I chugged down the rest of my coffee while Bianca stared at me.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said.
“That doesn't mean you didn’t.”
I got up from the couch and tossed my plastic mug into the kitchen sink. I was done talking. What I wanted to do was pile back into my bed and go to sleep. I didn’t want to think about that man any longer. I didn’t want to think about the pain rushing over his handsome face or the way his skin tinted at my touch. I didn’t want to think about how his lips felt against my skin before they coughed up blood onto my work clothes.
All I wanted to do was sleep.
“Jess?”
“Hmm?”
“You awake?”
I rolled over in bed and groaned when I saw light still filtering through the curtains of my room.
“What do you want?” I asked groggily.
“Just wanted to make sure you were still alive.”
“A poor taste in joke since we just got done talking about a man who could be dead,” I said.
“Just got done? What are you talking about?”
I rolled over and looked at the clock as it flashed a little after ten thirty. I tossed the covers back over my head and rolled over, then allowed my eyes to fall closed.
“I’ve only been in bed for three hours.”
“No, you’ve been in bed for three hours plus another twenty-one.”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s Saturday, Jess. You slept through Friday.”
I threw the covers off my head and forced myself up from my bed. I grabbed my cell phone and unlocked it, and my eyes widened when I saw the date and time. Bianca was right. I’d gone back to bed Friday morning and slept through the entire day.
“Shit,” I said.
“Come on. I’ve got coffee, cinnamon rolls, and Netflix.”
“That sounds heavenly. Do you hate me still?”
“You’re assuming I hated you before. No, you melodramatic drama queen. I don’t hate you. Now, get your ass out of bed and get out here. Two plates of cinnamon rolls aren’t going to eat themselves.”
“Two plates?”
“I bought two rolls of them at a discount price in the gas station up the road. If they don’t make us sick, it’ll make for a nice brunch.”
“Hmmmm, past-date cinnamon rolls. My favorite,” I said.
“Hey, once I make it big with my writing, we’re blowing this popsicle stand.”
“How is that going, by the way?” I asked as I slid out of bed.
“It’s not, right now. But hopefully the tavern won’t run all of us ragged to the bone and I can spare some time to my books again.”
“You could go write instead of watching Netflix with me.”
“And lose my place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? I’d rather jump off a cliff.”
“You get too attached to characters.”
“It’s the writer in me,” she said, smiling.
“Let me get myself cleaned up a little bit, then I’ll be out there to help you drink coffee and eat cinnamon rolls.”
“Well, don’t take too long. If you take any longer than thirty minutes, I can’t guarantee any will be left for you,” she said.
“Yeah, and then I’ll have to take you to the hospital for gorging yourself until you get sick.”
“Maybe it’ll be the hospital that man was taken to.” She winked at me.
“Bianca.”
“Jessica.”
“Enough with the man,” I said. “I’ll go back to sleep. I’ll do it.”
“Only you would threaten me with going back to sleep.”
“Because it only works on you since you’re so dependent on my company.”
“Sorry for loving you.”
“Apology accepted,” I said, grinning.
Bianca giggled and I walked off to our shared bathroom. It was small to begin with, but we made it work. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then figured I could bypass a shower and take one after I watched a couple of shows with my best friend. I grabbed my robe off the back of the door and wrapped it around me, its warmth making my eyes close a little too hard. I still couldn't believe I had slept an entire day away.
But what was more amazing was the fact that I felt like I could sleep another one away, too.
I opened my eyes and took a good, hard look at myself in the mirror. My blonde hair was thick. Much thicker than it needed to be. I reached for a hair tie and began piling it on my head, but the band snapped midway through my bun. I tossed it into the trashcan and grabbed another one, but that one broke as well.
“Fuck!”
“Breaking hair ties again?” Bianca called out.
“I’ll be there soon!”
I broke through four more of them before I finally got the bun to stay on my damn head. I took stock of my blue eyes. They looked rested. They sparkled in the dim lighting of our bathroom. But the bags underneath my eyes told a different story. I knew I was going to fall asleep on Bianca’s shoulder. I had no interest in anything having to do with comic books, but her excitement and listening to her explain everything to me was interesting. I enjoyed watching people partake in things they loved. Whether it was music, dance, comics, or making drinks—if they enjoyed it thoroughly, I was always mesmerized by it.
“If you need any more hair ties, you can have mine!” Bianca exclaimed.
I giggled and shook my head as I turned off the light. I went out and flopped down next to my best friend before she promptly handed me a massive mug of coffee. She picked up a plate of cinnamon rolls and set it on my lap, then she struck up a television show I didn’t recognize. It opened with a scene with some guy beating the shit out of someone, and I looked over just in time to see the massive, prideful smile trickle across Bianca’s face.
Listening to her describe who The Punisher was enabled me to forget about everything. Work. The man. How hurt he had been. The day I had slept away. How tired my bones still were. Her ramblings even helped me to forget about my dreams, especially since I had dreamt about him. The guy in the bar with the wound and the thick hair and the dark, stormy eyes. With lips that shivered me to my core and a heat no furnace could replicate.
“Jess? Are you listening? The show’s just about to get good,” Bianca said.
“Of course I’m listening. And if you’d stop talking, I would pay attention to the show,” I said.
“Look, look, look! Watch!”
I turned my head back to the screen, but my mind wasn’t fully there. Because the second those darkened eyes popped into the forefront of my mind, I knew I was a goner. I wondered how he was doing. I wondered if he was okay. If he was alive and well and recuperating like I wanted him to be. It was astounding how taken I had become with a nameless, handsome man.
For all I knew, he was simply passing through. A stranger in the night that was gone by morning. For all I knew, he didn’t give a damn about me. For all I knew, he didn’t even remember me. Traumatized by his wound, maybe his mind hadn’t been creating new memories. Maybe I was thinking about a man who didn’t even remember the color of my eyes.
And it was that thought I clung to in order to keep myself from drowning in the ghost of his musky scent.
FOUR
Lucas
After a return trip to the hospital due to some complications with me busting my stitches, I was released again and heading home. Mom and Dad weren’t too happy that I decided to get out of bed on my own and get to the bathroom, but I was a grown man. I didn’t need my parents helping me take a shit. But after busting three stitches and sucking up some very painful needle invasions, I allowed a little more help from their end until I could get my ass home.
“Here are your discharge papers and how to care for your wound, Mr. Wilder.”
“Lucas, please,” I said.
“You’ll have to be put in a wheelchair and wheeled out. Standard protocol around here. You’re our liability until you get out those doors, so don’t fig
ht your parents this time on getting in one.”
“I understand, Miss…?”
The new nurse shot me a glare and I bit back a chuckle. I guess they all weren’t as friendly as the one I had come to know. Then again, my brothers and I didn’t have the best reputation with all the women in town. I listened to her rattle off how often to change the dressings and how frequently to irrigate the wound, then she handed me my things and my father helped me into the wheelchair.
I tossed my bloodied clothes into a trashcan on the way out.
I spent a few days recuperating at their house. And for all of the independence that had been ripped away from me, I always enjoyed staying there. Not only was the massive Wilder mansion my childhood home, it kept getting updates along the way. An in-ground pool. A hot tub. Saunas in the private ensuite bathrooms. It was a regular stay at a luxury resort whenever we stayed with our parents. I slept on and off for the first few days of my recuperation thanks to the heavy pain medication.
Then, it was time for Sunday family dinner.
“Son?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“You still thinking about going to dinner?” he asked.
“I am. I’m cleaning myself up right now for it.”
“Do you think your mother or I should go with you? To make sure you’re all right?”
I grinned in the mirror as I smoothed my hands down my button-front shirt. My father always worried more than my mother. Always. He just covered it up better than she did. My mother was a gracious and wonderful woman. She could emotionally compartmentalize like a beast, so she was the best to have in emergency situations. She never freaked out until after the fact, and even then it was a freak out that occurred when she was alone. She didn’t enjoy showing strong emotions in front of people and she didn’t like inconveniencing people with them whenever they came to pass.
My father, on the other hand, was the complete opposite.
“I promise I’ll be fine, Dad. I’ll be with the brothers. They’ll all rag on me for what happened, but they’ll also keep an eye on me. Especially Junior. You know how he is. Stoic like Mom and never one to show his emotions until after the emergency has passed.”
“Well, you keep my phone number on speed dial. If anything happens—”
“I’ll call you. I promise.”
Sunday family dinner was a tradition my brothers and I started when we branched off and began doing our own thing with our business. Our parents were the real estate champions of the East Coast, but none of us wanted to follow in their footsteps. We wanted to make our own way and create our own ventures, but Dad was desperate to somehow rope us into the family business.
Long story short, my brothers and I now restored old homes, and my parents sometimes contracted out our work for the homes and properties they turned around and sold.
“Well, look at what the wind blew in,” Flynn said.
“Ya get stuck starin’ at them cow pastures like you always do?” Everett asked.
“Y’all, Luke’s always the late one. I don’t know why the hell y’all thought he’d be any different today,” Cayden said.
“Heard you got yourself into a mighty fine accident,” Drew added.
“Wait, you what?” Cash asked.
I looked over at Drew and shook my head before I walked toward the kitchen table. And the second I began limping, Cash rushed over and helped me sit down. The brothers promptly sat around me while Drew continued to pile food onto the table. As soon as I drew in a breath, the questions started flying.
“What the hell happened?”
“What’d you do now?”
“A girl finally beat you down for being a little shit?”
“I knew something was wrong. I felt it in my gut.”
“You didn’t feel it in your gut, Cash,” I said.
“I feel a great deal in my gut,” he said.
“Yeah, like hunger. Drew! Can we eat?” Flynn asked.
“Soon as Luke tells us why he’s limping like a little fairy,” he said as he sat down.
“You had another one of your sleepless nights, didn’t you?” Cash asked.
“You really are like Mom, you know that?” I asked.
“What did ya do this time, Luke?” Cayden asked.
“Nothing happened, guys. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get some work down on the house we’re restoring on the other side of town. Got up a ladder and made a bullshit move, and I fell,” I said.
“So, you’re limping because of broken ribs or something?” Drew asked.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Lucas, what did you do?” Kane asked.
“I’m getting there, Mom,” I said, rolling my eyes..
The brothers chuckled along with me, but Cash didn’t.
“I’ll absorb the cost, okay? But one of the new windows we were going to put up was at the base of the ladder. I wanted to install all of them before the storms rolled in this weekend, and I fell onto it,” I said.
“Holy shit, you got cut, didn’t you?” Drew asked.
“More like pierced.”
I lifted up my button-front shirt and all the brothers began to laugh. All except Cash. His fingertips reached out and traveled along the edge of the dressing before I put my shirt back down.
“How many stitches?” he asked.
“Forty something,” I said.
“You don’t even know how many stitches you have, Luke?”
“I busted a couple, so they put in a few more to hold the spot together.”
“Of course you did,” Everett said, grinning. “You’ve always been the damn reckless one of the bunch.”
“This could’ve been a lot worse, Luke. You could’ve gotten yourself killed,” Cash said.
“Trust me, I know that,” I said.
“But do you? The last time we talked, you promised me you wouldn’t be working on houses in the middle of the damn night if you couldn't sleep.”
“Cash, I get it. This could’ve been bad.”
“‘Bad’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. How long were you in the—?”
“Okay. That’s enough. This food I slaved over’s gonna get cold if you two don’t shut up,” Drew said.
“Slaved over? You picked it up two hours ago,” Flynn said.
“I am hungry, though,” Everett said.
“My appetite’s back now that Luke put his damn shirt down,” Cayden said.
Drew threw his head back and laughed while Cash growled in frustration.
“You and I are talking later,” he said.
“Trust me, I’m expecting it,” I said.
“Y’all ready to say grace?” Cayden asked.
“Yep.”
“Let’s go.”
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
We all took hands and Drew said the blessing over the massive buffet of food in front of us. Though Drew was technically our cousin, he felt more like a brother than anything else. We grew up together. Played together. Snuck out together. Threw parties together. Got in trouble together. Hell, he was the one who suggested the restoration business in the first damn place. Since my brothers and I took an offshoot and decided to do our own thing, he was in line to take over my parents’ real estate empire once they passed.
Especially since his own parents weren’t gonna leave him jack shit.
Drew’s mother died in a heinous car crash with a drunk driver when he was only seven, but she was no saint before that. A chronic cheater and liar who struggled to tell even the basic truth. That woman could look at a blue wall and try her hardest to convince you it was yellow. And dealing with his mother spiraled his father into a well of drinking habits that got worse when she died and continued as Drew grew up. Even though Drew’s father was the patriarch of this entire family, he was also the biggest embarrassment. His father remained the biggest drunk any of us have ever known, so our family took Drew in and helped raise him from a very young age.
He was our brother, even if he d
idn’t come from our mother.
“And thank you Lord for keeping Lucas safe, even though he could’ve killed himself. Keep Your hands on him and help his sleeping habits, because You only know it’s gonna kill him one day, too. Amen.”
“A-fuckin’-men.”
“Amen.”
“All the Amens.”
“A-MEN!”
I chuckled and shook my head as we released hands, then we all started to divvy up the food. I filled my plate with all sorts of things that made my mouth water. Macaroni and cheese. Spiral, glazed ham. Mashed potatoes drowned in gravy. Sweet corn right off the cob and two massive slabs of fried chicken. Then, I poured myself a massive glass of sweet tea and chugged an entire one before I even touched my food.
“I see that glass didn’t puncture ya stomach,” Everett said.
“Even if it did, it wouldn’t stop Luke from eatin’,” Cayden said.
“He’d pop his damn stitches wide open stuffing his face with food,” Flynn said, smirking.
“You guys can stop it now. I’m tired of hearing you all joke about something that could’ve killed him,” Kane said.
“Awww, Mom’s no fun,” I said, grinning.
Cash shot me another glare as I spooned some corn into my mouth. I knew my brothers understood the situation could’ve been much more serious. And I knew they were worried. I watched them steal glances my way all throughout dinner. We kept the topics of conversation light and fluffy and stayed away from the serious topics, and I knew that was their way of coping. Joking was their way of coping with it. Hell, it was my way of coping, too.
But Cash was a little different from the rest of us, and he wasn’t having it.
Every single joke they made, he shut down. I couldn’t blame him. He was the oldest out of all of us, so he’s always felt the unnecessary need to protect us. Looking at me wounded without being able to do a damn thing about it was grating on him, and the joking only served to scrape at the issue in the back of his mind.
That he should’ve been there to protect me.
“So, what happened after you fell? Someone hear it and call 9-1-1 or something?” Cayden asked.
Wild and Free: A Second Chance Romance (The Wilder Brothers Book 1) Page 3