Thirteen (Love by Numbers Book 4)

by E. S. Carter

  What hurts more, when I walk into the aftermath of Wayne’s rage, is that I only have to see this second-hand, Nic lived through it. She saw his hate; she experienced his malevolence, and he took something from her that night. He took away her right to feel safe in her own home.

  As I survey the mess all around me, I feel lost. Where do we go from here? Harry’s warmth seeps through my clothes as he wraps his arms around my waist and rests his chin on top of my head.

  “Just grab the things you need, don’t worry about cleaning this up. I’ve arranged with the guys to help me clear this place on the weekend.”

  “The guys?” I lean back against his chest, twisting my head to look up at his face.

  “Josh, Isaac, Liam and Jake if he’s home. We’re going to take care of all this for you, but I need to know if you’re planning on coming back here or if you’re going to find somewhere else?”

  I’m astounded by how much this man gives me without expecting anything in return but I still can’t help myself from teasing him; it’s who we are.

  “You trying to get rid of me already?” I lay it on thick, puppy dog eyes, turned down mouth, the works.

  “No, not at all. I would never…” he flusters.

  I can’t keep it up long. Teasing him is fine but making him genuinely worry is another matter. “I’m pulling your leg; I know you’re not hinting at kicking us out.”

  He leans in to kiss me and I welcome it. I want to ignore the chaos and mess that lays at my feet and get lost in him, but, as ever, Nic has excellent timing.

  “Put her down, we’re here for a reason and snogging while knee deep in all our broken stuff, isn’t it.”

  Her voice has a forced cheer to it, her banter falls flat, and I want nothing more than to go over and wrap my arms around her, but I know Nic, and that’s the last thing she would want.

  “Harry has arranged to clear this place for us, so just grab anything that you want to keep. We don’t need to be here a second longer than we have to.”

  She smiles brightly at me, showing her teeth, it’s another display of how well she’s not coping.

  “Nic,” I call out as she disappears into her room with an industrial sized black sack. She halts and looks over her shoulder at me, her mask of false happiness struggling to stay in place.

  “We’re not coming back here after this, okay?” I wait for an argument, but one doesn’t come. Instead, I get a quick, “Okay”, and she disappears into her room leaving the door wide open. I can hear her inside rummaging around and then silence. No more movement.

  Harry doesn’t wait for me to pull away, he drops his arms, places a soft kiss to my cheek and says, “Go to her, I can make a start out here.”

  I turn in his arms needing more, wanting to draw on the strength he provides me without even trying.

  “I adore you.” I kiss him gently, running my lips over his, breathing in all that he is and all that he gives me. He opens his mouth, and I see the words he wants to speak in his eyes, but I don’t want to hear them. Not here, not now. So I place a finger over his plump lips and beg without words for him to swallow them back down. He knows what I’m asking of him; he knows because I see it when he blinks, and his eyes lock down his feelings. Knowing I’ve stopped him saying the words, knowing they now lay trapped in his throat, choking him and that he’s unlikely to set them free again, hurts more than you can imagine. So I do what I do best when something hurts, I walk away, and because he knows I need to, he lets me, even though I can feel him watching every step I take.

  I walk into the mess that was once Nicola’s room and find it just as destroyed as the rest of our place. Wayne used numerous weapons during his rampage, including a cricket bat and a knife. Nic described it to the police as being the size of a machete and he used both to tear apart and smash everything we owned. What he couldn’t destroy with either of these items, he daubed with blood-red paint, creating a tableau of utter horror and ruin in an attempt to make me the weak girl he once knew.

  Nic stands, stock still, among the debris. Her arms hang limply at her sides, and her head rests low on her chest. I’ve never seen my sister so… broken.

  “Let’s grab some of your things and get out of here, Nic.”

  I want to go to her, hold her, comfort her but I know my sister well, and any attempt at comfort will only be seen as pity. She needs to instigate it, not me, it’s just the way she works.

  Her shoulders rise with a deep intake of breath, and before I know what’s hit me, she’s in my arms. Sobs break free from her chest, despite her failed attempt to hold them back.

  “I hate… feeling this way, Lils. My brain knows it’s over, but the feelings, the fear, won’t go away.”

  I know this pain, for years it was mine and mine alone, and I hate that she’s suffered even an ounce of it. “It will, Nic. I promise you it will pass. Right now everything is still fresh, still raw. It’s like a deep cut and you have no way, right now, to stem the flow of blood, but I promise you-“ I grip her arms and guide her back so I can look at her tear stained face. “I promise you, that open wound will soon scab over. It will still hurt, and some part of you will always want to pick at it, but then something amazing will happen, and the scab will fall off. What you reveal will be even more perfect than what you had before.”

  She sniffs, wipes at her face with the backs of her hands and asks, “Is that what Harry is? Your something amazing?”

  No, he’s more than that.

  “He’s my something extra-ordinary.”

  She can’t help the small laugh that escapes her, “I knew it.”

  “Yeah? Well, that makes you better at all this stuff than me, so why are you holding back on the Dr Hottie front?”

  Her face morphs in a coy smile, and I know she’s holding out on me.

  “Spill it, what aren’t you telling me, Nic?”

  “Well…” she drags out the word teasingly, and her eyes finally sparkle with typical Nicola mischief.

  “C’mon on, spit it out.”

  “He’s text me a few times to see if I’m okay.”

  I can’t help but gape at her like a dead fish.

  “He’s what? How the heck did he go from buying you a coffee, to getting your number and checking up on you?”

  She shrugs and the smile on her face gets bigger. “I’m irresistible. What can I say?”

  An unexpected laugh bursts from my lips, “That you are.” I hook my arm around her shoulder and squeeze, “C’mon, Miss Irresistible, let’s grab your stuff and get out of here. Then you can spill all the details about Dr Hottie. I want to see the texts and everything.”

  She bends down to retrieve her discarded black sack and when she stands back up her face has a wicked gleam, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  “Are you pair having a sneaky game of show and tell while I’ve been working my butt off?”

  I spin around and see Harry standing in the open doorway, a full sack in his hand which he lifts up slightly, “This is all I found worth saving out there, it’s also got anything I could find in your bedroom too.” His expression shows me how hard it was for him to tell me this.

  Nic begins sifting through feathers, broken furniture and slashed fabric, and its then I realise how pointless all this is.

  “Just leave it Nic, let’s leave it all here and start afresh.”

  She stops and takes stock of the room and the utter chaos around her.

  “Lils is right, why not just leave it and when I clear the place with the guys, I’ll make sure we keep anything worth saving.” Harry hasn’t moved from the doorway but he can see, as well as I can, that this room is more or less unsalvageable.

  “I guess you’re right. I just wanted to try. No, that’s not true, I wanted to prove to myself I could try.” She drops the sack on the bed and picks her way through the debris towards us.

  “Take us home, Harry, or lose us forever.” She links her arm through mine and despite trying to joke, I can see
how this has taken its toll on her.

  “Are you trying to quote Top Gun to me Nic? ‘Cos I’m pretty sure you got the saying wrong.” Harry moves to the side of the doorway, motioning an ‘after-you’ with the sack in his hand.

  Every footstep towards the front door feels like an intake of air, and I know Nic feels the same way, especially when she cheekily replies to Harry, “I adapted it just for you. You’re getting a two-for-one deal here, Harry. Most men would kill for that chance.” She chuckles to herself at his blush, and I join her. Leaving this place behind is the right thing for both of us, and neither one of us takes a second look as the door closes.

  “Fucking Hell. You weren’t kidding when you said the place was trashed. This bloke has been locked up, right?” Jake is the first to follow me into Lilah and Nic’s place. Despite having a packed schedule, he rearranged a few meetings to be here today and enjoyed telling us on the way over that he’d blown off an interview on some daytime telly show, to ‘show us how a real man takes care of business.’ Anyone would swear he was going into uncharted territory, not playing unpaid cleaner as a favour to me.

  The thought makes me laugh. If only the tabloids could see the mighty Jake Fox, A-list star and the U.K.’s resident bad boy, in an apron and rubber gloves.

  This is why he’s not my friend; he’s my brother. All the guys in this room are my family, not through blood, through something that’s thicker than blood; loyalty, respect and love.

  “Yeah, he is at the moment, he was refused bail, thank fuck, but Marcus has warned Lilah that the trial isn’t going to be pretty, and she has to stand up and give evidence.”

  Liam comes up alongside me, bucket and scrubbing brush in his hand. “That’s going to be hard for her. I guess her sister has to stand up too?”

  “Yes. Nic will have to relive everything that happened here. It’s not going to be easy for either of them, but they are both strong girls and have fought through tough times in the past, plus they have me now.”

  Isaac, who is on his hands and knees sorting through debris, looks up at my words, “Well, look at you, taking on twins. It’s no wonder you look so tired. I didn’t think you had it in you, H.”

  I kick at a torn throw cushion and send it right at his head, but he just smirks and bats it away effortlessly. “Not all of us are dirty dogs like you and Jake-“, “And Nate” Liam kindly butts in. “-Thanks, Li. Like you, Jake and Nate. I’m with Lilah, and she’s more than enough for me, but that’s not going to stop me from doing whatever I can to help her sister.”

  Josh, the more sensible of all the Fox brothers, is currently dragging broken furniture into a heap in the corner of the room. He stops what he’s doing and looks over at Isaac. “Stop riling him up, Iz. Just because you’ve got more than you can handle on your plate at the moment.”

  Everyone in the room stops. Isaac’s love life is diverse but never complicated. He doesn’t do repeats; he doesn’t discriminate between men and women, and he has never had anything serious with anyone.

  Jake is the one to quiz him first, “Is that right Iz? You finally decided you’re a one lover kind of man?”

  Isaac glares at Josh, the warning to keep his trap shut is evident from the scowl he gives him. Josh, not one for confrontation, goes back to his work.

  Iz shakes it off and smiles big, “What can I say? I’ve got big hands. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” The comment encourages everyone to say what they have that’s big, from cocks to feet and hearts to bank balances. The room fills with the typical banter that comes from having us all together and a few hours later, the whole place is stripped bare.

  Jake hires a bloke with a van to dispose of all the crap while Liam and Iz are busy painting over the damaged walls and Josh helps me box up the few things we managed to save.

  From an entire apartment, we’ve found just three boxes of personal items and clothing that isn’t completely ruined. I guess it’s more than the girls are expecting but so much less than they deserve.

  The one thing I’m most pleased about finding was under one of the beds. It’s an old scrapbook and photo album that contains years and years worth of pictures of the twins, and I can’t wait to return it to Lilah. Memories are precious, and I’m happy to be the one to give her back a book full of good ones; it’ll hopefully overshadow some of the bad ones they’ve gained in the last week.

  Jake comes up behind me and looks at the book in my hands which I have open on a page of beach photos. Lilah and Nic are no older than about eight or nine, and the similarity is striking, especially since their mother seems to have liked dressing them identically.

  “Which one’s which?” He points to an image of both girls in matching polka dot swimsuits. Lilah holds up a giant crab, a beaming smile on her face while Nic has a bucket and spade. The grimace on Nic’s face clearly says she isn’t a fan of her sister’s new pet.

  “Lilah is the tomboy with the crab, she’s fearless, wicked and always looking for the next adventure.”

  “Was it an accident?”

  His question throws me, was what an accident? I stare down at the photographs on the page about to ask him what he means when he clarifies, “Her leg, did she lose it in an accident?”

  I don’t even see her prosthetic in the image; I just see Lilah.

  “No. Meningitis. She almost died when she was eighteen-months-old.”

  “Wow. That must have been hard for everyone. I don’t know how I’d cope if anything happened to CJ.”

  I look at the young girl with pigtails in her hair, a missing front tooth and a giant crustacean in her hands. Even then life poured from her. Her vibrancy shone like a beacon, just the same way it does now.

  “Lilah didn’t cope, she excelled. Life gave her lemons, and she said ‘Fuck the lemonade, pass me Tequila and some salt.’ She’s the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.”

  “You love her.”

  I don’t take my eyes off the photograph, not to hide my feelings from Jake but because I don’t want to stop looking at her.

  “Yes. I love her.”

  “And she knows about…?” His voice is unsure and very un-Jake like.

  I look up at him, and all I see is my best friend, my brother of over twenty-five years. He’s not Jake Fox, superstar. He’s just Jake.

  Maybe that’s my superhero skill. I just see people for who they are, not what they are; let’s hope they all see me.

  “My nuts? No kids? Yes, she knows about it all.”

  He winces when he asks his next question, “And you’ve been able to…?

  I save him the embarrassment, “Get it up? Yes. I have no problems there anymore, the only issue I do have in the sex department is her sister living with us. I swear she purposely interrupts anytime she thinks we’re getting frisky. I’ve renamed her ‘Ni-cock-block-ola’, and she’s proud of the name, has even threatened to get it made into a t-shirt.”

  Jake barks out a laugh, and everyone else in the room looks our way.

  “It’s not fucking funny, I’ve been unable to get it up for over a year and now that I can, there’s a possibility I might die of blue balls.”

  His laugh gets heartier, and he splutters around his chuckles, “You can’t get blue balls, remember?”

  I dig him in the ribs, and he doubles over laughing. “Arsehole. I don’t need a reminder.” But I’m not pissed at him; I’m laughing with him because my life is a comedy of errors.

  I dated twelve girls post-nuts. Twelve fucking horrendous dates and now that Lilah is my lucky thirteen, I should be able to ravish her whenever she or I feel the urge. Instead, I’m babysitting her twin who takes great glee in her self-elected role as Lilah’s chastity belt.

  “She’s a virgin.” Isaac retorts.

  I didn’t even realise he could hear our conversation from over there.

  “What makes you say that?” asks Liam, “You an expert on female psychology and their reasons for cock-blocking others?”

  Iz just shrugs, “It’
s simple really. Before Harry came along it was just them. He said she’s worked hard to get where she is in medicine and puts in long hours, he’s also said that there’s no man, or woman, on the scene. Add to that her constant interruptions. My vote is virgin.”

  Liam shakes his head, his laughter light, “I’m not getting the connection, I think you’re wrong, Iz.”

  “Li-Li, you’ve loved one woman, I’m not sure you get a say; the same goes for Josh. I bet Jake agrees with me.”

  “Hey, leave me out of the virgin discussion, I’ve not even met the girl, I’ve only heard the tales of her cock-blocking from H. It’s a no comment from me.”

  “Says the media savvy star.” Josh jibes lightly.

  “If in doubt, no comment it out. I learnt that from the best in the business.” Jake smiles, proceeding to gather up the boxes and place them by the door.

  “Who told you that? Some media guru the studio hired?” Iz asks.

  Jake places the final box by the door, looks over his shoulder and winks, “Nope. Brad Pitt, and trust me, that man should know after the whole ‘Brangelina’ episode.”

  “Oh my God, my brother is name dropping. It’s time to get out of here before he tells the story of how Madonna propositioned him at the Oscars… again.” Liam’s eye rolls earn him a chuckle from everyone but Jake.

  “Hey, that’s a great story. Stop taking the piss, it’s all true, every word. Ask Emmy; she was there.”

  A chorus of “We know” rings out from everyone in the room, and even Jake joins in with the laughter.

  “Alright, ladies,” he huffs out in mock annoyance, the smile on his face giving him away. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’m flying out first thing in the morning, and I want to spend time with my boy before he goes to bed.”

  I clap him on the shoulder and pull him into a tight but manly hug, “Thanks for coming today, J. You didn’t have to, but I owe you.”

  “It’s what a family does, H. Say Hi to Lilah for me.” He salutes everyone else as they call out their goodbyes but stops when he reaches the door and spins back to face me. “I’ve just had a bloody good idea. One that might save you from the bad case of blue balls you’re currently experiencing.”