Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“That’s about it, yeah,” I replied hoarsely.
“Listen to me, Curtis,” he said, leaning in. “You won’t see everythin’ comin’. No way you could. All right? Sometimes life is more fucked, and sometimes it’s less fucked, but it’s always fucked in one way or another.”
“Not sure this is makin’ me feel any better.”
“You can’t control any of it, is what I’m sayin’,” he replied. “So control the shit you can. Love your woman. Love your kids. Love your club. Do your best for each of them. That’s what you can do. Don’t let that rage boil over. It’s just gonna end up hurtin’ everyone around you. Use it. Channel it, yeah? And trust your fuckin’ club, kid. We’ll see you through.”
“Got it,” I replied.
“I’m gonna head over to Nix’s for what’s left of the night,” he said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Your grandmother’s already there and probably waitin’ up on me.”
“I’m surprised Uncle Nix didn’t show up here.”
“He’s out of town,” Gramps replied. “On the East Coast somewhere. Hell, I don’t know. He sends his love and said to tell you that if you fuck up and need a lawyer, he knows some.”
I laughed. “Good to know.”
“I love you, buddy boy,” he said, his voice changing a little as he used the name he’d called Draco and me both when we were little. “This’ll pass. Everything does.”
“Love you too,” I replied. “Night.”
As I walked back to Dylan’s room, I considered what he’d said about not letting my rage boil over. The thing was, when I was with my family? The rage didn’t feel so close to the surface. It was when I was away from them that it hit me like a wave. I wondered if he knew something that I didn’t.
* * *
The next day, both Jesse and Dylan were discharged from the hospital a couple of hours apart, and the last of us who had stayed in Portland for the duration headed home. When we got there, Kara and Charlie were sitting on the porch, waiting.
“I can do it,” Jesse told Teddy as they gingerly climbed out of my mom’s SUV.
“Stubborn,” Dylan said to me as I helped him out the opposite side. “They’ve been wincing for the last half an hour.”
“Gonna be a long month,” I agreed, waiting for Finn to crawl out from the third row. “How you doin’?”
“I’m fine,” Finn said, scrambling past me. He ran around the car to catch up with his mom.
I was worried about Finn. We’d been so focused on Dylan and Jesse and all of their medical shit that it was easy to overlook the fact that he stuck to us like glue, but the longer it went on, the more I noticed that he really couldn’t be away from us. It was mostly Jesse and Teddy, but if he hadn’t seen Dylan or me in a while, he started getting anxious to the point of pacing.
“We won’t stay long,” Kara said as we met her on the porch. “But we wanted to be here to make sure you guys had everything you needed.”
“Thanks, Kara,” Teddy said tiredly. She hesitated.
“It’s just a house,” Jesse grumbled as they continued past. Throwing open the door, they walked inside.
“I didn’t even think,” Kara apologized with a wince. “Coming home. I didn’t even—”
“Why would you?” I asked gently as I scooted around Teddy to follow Jess. “It’s fine. Thank you both for comin’.”
Dylan followed me inside while Teddy and Finn put it off a little longer. We’d barely made it inside the house when we saw Jess standing between the kitchen and the living room, breathing heavily as they stared at the sliding glass door.
“Jess,” I called carefully, moving slowly as I walked their way. “You good?”
“Yeah,” they replied, their head snapping around to look at me. “Fine.”
“Okay if it’s not.”
“Someone cleaned up in here,” they replied, looking into the living room. Sometime in the last week, the walls had been wiped clean or repainted, the smashed furniture had been carted away, and they’d replaced the carpeting in the living room. A new couch even sat in place of the old one.
“We should rearrange it,” Dylan said, moving past me. “It’s kinda creepy now.”
“We can do that,” I agreed as he walked up to Jess and put his hand on their shoulder. They moved into the kitchen and out of sight.
Out on the porch, Teddy was still talking to Kara and Charlie while Finn waited.
“Kids are in the kitchen if you wanna go get a snack,” I told him, ruffling his hair.
With a nod, he went into the house.
“Poor guy,” Charlie noted, watching him go. “He’s been so quiet since it happened.”
“He’s doing a little better than he was,” Teddy said, glancing toward the open door. “Now that Dyl and Jesse are up and moving around. It’s going to take a minute to get back to normal.”