Practically living at the hospital and having no real home to return to left her feeling like there was no ground beneath her feet. She needed change, but change was hard to make happen when you could barely stay awake. She didn’t have the energy or funds to see a lawyer, as Rachel had been nagging her to do, and the job she’d gotten at No Frills after the split was enough while she had no real bills to pay. After all, a burned-down house didn’t need water, or internet, or gas, and the taxes were still in Adrian’s name.
At some point, if Adrian wasn’t prepared to do his part financially, she needed to check out if it was true she was covered by employment insurance assistance in some way. Until then, she’d keep working at the grocery store to put a little away so they had at least the first and last month’s rent to get a place, regardless of whether Adrian helped them or not.
Being in the hospital had brought about one positive thing. She wanted to go back to school. Somewhere along the line, she’d lost herself in being Adrian’s wife and Daniel’s mother. But she was determined to reevaluate, to make more of herself. She opened the board titled Nurse for Life, then quickly closed it again. Becoming a nurse was a pipe dream for now. There were so many expenses in her future, that college would have to be put on the back burner.
Heather moved closer to Daniel so they could share his earbuds to listen to Preload’s songs on the antiquated iPod Rachel had loaned them so he wouldn’t get bored.
Kendalee rested her head back on the chair and closed her eyes. Images of a large bed with crisp white sheets in an opulent hotel filled her mind, pushing away the reality of the uncomfortable chair. Mind over matter.
After what felt like only seconds, her phone pinged and she grabbed it as it slid off her lap.
Name 5 things to do on a rainy day.
She looked at the number but didn’t recognize it. Probably a wrong number. She leaned back into the chair and lay her head back. Just as she closed her eyes, it pinged again.
Want me to start, Kendalee?
Seeing her name made her jump a little. Whoever it was knew her.
Who is this?
It’s Elliott. Go ahead. Name 5 things.
He’d asked for her number when he’d left on Tuesday evening, but she hadn’t heard from him at all since then, except for the bumper pack of Preload merchandise that had arrived for Daniel at the hospital.
Excitement coursed through her at the idea he’d texted her directly, and she was more than willing to play along. But what should she put? If she were to spend the rainy day with Daniel, she’d have answered with “board games, movies, nap, read, and some kind of computer game.”
What if Rachel was right? What if now really was the time to figure out what she wanted out of life? Perhaps she could dip her toe in that water by answering Elliott honestly. What would she do if she ignored everything everybody expected her? What if she stopped being the sensible one for a moment and answered without filter—answered from her heart?
Her phone pinged again. The rain is going to be over by the time you answer :-)
I’m thinking . . . okay. Here is my list:
1. Run outside naked. I’ve never felt the rain on my skin
2. Take a bubble bath in a room with giant windows
3. Pull on socks and a thick sweater and watch a movie
4. Sit on a patio with a bottle of . . .
She paused and googled “very expensive red wine.” Jesus Christ. Some wines sold for fifty thousand dollars.
Château Margaux 2009 and watch the storm
5. Fall asleep to the sound of the rain in a huge bed with beautiful sheets.
You?
There wasn’t an immediate response. She looked at her phone, willing a message to appear. Her hands shook. Would he think she was hitting on him? Naked in the rain? In fact, in retrospect the whole list could conceivably be construed as a lame attempt at seduction. When her phone pinged, she jumped.
We need to talk about your list.
I’m sorry. I was trying to be honest, not trying to hit on you.
Lord knew she meant it. She looked over to Daniel, who was showing Heather the two tour T-shirts he’d received. He needed Elliott’s help, she was sure of it. Anything more than friends between her and Elliott was a recipe for disaster no matter how badly she wished their meeting to be different. There was no way she was going to muddy that water.
First. I think the sight of you naked in the rain would be pretty spectacular. You’d look like a pagan priestess.
Despite all of her internal warning signals, she felt the creep of heat flush her cheeks. It was impossible to remember the last time a man had paid her any kind of compliment. And that the man in question was pinned to her son’s wall less than a few feet away was surreal.
Second, you missed a step between 4 and 5.
Kendalee scrolled back up the list. Drinking wine on the porch and going to bed sounded like a perfect evening to her. I did?
You don’t savor a fine wine on a rainy night only to pass out in fine bedding. That’s like going to a restaurant and only having an appetizer and dessert. Both are tasty, but neither are the main course.
Dear lord, he was talking about sex. It had been so long since she’d actually had any, it hadn’t even been in her line of sight. And she was in her son’s hospital room. She panicked but, she told herself, it was a grown-up-woman kind of panic. Controlled panic. Shit. Who was she kidding? She felt like her fifteen-year-old self waiting for Cody Lorimer to ask her to the school dance. Her phone pinged again, and she was almost scared to see what he’d written.
Add that entrée, Kendalee, and our lists wouldn’t look too different.
She quickly placed the phone facedown in her lap and covered her mouth with one of her hands.
That would teach her to be totally honest about her feelings.
* * *
Elliott looked out of the living room window of his Toronto home as he sipped his first cup of coffee of the day, listened to the sound of caterers sliding dishes out of cases, and caught sight of a laughing Jordan giving a squealing Lexi a piggyback ride through the main gate, gently placing her on the ground once they were inside. He laid his hands on either side of her face and kissed her tenderly. It gave Elliott hope, seeing the two of them together. They were like Beauty and the Beast, only Jordan hadn’t turned into the suave-looking prince at the end. He’d remained as big and hairy as always. Which Lexi seemed to love. Lexi, on the other hand, looked much healthier than she had less than six months earlier, when she’d been fighting an eating disorder. The ballerina was still slight, especially in comparison to her boyfriend, but you could no longer cut glass on her cheekbones.
It had been Ryan’s idea to have their Saturday morning breakfast meeting catered. The smell of warm cinnamon rolls tempted Elliott to leave his spot by the window, but he’d already been told off for stealing a croissant filled with melted Emmental cheese. When he saw Dred and Pixie walk through the gate, each holding one of Petal’s hands as the sixteen-month-old stomped her bright red shoes defiantly one in front of the other, he wondered how successful the meeting would actually be. There seemed to be a heck of a lot of extra family in attendance.
What was Kendalee doing for food right now? Running downstairs to the Starbucks in the hospital to grab coffee and a muffin? Skipping breakfast altogether? He’d noticed the hospital seemed to have a lot of different places to eat, but still . . . Maybe he should text her when this was done, box some stuff up, and take it over and . . . no.
He’d felt compelled to text her as he’d watched the rain pound the deck of his cottage. Not once in all the years that he’d owned it had he felt lonely, but for some reason, as the storm raged outside the glass doors, he’d thought of her. Had thought of the ways they could spend the afternoon together. As he’d napped on the sofa, he’d imagined making love with her . . . on the rug in the living room, in the lake in the rain.
Hell, he’d just wanted to talk to her.
&nbs
p; Despite the flirty text messages, he needed to stay away. Everything about her family situation was a trigger. Even Daniel. But as he’d sat alone in his cabin, watching the rain wash away the ashes of his fire, he’d felt an unusual melancholy. Usually he cherished the silence and the freedom to be exactly who he was, but instead he’d itched for distraction, for company, to see her again.
Which was fucked up, because he couldn’t decide why he was . . . what? . . . attracted to her? She wasn’t like any of the women he usually hooked up with. Polar opposite, in fact. At first he’d worried that he was experiencing some kind of sick attraction to the mother in her. But after he’d jotted down some lyrics about his confusion, he’d concluded it was the way it calmed him just to be around her. That it was her caring nature that held him enthralled. How she dealt with Daniel’s situation was so very different from his own experience, and he admired her for keeping her shit together for the sake of her son. When she was high, his own mom had laughed as he was abused. Then had cried for three straight days after it happened when she was off her meds. She’d tug him into her bed and wrap her stinking body around him as she wept and spewed incoherent apologies in between telling him how much she loved him.
His phone vibrated and he glanced down at it.
Thank you for the treats you sent for Daniel. He needs the calories.
He’d looked up “burns” while at the cabin. People with severe burns revved their metabolism into outer space. So, he’d arranged for a candy shop to deliver a bucketload of treats. Some of those were for you!
Believe me, his next skin graft is in two days, so having a chocolate stash to comfort eat is perfect :-)
Shit. Maybe he should go again. Perhaps before the graft to keep Daniel’s spirits up. Or would after be better?
Petal squealed, drawing Elliott’s gaze back to the front of the house. She’d obviously seen Jordan, with whom she had a special connection. Dred and Pixie let go of her hand, and Elliott couldn’t help but laugh when Petal lumbered toward Jordan while giving Lexi the evil eye. She was protective of her uncles, especially Jordan because for some reason he could never understand, the kid had a thing for scary-looking hairy monsters. It was fun right now. One afternoon, when she’d seen Nikan walking a hook-up home, she’d smacked at their hands to separate them and then placed her own in Nikan’s. Elliott couldn’t wait until she was sixteen and any potential boyfriend would have to get through all five of them to date her. He was certain she wasn’t going to like them quite as much then. Jordan swept her into the air, and Petal wrapped her pudgy little arms around his neck.
Elliott put his phone into his pocket as Nikan, Lennon, and Ryan reappeared from the recording studio and the front door banged open. It hadn’t occurred to him or Nik to ask anyone to return their keys to the house, nor had anyone offered them up. They were a family, as close as any biological family could be. Elliott fully anticipated that he’d eventually need a keyring for five different sets of house keys.
“Morning, lovers,” Lennon said, stealing a pastry while winking at one of the catering staff.
“Leave the food alone,” Elliott said as he walked toward him. “And the staff,” he added in a whisper.
Lennon looked back over his shoulder to where the women were working. “As if,” he scoffed. “She’s got to be at least forty.”
Once upon a time, Elliott would have laughed and agreed, but goddamn, his mind went straight back to Kendalee. She wasn’t quite forty, but she was likely well into her thirties if she had a fourteen-year-old son. He was pretty certain he’d never slept with a woman older than he was. But she wore it so freaking well. Yeah, there were lines at the sides of her eyes, but they told him she’d laughed often once upon a time. And she was confident. He wondered if she’d be like that in bed. He’d be fucked if he didn’t stop thinking about her.
“Here, say hello to Uncle Elliott,” Jordan said, holding Petal toward him.
At first, Petal played it a little coy, gripping Jordan’s T-shirt and burying her face in his neck and beard before giggling at the way it tickled. Elliott was used to the routine. She always went to Jordan first, but eventually she’d make her way around to all of them, always ending with Lennon. She’d place those little hands of hers on his face and force him to hold her stare. It broke Elliott’s heart so much to watch it that often he’d just leave the room. They all knew how hard Lennon found that kind of contact. Shit, the guy had broken a sweat over it more times than Elliott could remember and had even cried because of it.
Finally, Petal held out her arms and babbled, “Hi. El, El, El, El, El.”
“Yup, you get Uncle Elliott,” he said, bouncing her up in the air. “Shall we go see what’s for breakfast? What do you want?” he asked, walking to the breakfast bar where all the food was laid out.
Petal pointed to a huge cinnamon roll and clapped her hands excitedly.
“Great taste. I want one of those too,” he said. “Let’s share one, shall we?”
Before he knew it, they were all seated around the huge dining room table, the one at which Dred had proposed to Pixie. Ryan kicked off the meeting by giving them a full review of the profits from the European leg of the tour. It had been a huge success, and the deal Ryan had secured for them would provide a huge boost to their already healthy finances. Once the American and Canadian legs were over, Elliott would have enough to buy the guys out of the house with cash.
Petal wiggled around on his lap. She was tired after gorging on carbs and a shit-ton of strawberries. The kid was going to poop red for a week. She wriggled off his lap and headed over to Nikan, who picked her up and cuddled her close. Pixie and Lexi began to clear the table as Ryan continued. There was something very comforting seeing their family grow. They’d always felt like brothers, but having women who were becoming like sisters to him was a whole new thing. In truth, the only women who’d ever meant anything to him were Ellen, the head of their group home, and Maisey, Ellen’s wife and his social worker. Outside of that, his experiences of women were limited to groupies on the road, random hook-ups in Toronto, and a couple of women like Stacey who were willing to entertain the occasional booty call when he wanted to have sex with someone whose last name he at least knew. Suddenly that seemed so many kinds of empty. Unfulfilling.
“ . . . right, Elliott?”
He looked up at Ryan. He’d been so lost in his own thoughts that he had no clue what the guy had just said.
“Sorry, was miles away,” he replied, tucking away thoughts of his sorry love life. No, make that sorry sex life. There was most definitely no loving involved.
“I was saying that although you do the visits to hospitals for all the right reasons, it still makes good publicity when that shit goes viral. I heard it went well over at SickKids,” Ryan said.
“Yeah. That kid Jonah is one tough cookie. Hate to be a pessimist, but we need to keep close to the family. See if we can help them with what they’ve got coming up. Pay for the funeral or some shit.”
“Some shit” was so glib, so unfeeling, but he couldn’t face getting caught up in the emotion of what he’d just said. It would make him ill.
The energy level around the table crashed a little as they thought about the implications of such a small child dying. Nikan hugged a now-sleeping Petal just a little tighter.
“And you saw another kid, right?”
Crap. He didn’t want to go there. It was bad enough that Nikan had been with him at the hospital and had asked questions that evening. Questions he’d been unwilling to answer dishonestly. “Yeah. That went good too.”
“Who else did you see?” Dred asked. “Do they need anything?”
Elliott nodded. “Likely, but I’ve got it covered.”
Nikan leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Let us cover it with you, man,” he said. “Don’t take this on yourself.”
“I’m not.” Even he could tell from the tone of his voice that he absolutely fucking was. And everyone else could tell to
o.
“Kid has life-changing injuries after burning his house down.” Nikan filled the silence, and by the way everyone looked at him as if he’d grown a third eye, Elliott needed to get the fuck away from them. “Burns to nearly half his body. Mom’s homeless now.”
“Elliott,” Dred said, his voice so loaded that Elliott wanted to lean over the table and choke the fucker. “Want me to go see what they need?”
He stood and shoved his chair back under the table. “I’m fine. And I’ve got this,” he said.
Yet deep down inside, he knew he completely fucking didn’t.
* * *
Kendalee paced the corridor by the elevator door and snapped another piece of Green & Black’s mint chocolate from the stash Elliott had sent them. Skin-graft day. Her son was literally going to be skinned to help heal another part of his body. She popped the chocolate into her mouth and attempted to savor the sweetness as it melted against her tongue, but it was useless. Okay, it wasn’t quite skinning—and the nurse had explained it much more clinically the first time Daniel had gone through it—but the idea of the medical equivalent of a large apple peeler taking another layer of skin from her son’s back had sent her rushing to the bathroom in the middle of the night to vomit.
Ergo, chocolate, because brown-bagging it in the halls with a large bottle of Pinot was frowned upon.
Looking in the mirror as she’d brushed her teeth earlier, she’d seen the fear in her own eyes. Terror that she was clueless and helpless as to how to fix things for Daniel. After telling Daniel that she was going to grab a coffee, she’d instead spent fifteen minutes in the lady’s room on the floor below his, crying her eyes out after a morning of trying to keep her son calm since he’d woken up from a nightmare at four a.m.
Until she was calm, she’d continue to pace. Her phone vibrated in her pocket then and she placed the chocolate on the large window sill while she checked it. Elliott had just parked in the underground parking, his text said, and he was on his way up. Surprised by the visit, he would have to take her as she was. Hair a day past the need of washing and a navy blue T-shirt from the stash the church sent, the one that fit her best and was devoid of lace adornments and the smell of mothballs. Vanity was a ridiculous attribute given their circumstance, but it kept her feeling . . . herself. Something she clung to, a vestige of hope.
Elliott Redeemed Page 5