Resolution (Saviour)

by Lesley Jones

  Gabe, Zac and Cooper take all of the older kids out on the Jet Ski’s while Charlie offers to take some of the younger ones out on the boat. Jackie looks at me with disdain when I volunteer to go out with him, “Wouldn’t you rather stay here and lounge around the pool Lauren, you really are looking quite pale, your tan could do with some work.”

  Before I get a chance to speak, Stella harks up, “I’ll come with you Loz, I don’t want to lie around here getting baked and wrinkly from the sun, taking the kids out on the boat will be a blast…Dad you ready?”

  I shrug at Jackie and can’t help but smile; we round up the kids and enjoy an hour out on the water before the boys find us, just as Charlie’s mobile rings.

  “Gabe would you go and pick Jackie up, she’s bored and wants to come out on the water.”

  Gabe doesn’t get chance to answer before Cooper jumps in…

  “I’ll go; Gabe wants to take Lauren out.”

  I spend the next half hour with Gabe squeezed between my thighs, my arms wrapped around his waist as we dodge and weave our way across the lake; when we get back to the boat the kids are all desperate for another turn so I take Ava with me. Jackie instantly volunteers to take one of the other kids but none of them want to go with her, so Charlie jumps on, everyone seems to be amazed, apparently Jackie renews her license every year but none of them have ever seen her on the boat or a Jet Ski…ever. CJ jumps on the back of Gabe and we all head out. I love the sensation of the wind and the spray off the water on my face as we pick up speed.

  “Hold tight,” I shout to Ava as I turn in the water. She screams “Woohoo Lauren you’re the best” as she squeezes me tight; I never thought it was possible to love a child that wasn’t of your flesh and blood as much as you do your own but in that moment I realise that I do, I love Ava as if she were my own and quite possibly feel even a little more protective of her because she’s a girl and I have never had that dynamic. We stop just as we get back to the boat, Gabe pulls up alongside us, with a boyish grin on his face; I squirm and smile back at him stupidly; he stands and leans forward and gives me a salty kiss.

  “Having fun?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  “Get a room you two” Ava and CJ say in unison and laugh.

  Gabe’s eyes are on me, all intense and hooded and I know exactly what’s on his mind. We had been thwarted at our attempts to have a quickie this morning by the amount of people coming in and out of our bedroom and despite last night’s antics, I am so desperately horny for him.

  “Let’s head back, it’s getting late” Gabe states.

  Mouthing to me “I wanna fuck you” I start to blush in case Ava has worked out what he just said from over my shoulder. I’m vaguely aware of the sound of an engine…then, nothing, black.

  GABRIEL

  CHAPTER 12

  I jolt awake, taking a few seconds to get my bearings, a few seconds before cold, icy reality sinks in, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, I don’t want this to be real. The smell and the sounds are the first to invade and shatter my oblivion. Antiseptic, disinfectant, bleach, sickness, death? Whatever the fuck it is, all hospitals smell of it, public or private, they all have that 'hospital smell'. Then there are the sounds; the quiet hum of conversation, the occasional sound of someone crying, trolleys squeaking, machines bleeping. I'm aware of all of this before my world once again comes crashing down around me. Fuck, no, no, no.... Please, I don't want this to be true, I don’t want any part of this to be true. I kiss her hand as she lies there in the bed, looking tiny, fragile and yet so peaceful. There are tubes in her hand, up her nose and down her throat, machines bleeping at the end of the bed and a blood pressure cuff that tightens around her arm every so often. I don't think I have cried so many tears in my life, I have begged and I have pleaded for divine intervention, I've asked my Mum, who I have always believed is watching over me to help. I've offered myself. Let it be me, please, take me, just let her live, because if she doesn't, I don't think I will be able to go on; but nothing, nothing at all has changed, she still just lays there looking serene and beautiful and totally oblivious to the chaos and heartache that's going on all around her and every now and then that makes me angry, if she just knew, just for a split second, what we are all going through, how much we love her and want her well again, I just know she would wake up; but she doesn't and that makes me angry and helpless, I can't do anything, I can't change anything, I can't make her wake up and I can't make it all go away; and that makes me so fucking angry.

  I've made her hand wet with my tears. I sniff and wipe my face on my T-shirt.

  “Baby, please wake up, please, I love you so much, so, so much, please try, for me, please try.”

  I stand up and stretch and crack my jaw and knuckles, anything to try and take the edge off this rage I feel: why, why us? In the blink of an eye my world has been changed forever, the three people I love most in the world all affected…and there’s not a thing I can do to change it. My Dad’s dead, my Dad, Charlie Wilde, is dead, gone, I no longer have living parents, both of them now gone, but people lose their parents all the time right? Doesn’t make it any easier when it happens to you though, but we always knew it was something that would happen one day, we all grow up knowing that one day we will lose our parents at some stage, I know that more than most! But not this, not Lauren and definitely not Ava, not my child and the woman I love, the two people I’m supposed to protect and right in front of my eyes, they were almost wiped out, both now lying in separate hospitals, both comatose because of their injuries caused by a Jet Ski accident, right in front of my eyes, if Cooper hadn’t been there, Lauren would probably be dead and I would be trying to live with my decision to jump into the water and save Ava first, right now I owe my brother everything, he didn’t hesitate, as the accident unfolded in front of us, he jumped straight in and pulled Lauren to safety while I dragged Ava onto the boat but it still might not be enough, I still might lose them both and I can’t change it, I can hope and pray and beg but I can’t actually change it and I feel like an absolute failure; I’ve promised Lauren on more than one occasion now, that I would protect her, keep her safe and once again, I’ve failed to keep my promise.

  I sit back down on what is quite possibly, the most uncomfortable chair on the fucking planet and drop my head in my hands and think back to the night that I first set eyes on Lauren; I hadn’t planned on going out that night, Friday the fourteenth of September 2012, the day that changed my life! When I woke up on that Friday morning my weekend was planned, I was picking Ava and Sophie up from Nina’s and they were coming to stay at mine for the weekend but then Ava called to say that Sophie was sick and she didn’t really feel like coming on her own and as school holidays were coming up and she would be staying with me for a week then, she wanted to spend some time with her Mum, Nina, my ex, who was expecting her third baby sometime soon.

  Although why anyone would want to spend time in that woman’s company is fucking beyond me, or even get her pregnant for that matter, I shudder at the thought, grateful every day that I was too pissed to remember the night I fucked her and made her pregnant. Anyways…Ava cancelled and I was pissed off, I went to work with the biggest sook on, planning on calling Alyssa or one of my many other fuck buddies as I was now going to be at a loose end all weekend; I clear my schedule when I have Ava over, no work and definitely no women, but…I haven’t had a root in a couple of weeks so I might just tap one of my sure things tonight and maybe a different one tomorrow night, I might actually see if I can get Alyssa over tomorrow night with her mate, Kelly or Cally or whatever her name had been for a threesome, shame Jake wasn’t around, we had done some freaky shit with them two, really freaky shit, those two were wild and up for absofuckinlutely anything; the last time we had all been together at Alyssa’s place, the girls had fucked each other with a double header, while they let me and Jake fuck them up the arse at the same time, the pair of them had screamed so loud, someone had banged on the front door and asked if everything
was alright! I had thought at the time, that I was living the dream but when I think back to what we did with those girls that night now, I feel nothing, I don’t even get a twinge…I let out a big sigh and walk out to the family room and make myself a cup of coffee, it’s dire, instant shit…I must remember, when Ava gets better and I have a moment to myself, I will donate a descent coffee machine to the ward so no other parent has to drink this shit, I walk back to Ava’s bed and as I pull the curtain back, a young nurse is there writing something down on Ava’s charts, I panic.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “Yep, everything is fine, Dr Tan will speak to you tomorrow about slowly bringing her out of the coma, the swelling is nowhere near as bad as he thought and has gone down considerably and the small bleed that she had doesn’t seem to have done any damage but we won’t know for sure until we bring her round. I will leave it to the Dr to explain everything in detail tomorrow but that’s the plan. Do you have any questions?”

  I shake my head, “No but thanks for letting me know, I, will, I need to go and see Lauren later, my partner, but I will wait till Ava’s Mum gets here, she will be okay won’t she? I won’t be gone long.”

  “She will be fine, you really should go home and get some sleep. You will want to be awake when they bring her round.”

  “I’m fine thanks.”

  Go home and sleep, she’s kidding me, right?

  I sit down on the arse numbing, back breaking chair and take a sip of the shithouse coffee. I can’t wait for Nina to get here so I can shoot back to the Alfred and see Lauren. Lauren, the love of my love. I’m not known for being a romantic but I am happy to stand up in front of anyone and declare my love for that woman and nobody is more surprised by that fact than I am.

  Going back to September fourteenth, Zac had worked out I was pissed off about ten minutes after I had arrived at our office and had shouted at Michelle, our receptionist for the third time.

  “Bro, chill out, stop shouting at the staff, what the fuck is wrong with you this morning?”

  I shrugged, he would only take the piss and tell me to go and spend the weekend getting laid if I told him Ava had cancelled, but oh well.

  “Ava cancelled, Sophie’s sick so she wants to stay home and spend time with Nina, before the new baby comes but I’ve cleared my schedule and don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “Well me and Coop are going for a few beers down Main street tonight, you’re welcome to come with, you’d be doing me a massive favour, Coop always wants to talk about work and shit and it gets boring after a while.”

  Cooper shouted from his office, “I heard that, you cheeky cunt, I do not always talk about work. I only talk about work if we’ve run out of things to say about Gabe, which let’s face it, doesn’t happen often.”

  Cooper’s lanky six foot frame appears in the doorway to his office. His space is bigger and separate from mine and Zac’s, Coop deals with contracts and planning and all the complicated shit and he complained that he couldn’t focus when Zac and I were both in the office at the same time, so we sectioned him off and gave him his own space.

  “Come and have a beer with your big brothers tonight and then tomorrow morning you can come and help me and Zac gently persuade Frank Carroll to pay the money he still owes us.”

  As much as they thought otherwise, I love my brothers and love spending time with them, so I pretend to think about it for a minute, “Yeah okay, let’s do it.”

  We have a drink in a few different places and around nine o’clock we end up in our usual bar, which is packed and has a band playing old tunes; I grew up drinking in this place and know a lot of the staff and the regulars, as do my brothers, difference being, I’ve fucked most of the female regulars, unlike my brothers, who are both very happily married and do not mess around on their wives. We have a few drinks and I talk to a few Sheila’s but there’s nobody in the house that’s taking my fancy tonight.

  “Fuck, Jo Myer has just walked in, if I weren’t a married man I would so go there.”

  Zac and I both laugh, comments like that are more Zac and my style, not something Cooper would usually say, but I totally got it; Jo owns the accountancy firm the looks after our tax affairs and she is fucking smoking hot but for some reason has never fallen for my charms, no matter how many times I’ve hit on her, all she ever repeats is that she doesn’t mix business with pleasure. I look over Zac’s shoulder to where Jo is standing with some friends and my eyes are instantly drawn to the woman that she’s talking to; she has the most gorgeous red hair hanging way down her back, she is standing sideways on to me and I can’t really make out the rest of her through the crowd, as she is so short, I can see Jo leaning down slightly to talk to her, Jo is pretty tall for a woman and is obviously wearing heels tonight as she looks about five feet ten, her friend is only about five-three, five-four at the most. I have no idea why I am standing there trying to surmise on this woman’s height. Why the fuck do I care how tall Jo’s mate is? But I do love the colour of her hair; I’ve always had a thing for redheads but don’t think I have ever had the pleasure of au naturel… To coin a phrase, their collars never matched their cuffs, if they had any cuffs that is!

  I go to the bar and got us another round of drinks and as I pass them to my brothers, I watch Jo and her friends move closer to us as they head for a table by the dance floor. Zac and Cooper are deep in conversation about the Frank Carroll situation, the fucker owes us about two hundred grand and has so far evaded all our attempts to accidently bump into him, tomorrow we won’t bother with the accidental part, we are going to knock on the fuckers door, very early in the morning and wait with him till the banks open, at which time, we will very kindly escort him to the bank so that he can withdraw what he owes us. My Dad didn’t turn my pop’s small building firm into the successful development company that it is today by doing things the conventional way and us three Wilde boys had every intention of continuing with Charlie, my Dad’s way of running things. I’m only half listening as I watch the red head finally turn around and face me. Fuck and fuck, I get this weird sensation in my chest, that moves to my belly and out of nowhere, my dick has jumped to life in my jeans. Thanks Ava for talking me into buying these stupid skinny chino things. They show every little lump and bump; I let out a deep breath and adjust myself before anyone notices.

  “Dude, leave your cock alone. That’s so not what you do when you’re standing in a bar man.”

  Trust Zac to notice, “Fuck off man, I had an itch.”

  “You have a dose more like, caught something nasty from one of your skanks have you? When was the last time you got checked out bro?”

  “Fuck off Zac, I always wear an overcoat, got caught once remember and as much as I love Ava, I learnt my lesson big time, and I got the all clear from the company medicals we just had and I haven’t been with a Sheila since then.”

  “They were three weeks ago Gabe” Cooper harks up.

  “Dude you’re single and you haven’t had a fuck in three weeks? Man, you must be on like stage five restrictions as you are in a severe draught period – three weeks, that’s a seriously long time.”

  I don’t hear any more, everything just fades to background noise as I watch shorty look around the room as she – shit, is she crying? She keeps her face away from her friends and I watch her as she quickly wipes tears from under each of her eyes and then turns back to them and laughs at whatever is being said, a smile plastered on her face, a smile that doesn’t reach her pretty eyes, which I think are blue but I’m not sure, I need to inspect them closer, much closer.

  She suddenly pulls off her jacket and grabs an empty beer bottle and starts to sing along to the song, it’s an old Clash tune and I can’t help but smile as she really goes for it, another friend joins her and the pair rock out together and as she moves I notice her tits – fuck me, how did I miss those babies, she’s wearing a silky blouse thing and apparently no bra, definitely no bra, every time she moves they jiggle, every
time. Every. Fucking. Time. My mouth fills with water.

  “Gabe…Gabe…What the fuck are you looking at? Gabriel.”

  I can hear Cooper but I can’t answer him and I can’t tear my eyes away from her, she’s, she’s just so fucking small and cute and soft looking, with bouncy tits and red hair and she’s just perfect.

  “He’s in the zone Coop, who’s the victim?”

  I look up at Zac as he stands next to me following the line of site my eyes were taking.

  “Who is she Coop, dya know her? The red head with Jo.”

  We all watch as the redhead, Jo and two other women deliver a word perfect rendition of American Pie, all verses.

  “Na, na I don’t, but she’s got a great rack.”

  We all suddenly look away as Jo turns and starts to head towards us, my brothers being the cowards that they are, disappear and leave me standing there, alone, with Jo heading towards me and a raging hard on, I quickly turn toward the bar, Jo stands next to me but seems to be oblivious to my presence.

  “Hey Jo, how ya going?”

  “Gabe, how are you?’

  She leans in and gives me a cuddle and a kiss on the cheek, I’m careful not to get too close, I don’t want her to notice my boner, I know Jo and she will announce it to the whole bar and find it hilarious, which it fucking isn’t.