I was about to step forward when I saw the curtain behind Lexi twitch. A little boy in a suit appeared. He looked familiar, and I narrowed my eyes, trying to see against the blinding light on the stage. Elijah!
Now I thought I might faint. I leaned hard against Jackson, and we watched as Elijah yanked the curtain aside with all his might and a man in a wheelchair rolled forward through the opening. Looking impossibly handsome in his tuxedo, he propelled his chair forward until he was beside his sister. Nick had arrived just in time.
Nick
28
“Nicky?” Lexi gasped. She gestured at the chair I was in. “What happened? Is it your head? Are you all right?”
I locked the chair and then pushed myself to standing. I could feel the hot glare of the lights and hear the murmur of the crowd. I knew most of the people in this room. I had worked with many of them in some capacity or another. Having them all staring at me like they were seeing a ghost, because I’d become a ghost, was unsettling to say the least. But this moment wasn’t about me.
“I have some explaining to do, but first.” I held out my arms, and Lexi stepped into them for a hug. She looked lovely, just like the princess she used to pretend to be when she was little, and I was so proud of her, I thought I’d bust.
“I’m sorry I was late,” I whispered against her hair. “I’ve never missed the big moments in your life, and I shouldn’t have thought it was okay to skip out on this one.”
“Oh, Nicky,” she cried. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and I handed her my pocket square. Isn’t that what they’re for? She laughed and dabbed her eyes and her nose.
“Do you want me to step in?” I asked, gesturing to the podium.
She looked at me as if I’d just saved her from the guillotine. “Yes, please.” Then she grinned. “But first, I’ll introduce you.”
She spun away from me and approached the mic. She looked poised and pretty, and she cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there’s been a change of plan.” Her voice wobbled, betraying her nerves, but she soldiered on. “Speaking to you tonight about the New Dawn net-zero housing development”—she emphasized the words as she glared at the protesters—“is the man who made this gala possible, and he is also my big brother, Nicholas Daire.”
The applause started slowly, and then as Lexi stepped back and I stepped forward, the applause grew louder and louder. I tried to speak, but when I looked down, Jackson, the big idiot, was standing there, clapping his enormous hands together with a dopey grin on his face, and beside him was Annabelle.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, and for a second, I forgot everything except her and how much I loved her. Yes, it had taken me two weeks to come to terms with the fact that what I was feeling for her was not going to go away, but with the help of my new psychiatrist, Dr. Franks, I was figuring it out. Among other things.
Annabelle was clapping and laughing and crying, and my heart about clawed its way out of my chest to get to her. In fact, I wanted to jump off the stage and go to her, but now wasn’t the moment for me to fall to my knees and beg her to forgive me for being a fucking idiot. That would come later.
I raised my hands, hoping to get the crowd to settle, and slowly they took it down a notch. I saw faces I hadn’t seen in over a year. Builders, bankers, investors, city officials, all of the people who cared about Phoenix, who were invested in its growth and development, and I was surprised that instead of feeling like the outsider I’d always thought I was, I felt like one of them. One of the people committed to making our city the best place in the world to live, to raise a family, and to pursue dreams.
“Good evening,” I said. The applause started again, but I shook my head. I had a lot of ground to cover and no idea how long I’d be able to stay upright. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen most of you, so I’m going to give you a quick catch-up.”
The room grew deadly quiet. I knew it was because the wild speculation about my abrupt retirement had included theories from I was a mobster and in the witness protection program to I was dying of cancer.
“Eleven months, three weeks, four days, and seven hours ago, I suffered what they call a cerebrovascular accident.” There were a few gasps from people who knew what that meant. One of which was my sister. I glanced at Lexi, and she put her hand over her mouth. Elijah, who was standing next to her, patted her arm and said, not in a whisper, “That’s a stroke. Don’t worry, he’s okay now.”
I smiled. It was always so much simpler when kids explained things. I looked back at the crowd and continued, “Yes, what my young friend says is correct. I had a stroke.”
Now the crowd was murmuring and muttering. I ignored them and looked at Annabelle. Just the sight of her centered me.
“As you can imagine, I didn’t handle this well, especially when it appeared that I had suffered residual damage from the stroke that impeded my ability to walk or think,” I said. “For the first six months after my stroke, I spent half the time picking myself up off the floor; thus, my wheels.” I paused to look at my wheelchair, the thing that had been my security blanket for so long. “I also struggled with severe fatigue and a bit of fuzzy brain.”
I looked back out at the crowd. This was my chance to make things right, and I wasn’t going to blow it. “Unsurprisingly, I became reclusive and withdrawn. I was consumed with the fact that the doctors had no idea why I’d had a stroke and therefore couldn’t tell me if I’d have another. The odds were not in my favor. In short, I was afraid and I let that fear consume me, but then a funny thing happened.”
I paused, giving the audience a moment to catch up, to appreciate the twists and turns of the story. “This brilliant architect, my sister, whom I hadn’t spoken to in almost twenty years, showed up at my doorstep and she needed me.”
A restlessness hummed through the crowd. The protesters Jackson had corralled, undoubtedly the ones who made the threats against Lexi, were shifting where they sat probably looking for the exits about now. Good.
“My sister, Alexandra Brewer—” I began but Lexi interrupted.
“Alexandra Daire,” she said. Then she whispered, “I’ve made it legal and everything.”
Oh crap, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. I would rather have my leg give out and fall on my face than burst into tears. I blinked several times, willing them back, and cleared my throat.
“Alexandra Daire,” I said. I savored the sound of it for just a moment. “She needed me because she was trying to do something so big, so extraordinary, so out of the box, that the big thinkers of the city didn’t know what to make of her and neither did the younger crowd who believed this was just another gentrification project.”