“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Blake grumbles. “Get it over and done with.
That gets the boys moving.
Slade and Damian step right into the open back door of the Dodge RAM as Nessa begins to raise his leg. I stand off to the side, preparing to jump straight in when they start to move him back.
Blake sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and my heart breaks for him. There’s nothing I hate more than seeing this little turd in pain.
The boys lift him and soon enough, everything starts moving. Blake isn’t exactly light and with all his extra pieces, I’m sure it only makes it worse. They’re going to want to make this fast.
The boys step back with Blake’s arms over each of their shoulders while Nessa guides his foot through the backseat of the Dodge. As soon as the boys have cleared enough space, I step in and take his leg from Nessa.
We start walking toward the house and I try not to meet Blake’s eyes. If I look up at him right now, I’m going to break.
“Nessa, honey, would you run ahead and make sure there’s space cleared on the couch?” Shaylee calls from the door as Nessa jumps down from the back of Slade’s Dodge.
She runs around us, flying past Shaylee and getting busy inside as we walk at a snail’s pace, being so damn careful not to jostle him. I mean, what if he was to fall and the anchor pins got caught on something?
Shivers run down my spine as I hear Slade’s low voice cutting through my mind. “Focus, Virago.”
I swallow back. He’s right. I don’t have the luxury to be thinking about the what ifs. I need to focus on getting this heavy mother effer from the curb to the house. I have one simple job. I can’t mess it up.
We get to the front porch and as the boys step up onto the first step of the porch, Blake lets out a shallow grunt, making both Slade and Damian cringe.
“You’re nearly there,” Shaylee encourages Blake as we slowly pass her holding the door open for us. “You’re going to be just fine.”
We get into the house and spin ourselves around to get Blake onto the couch at the right angle. Here he will be able to see through to the dining room and down the hallway while watching TV. This is probably the closest to the bathroom we could get him without making the tub into a bed. Though, that’s another challenge we’re yet to figure out.
Blake’s been given a pair of crutches to use, but there’s no way in hell he’s ready for them. To be completely honest, I’m almost certain that Blake lied to the doctor and said he wasn’t feeling as much pain. I wouldn’t be surprised; Blake has a hero complex and doesn’t like to be told no.
The next few weeks will be interesting for sure. I hope he enjoys pissing into a bottle because I would be carrying his heavy ass to the bathroom every few hours and holding him up while he pees. I’ll have to limit his water supply.
We get him down and comfortable and Shaylee is quick to start fussing around, grabbing all his blankets and pillows from his room, making sure he has everything he needs. Even his PlayStation gets brought out here.
I guess the swamp rat will be living on the couch for the foreseeable future. I hope he’s comfortable. Oh well, even if he’s not, he’s going to be happy because being uncomfortable at home is a million times better than being comfortable in the hospital.
We all drop down on the couches around him, trying our best to make him feel at home. Well, most of us are. Slade is lounged back, playing on his phone while Damian sits with Nessa on his lap, checking that he’s doing okay after all his heavy lifting.
Okay, so when I said we were all helping him to feel at home, what I really meant was that just Shay and I were helping.
I look over at Blake and realize that for the past few weeks, all he’s eaten is hospital food. My eyes bug out of my head. The poor kid must be starving for a good meal. “Are you hungry?” I ask. “What do you want? Pizza, Chinese, something home-cooked? Anything you want…”
“Jesus,” he grumbles under his breath. “I should have fucking psychopaths crush my legs all the time if this is the kind of treatment I’ll be getting.”
“Oh, look at that,” I tease. “The offer just fell off the table.”
“Bullshit,” Blake says. “You wouldn’t do your baby brother dirty like that.”
I roll my eyes. He’s right and he knows it.
I get up off the couch and start making my way to the kitchen to get all the take out menus I know he’s going to insist on studying. I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I’m absolutely in love with life at the moment. I have my brother back home, I have Slade, my best friends are coupling up. Not to mention that Lucien and Marcus are gone, Maria is off somewhere licking her wounds, while Shay is making progress with her relationship with Ben.
I don’t know how we all survived this wicked bullshit but we did and we’ve come out the other end so much stronger. Hell, Slade came out with an offer to play at Lakeside University.
“Where are you going?” Nessa calls out, cutting through my thoughts and making me silently want to hate on her for destroying my little private moment of happiness.
“Kitchen,” I call back.
“Oh, so was that offer of food for everyone or just for Blake? Because I could do with a drink. We could start slow with a few cocktails and then hit the hard stuff.”
I look back at her. “You are not getting wasted here tonight. Go back to your own place and get fucked-up there.”
Nessa rolls her eyes. “You’re such a party pooper.”
I ignore her as I step through to the kitchen. She has a point. Blake is home. We should be celebrating, maybe not getting drunk but we should at least have a drink or two. Besides, it’s a Sunday afternoon. What’s the harm?
I reach up above the fridge and rifle around until I find the stack of takeout menus. Half of these menus have changed at least a dozen times while the other half are for businesses that closed down years ago, yet Bake refuses to throw out the menu and always insists on scanning over it. I never claim the kid was normal…
Reaching up to the cupboard, I find a few cocktail glasses and smirk to myself when I pull down enough for the boys. If Nessa and I are celebrating with pretty, pink cocktails, then so are the boys.
Laughter comes from the living room and I smile to myself as I go to find the cocktail ingredients. I push up onto my tippy toes, wanting to reach the bottle of Malibu at the top when someone presses into my back.
For the shortest moment, I think it’s Slade but the body is all wrong and considering the oversized breasts pressing into the back of my shoulders, I’d dare say I was wrong.
The overwhelming perfume hits me before the cold, metal blade at my throat does. “Make any sudden movements and I’ll end you right now.”
Maria.
Chapter 24
The knife pinches heavily against my neck as my body freezes. One wrong move from me and I’m a goner.
I thought all this bullshit was over.
How fucking naive.
“You won’t get away with this,” I growl low, keeping my voice down as to not alert anyone in the other room. I can only imagine how Shay would react to this and I can assure that her panic would have me dead.
The knife presses in harder and I feel the blade beginning to cut my skin. “I already have, princess,” she spits, mocking Lucien’s dirty little nickname for me.