, it is pretty sweet.
My days with Will have become some of my favourites, spending time with him, getting to know him. I’m honoured to have him in my life. And I know I have Michael and Daniel to thank for Will growing into this incredible young man.
I’m aware of the things they have done in their pasts, but I don’t believe a person’s past predestines their future. Just look at us, who would have thought we would cross paths and it would change the course of our lives forever.
I didn’t know I could have all this—I thought it was out of my reach. I hated my life, bucked at every demand my father made of me, and knew I would never find that true, soul consuming kind of love. Never have a family of my own.
But here I am. I can’t even begin to express how much I love Abe. He is everything I could ever have imagined, and I can’t live without him now that I’ve got him. Then there’s my brother. Michael and I clicked from the first day we met as siblings. I could see myself in him; he hated his life too. He and I are kindred spirits. I feel as though I’ve known him my whole life.
Daniel and Will may not share my blood, but they have become my brothers too. I have love. I have a family. I have everything I ever wanted, but thought I could never have. I couldn’t be happier than I am right now, checking out pimped-out wheelchairs with my brothers.
Cutting my father out of my life was easier than I thought it was going to be. Abe came with me, he stood stoic by my side, lending me his strength to do what had to be done.
If you had told me six months ago if I would be living with the love of my life in a split-level house an hour out of the city I called my home, I’d have laughed in your face for your absurdity.
Yet, here I am.
We bought the house a month ago. It’s closer to the hospital Will’s in, but it’s not too far from the city. Kalista needed to get out of the confines of her father’s shadow. When she stopped attending luncheons, brunches, and all that shit, people started asking questions, going as far as seeking her out to find out why she wasn’t around.
None of them actually cared that she almost died—not that she told them about it. All they were interested in was getting the next piece of gossip. And a senator’s daughter turning her back on a life of luxury and opulence was exactly that. She told her father where he could stick his money and the lifestyle he expected her to maintain. It was a beautiful sight.
She works for me, handling public relations and, wait for it, vehicle maintenance. My girl can work a miracle under the hood of anything you put in front of her. Apparently, she learnt from the she devil’s father, who was her family mechanic.
She came home covered in dirt and grease after spending the day with Will a couple of weeks back. When I questioned her about it, she told me she blew a tyre and had to change it. My polished, elite, refined girlfriend changed her own tyre. I couldn’t hide my disbelief, and that was when she told me.
She’d been holding out on me, but I forgave her pretty damn fast. She lets me watch her service my SUV, and holy fucking shit, it’s the hottest thing I have ever seen in my life. Not only is my girl smart, gorgeous, and amazing in bed, but she can fix cars. Does it get better than that? I think not.
Everything we went through to get to this point, every risk we had to take, was worth it. All except Will’s injury. If I could change anything from the moment I took on Lissa’s case, that would be it.
I put him on the books as one of my trainees so his medical expenses would be covered under my insurance. It’s the least I could do for him after what he did for Kalista. Hell, what he did for me. I would be nothing without her. If I had lost her that day, I’d have lost myself. I can’t even imagine a life without her.
She is my life.
And soon, I’m hoping she’ll be my wife.
Watching my best friend fall in love with a socialite princess is the last thing I ever expected to happen. Abe and I are similar in the women department, don’t get too close, don’t get attached. Because shit can and will happen.
It wasn’t until I met Little Red that I understood the look that comes over Abe’s face whenever he sees Kally come into a room. The second Little Red walked into that hotel to come to her friend’s aid dressed in the most hideous skin tight, electric green leggings I’d ever seen, I was a goner.
I just want to be around her, all the fucking time. She has this energy running through her that I can’t get enough of. She’s come to mean more to me than any woman before her. Except Lulu, but my relationship with Lulu is different. We’re connected in a way that has bound us together for life.
Little Red and I haven’t even had sex, she says it has something to do with making it better when we do? I don’t get it. I’m pretty sure sex with her now would be just as mind blowing as sex with her in a month, two months, however long it is she wants to wait. But I respect her wishes, if that’s what she wants, I’m good with it…For now.
Not sure how much longer I can continue to be the gentleman she deserves thought. Every moment spent with her it’s harder and harder to keep my hands in the ‘friendly’ zones. I have to remind myself that I was a fucking Marine for almost a decade, I can handle this…Right?
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Zak and Ellie’s book is coming early 2018.