by Charlie Hart
I lift my chin, looking up at him. “It’s a bad idea,” I tell him. “It’s fear talking.”
“Fear isn’t the worst thing, I suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fear of losing something we love can make us dig deep and find strength. Fear doesn’t have to make us weak, it can make us brave too.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” I tell him, unable to stop crying, salty tears landing on my lips. “Any of you.”
He rests a hand on my cheek, kissing me softly, brushing the tears away with his thumb. “None of your husbands want to lose you either.”
“Does anyone get what they want though, anymore?” I ask in barely a whisper.
Giles sighs, kissing my forehead firmly. “From everything I’ve told you about my past, you know I don’t believe in guarantees. All we have is right now. The choices in front of us, today.”
I swallow, understanding his line of thinking. “And today I can choose to either run or stay.”
He nods. “Tomorrow might bring Lawson or your father to the front door. The cops or the Director or a pack of wild wolves. We don’t know. The only thing we can count on is one another.”
“Is this your way of telling me to stop crying alone and open up with my husbands?”
A tiny smile plays on his handsome face. “Do you want to open up with your husbands?”
“When did you become so good with words?” I ask, shaking my head in wonder at this man who has been through hell and back on account of me.
“I think it was right about the time I fell in love.”
Chapter 15
Banks
When Tia and Giles return from the hall, it’s obvious she’s been crying.
Why couldn't I be the man to take her aside, see the pain in her eyes, and comfort her? It’s a rhetorical question and the answer is simple. I don’t do feelings and emotions. I can’t and I don’t know that I ever will be able to.
Will I ever be the man she truly needs?
But I know that’s a rhetorical question, too. I don’t bake pies or kiss boo-boos. I’m the strength that Tia needs. I am what will hold her together. I’ll hold all of us together.
Giles begins cleaning the floor and the rest of the men start carrying broken items to the trash or garage. When she was upstairs with Giles we all agreed that running away wasn’t an option, and it seems like whatever Giles and she spoke about has allowed her to drop the subject, at least for now.
The men stop in front of her, letting her know they love her, offering her hugs and soft kisses, and she bites back her tears as emotion wells up inside of her.
I stand there watching, knowing I need to speak with her. Some of the things she said killed me to hear.
It’s like she doesn’t believe in me. In my ability to find a cure.
And the shocking thing, the thing that woke me up from a lifelong hibernation, is that I actually want her to believe in me.
I need her to.
“Tia,” I say, working to keep my words steady. The last thing I want to do right now is break. “Can we talk?”
She steps away from Huxley and I take her hand. It’s small and soft against my own, and I’m reminded once more that she may be brilliant and strong, but she still needs tenderness from her lovers.
That is something I’ve never been able to give.
But maybe, just maybe, things are changing for me. The realization I have had certainly changed a hell of a lot. Maybe we’ve needed to go through all of this in order to see the light. God knows I’ve had enough darkness to fill my days.
I take her into the study and close the large french doors, locking them behind us.
She watches me curiously but says nothing. Her hair long around her shoulders and her perfect lips parted. Everything about her is so beautiful, so much more than I deserve. God how I want to be the man she needs right now. The man she needs forever.
The idea of anything happening to her, losing her, makes my body course with indignation. The very idea seems to eat me up inside. I will fight, with every last breath I have, to be a man worthy of her love.
But I need to know she believes in me.
We move to the large bay window. In the distance, two birds sweep down and land on a branch. Everything feels solemn and still, and I know my stilted movements are adding to that. Even though I feel so much inside of me… letting it out to the woman who I want to love me, terrifies me. But I l know holding everything back is creating a divide. I want the walls of my heart to come down with a crash. I want to open my arms and pull her against my chest.
With that in mind, I try to soften myself to her, threading my fingers through hers as we face one another.
“Tia,” I say, my voice low and on the verge of cracking. I bite down hard, burying my emotions, at least until I get through what I need to say. “In the living room, when you said I wouldn't find a cure, do you really think that?”
Tia’s shoulders fall, her face crumbles. This wife of mine can’t hide emotions from her husbands.
A surge of pride rushes through me.
She can’t hide from me because I’m already hers.
“I’m sorry I said that,” she says, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears. “I was angry and confused. A stranger broke into our home and it scared me, brought up so many emotions.”
“But do you believe in me?” I press, my voice laced with fervor.
She seems to feel it. The change in me. She looks up into my eyes, studying me as if seeing new sides to me she didn’t even know existed.
I didn’t know they did either.
She’s changed me, continues to change me.
“I need your support,” I tell her, taking a risk, letting her in. Letting her see the flawed, bruised and broken parts of me. “But more than support, I need your faith. For a man of science, that somehow changes everything for me.”
“You need my faith in you?”
I nod. Shame threatening to wash over me. I admitted what I need from her.
I never ever admit to needing anyone, or anything.
Until now.
“I want to find a cure, I’ve always wanted to. But then I met you and it was more than a want... It’s...Tia,” I say, blinking back tears. The words I want to say I’ve never uttered before. They belong only to her. “I love you.”
“You do?” Her lovely eyes are wide and surprise is written on them. But hope is written there too. “You love me?”
I nod. “I do love you. But I need your faith, Tia. I can’t... I can’t fucking do this alone.” I run a hand through my hair, desperate for her to understand me more than I’ve ever wanted anyone to understand me before. Completely. “I’ve tried for so damn long,” I tell her. “When you said you didn’t believe in me earlier, it crushed me. And now I know why. Because I love you so fucking much.”
“Oh, Banks,” she says, flinging her arms around me, her words dripping with passion, filled with sincerity. Words meant only for me. “I do believe in you. I’m just scared. But Giles told me that fear isn’t always a bad thing. It can be our drive, the force that pushes us to where we need to go.”
“Giles said that?” I look down at her in my arms, offering her a playful smile, realizing that bastard knows what he’s talking about. And maybe he’s right, maybe I need to come clean about my past with my family. But today, coming clean with Tia, about the way I feel for her, it’s a place to start.
“Yeah,” she says. “And I think he’s right. We can let fear immobilize us or propel us forward.”
An uncharacteristic grin begins to spread across my face. “So that means we’re staying put, not looking for ways to get out of this, right?”
“Right.”
I kiss her forehead. “Then I think I need to get back to work.”
At the lab, I pull an all-nighter, drinking caffeine-filled energy drinks and keeping my mind solely on the problem before me: saving my wife, the woman I love.
I’d
been off at the resort all weekend, and after the time away, my mind is racing with newfound vigor. Telling Tia how I felt opened me up for the first time in my life. It reenergized me to finally find the cure I’ve worked my life to discover. But now, I am as focused as ever.
I use the showers on campus and pull clean clothes from my locker, then get back to work. A research assistant checks on me when he clocks in on Monday morning.
“You’ve been here all night?”
I nod but don’t look up from the vial in my hand.
“I’m on it, boss.” Then he scrunches up his face as he looks at the folder I put in his hands. “The C65 files? Are you sure?”
I raise my eyebrows. Who does this kid think he is talking to? “I’m sure.”
Returning to my work, I start looking for a link between Tia’s daily fertility levels and those of every other patient who has been on the treatment plan. Hers don’t match.
But why?
Of course, I don’t want anyone at the lab to know I am administering this treatment on my wife, but I wish there was someone besides Tia I could discuss her anomaly with. The last thing I want to do after we just made so much headway is to cause her to worry, to lose her faith in me. Still, there are missing pieces to this puzzle.
After being here for twenty-four hours, Huxley shows up and tells me I should come home, that Tia is worried about me. It’s late at night and everyone at the lab is already gone.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, scrolling through the latest figures my assistant compiled on my tablet. “I need to figure this out.”
“Figured you’d say that.” He sets a thermos on the counter. “That’s why I brought you coffee.”
I smile and thank him.
“Our wife still has a lot to learn about the level of stubbornness in her husbands.”
Hux grins. “You love her now?”
I frown, reaching for the coffee and pouring some into a mug. “Do you care?”
Huxley shrugs in his typical nonchalant manner. “I care a lot about her, and I need to know where her allegiance lies.”
I scoff. “Allegiance? What the hell does that mean?”
“I just want to make sure we can trust one another. And if Tia loves you, guess I shouldn’t give you such a hard time, that’s all.”
I narrow my eyes. “I wasn’t particularly aware that you were giving me a hard time, Huxley.”
He raises his hands in defense. “Right. I don’t know. I was just...” He waves his hands in front of himself. “I’m just glad you and Tia are playing nice now. She deserves the best.”
“Agreed.” I sip my coffee, unable to shake the feeling that Huxley is acting oddly. “Hey, uh, how did you get in the lab?”
“What do you mean? I came through the front doors.”
“But the alarm system is triggered at seven on the dot. It’s after eight now.”
He shrugs. “Must have been a glitch.”
“There aren’t glitches at this research facility.”
“Guess you’ll have to look into that. All I know is I came through the doors. Anyways, I gotta head back to my shop. Good seeing you, man. And make sure you get home soon. Your wife is worried.”
“Will do,” I say, eyeing him as he turns to go. “Do you need me to walk you out? You need a key card to exit and enter after hours.”
“Oh, right.” He turns to face me, and if he’s hiding something, he’s good at keeping it under wraps. “Then I guess you better come with me.”
I grunt as I stand, grabbing my keycard, and following him through the doors. We may be a family now, but there is still a hell of a lot of things I don’t know about the other men. And when it comes to Huxley, I think it might be better to stay in the dark.
Chapter 16
Tia
Banks has been brief with his phone calls, but he has thanked me for diligently reporting my daily hCG levels. The past week he’s worked non-stop, and I’m worried. He’s going to burn out or get sick.
“You need to come home,” I tell him. “Sleep on something more than a cot.”
“I know, tomorrow, I promise. There’s just some more tests I have to run. I’m getting closer, Tia.”
Silence. He told me the same thing yesterday.
“I did some reading on the file you sent me,” I tell him, hoping he’ll talk to me for more than just a couple of seconds like most of our conversations lately. I don’t think he’s trying to push me away. It’s more that he’s so damn focused that he can’t concentrate on anything but the research in front of him. “I think it matches what we know about patient C65.”
“You mean what we know about you.” His voice is controlled, but I hear the small sigh he gives.
“Yeah.” I swallow. “But I think you need to run my blood again to be sure. I think the treatments might be mutating my cells.”
“How so?” Banks asks. There’s a sharp scraping noise, like a chair being pushed back, and when he says my name, I can tell he’s pacing. “Tia?”
“I’ll send you what I have. I made a few notes. And then... please, come home.”
“Tomorrow. I feel like I’m finally getting close.” I hear the pride in his voice, and I don’t want to pull him away from his work. Especially, considering if, or rather when, he has his breakthrough, it will change the course of history.
And I know he’ll crack the code. It’s just a matter of time.
“Banks?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Tia.”
We hang up and I feel a fluttering of hope in my belly. Banks loves me. Stoic, reserved, impenetrable Banks.
But when tomorrow comes, and another day passes with still no sign of my husband, I finally take it into my own hands to bring him home.
“I need you to drive me to the research facility,” I tell Fallon when he walks in the front door.
“Banks?” he asks.
“He needs to come home. He’s going to end up getting sick, or worse. I’m not even sure if he’s had anything to eat other than the meals we’ve sent.”
“Okay, come on.” Fallon hands me my jacket, then places a hand on my lower back as we walk towards his truck.
The security at the facility isn’t quick to let us through, but thankfully Salinger is there, and ushers us into the sterile building, a frown tugging at his lips.
“He’s not going to leave,” Sal says. “I’ve tried talking to him, but it’s like he’s in his own world. I’m worried.”
“So am I.” Even more so when I finally see Banks.
His usually clean-shaven jaw is coated in a week's worth of scruff. While it actually looks good on him, giving him a more rugged appearance, his eyes are bloodshot and there are dark circles under them.
“What are you doing here?” He looks between the three of us.
“We’ve come to take you home.” I place a hand on his arm.
He gives a hard shake of his head. “Can’t. Not now. Almost on the verge of something. Something big. I promise I’ll come home tomorrow.”
“No.” I reach up and place my hands on his face and force him to look at me.
Even though his gaze meets mine, it takes a while before his eyes focus and I know he actually sees me.
“Hi.” I smile up at him. “I’ve missed you.”
He exhales an uneven breath and rare emotion swims in his dark eyes. “I need to do this, Tia.”
“I know.” I get it. Understand that he’s working for me. “But you can work at home too. And maybe everything will be clearer after a good night sleep, a home cooked meal...” I lean up and whisper in his ear. “And a good hard fuck.”
Fallon coughs behind me, obviously hearing what I said, but I don’t care. It’s exactly what Banks needs. He might not want to admit it, but he needs me. And I see the desire push away the cloudiness that had been there moments before.
“Come home, Banks. Let me take care of you. Then if you want to come back, I won’t st
op you.”
He finally nods, and both Salinger and Fallon sigh, because I’d already told them that one way or another Banks was coming home tonight, even if it meant physically restraining him. But I know Banks, and he’s done many things for me. Things he wouldn’t do for most people, but in some small way, I think he holds me in a different light and is finally beginning to let me in.
“I just need to gather some things.” Banks pulls away and starts stuffing papers into his bag.
My gaze is pulled to a DNA sequence displayed on one of the monitors, and I frown as I move towards it.
“This...” I say, feeling Banks stand behind me. “What does it mean?”
Banks threads his fingers through mine. “That I’m almost there.”
“You’re going to find a cure,” my words are filled with hope, but with truth, because I know in my heart that he will.
I just hope to God that I’m still here when he finally does.
Chapter 17
Banks
I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until my head hit the pillow of my own bed. After devouring one of Emerson’s pot roasts and half a dozen broiled potatoes, getting a shower, and taking my wife hard and fast, I slept for almost twenty-four hours straight.
“Shit,” I mumble, rolling over and glancing at the time and date on my phone.
I should have set an alarm, but in truth, I needed the rest, and for the first time in days my head doesn’t feel foggy.
“You’re awake,” Giles says when I come downstairs, following the scent of garlic.
“Did I miss dinner?”
“There are leftovers.” He follows me into the kitchen and pulls out a tin foil wrapped glass tray of lasagna. Removing the wrap, he places it on the island in front of me, then hands me a fork. “It’s still warm.”
I dig in, knowing I’ll easily finish the half that’s left.
“Are you feeling better?” Giles asks, leaning against the counter.