Dazzled and Dazed

by Harley McRide

  I pushed myself up and caught her eye. “Thank you…Ma.”

  With that, Olivia O’Malley, the strongest woman I knew, burst into tears. I turned and saw the doctor walk into the room, and then take in the scene. He put his hand to his face and shook his head. It kinda sounded like he was praying, but I couldn’t say for certain. However, when he stopped doing that, he looked at me.

  “Let’s get this over with so you can leave,” the doctor said and moved forward.

  Olivia frowned and looked at Sean. “How rude!”

  The doctor rolled his eyes and said, “Maybe not rude enough. You people keep coming back.”

  Sean grabbed Olivia’s arm when she moved toward the doctor. “Let’s step out into the hall, Ma, so the doctor can examine Jet, and we can get him out of here,” Sean said and started leading Olivia to the door.

  “Fine,” Olivia agreed, but stopped and looked at the doctor on her way out. “Be gentle with my son because it would be a shame if you found your own self in need of medical attention.” Olivia walked out regally as if she hadn’t just threatened the doctor. Sean shook his head and followed.

  When the doctor looked at me with wide eyes, I smiled. “She’s great, isn’t she?”

  “No matter how long I live in the U.S., I will never understand how the men put up with such obstinate attitudes in their women.”

  “Ah, doc, you don’t know what you’re missing,” I said, then laughed when the man looked at me as if I was crazy.

  He checked my heart, my eyes, and I passed the breathing test, which was a little rough since my ribs were tightly wrapped.

  “I’m going to release you to go home today. Most of your injuries just need time to heal, and you can do that at home just as well as here. But, if any vision problems occur in your right eye or if you have trouble breathing you are to come back in immediately. The fractured ribs are going to take a while to heal. Physical activity that brings pain to the ribs should be avoided until they are healed. The deep tissue bruises need to be watched, and they too will take time to heal. Especially the ones around the kidney area. Stitches in your brow will need to be removed in ten to fourteen days. You will need to check in with your family doctor, he will be the one to take the stitches out. I’ve written prescriptions to be taken and was told by the nurse your family has taken them to the pharmacy downstairs already. There is an antibiotic to be taken for five days and a painkiller that can be taken every six hours as needed. You will need them. You were lucky, Mr. Tolsen, that your injuries were not as severe as they looked when they brought you in. And good luck, the FBI didn’t tell us what you were involved in to sustain so much damage to your body, but whatever it was—I most definitely advise against it. The release paperwork will be signed, and then they will bring a wheelchair.” The doctor finished and stuck out his hand. After I shook his hand and thanked him, he turned and walked toward the door.

  “Hey, doc!”

  “Yes.”

  “Find yourself an obstinate woman. You won’t regret it,” I said, and he shook his head.

  “I’m not sure I would be able to handle one. Besides, I think your family has cornered the market on them.” The man laughed.

  “Can’t argue you with you on that, doc.”

  As the man pulled the door open and walked through, he said over his shoulder, “Next time, please keep in mind that we are not the only hospital in the area.”

  Sean and Olivia walked back in a couple minutes after the doctor left, carrying clothes. Evidently, Bry and Reed had picked some up. “What went on in here? We passed the doctor in the hall and he was smiling. In all the times we’ve been here, I can’t recall seeing him do that,” Sean said.

  “I told him he needed to find himself a headstrong woman and that he wouldn’t regret it,” I winked at Olivia, and instead of laughing, she frowned.

  “Ma, I don’t think Jet meant that in a bad way,” Sean said, and Olivia waved him off.

  “I knew that. I was just thinking. So, the doctor is single?” Olivia asked.

  “Ma,” Sean said as if in warning.

  Before I could ask what was wrong, Olivia spoke, “I’ll have to speak with Sonia. She knows several good girls. I mean, maybe if he had a good woman to care for him, he wouldn’t be so uptight.”

  Sean groaned, and I laughed. Saying I loved this family, would never grow old.

  “Yes, I promise I will take a pain med when I get home,” I said to Olivia who was on the phone with me. We had left the hospital no more than twenty minutes ago, she had called four times making sure I was okay and had everything I needed. Of course, I hadn’t even gotten home yet, but in her world, it didn’t matter. She was taking care of one of her own, and it gave her the right to be overbearing.

  “She’s going to show up in like an hour. Maybe we should make a list of shit for her to do, it would keep her busy and out of our hair.” Sean laughed, and Brit shrugged.

  “Maybe, but it will be with a stack of bridal magazines if I know her, and that will keep her busy. Zoey will be in tow because that woman is beside herself right now thinking we need to wait until the twins are old enough to walk down the aisle.”

  “No,” Sean and I said at the exact same time.

  “Hell to the no,” I reiterated, and Brit laughed. “I will give it a month and no longer,” I said.

  “Good luck with that,” Brit muttered, and then we pulled up to the house. We all watched as Angelique, Mace, and Cal were apparently having a standoff on the front stoop.

  “Ohhhh, I wonder what’s going on,” Brit giggled and whispered. “She is gonna fight them every inch of the way. Heck, I could see the chemistry between them and the poor girl is burying her head in the sand so far, it’s gonna take both Cal and Mace to dig it out.”

  “She won’t win, none of you have when we make up our minds. And I think Mace and Cal have made up their minds,” Sean said, and I grinned.

  “Still will be fun watching. Mace and Cal seem to think Angelique is a shy wallflower, and after living next to you two for the last few weeks, I can guarantee they have no clue what they’re getting into. Just because they think they have the scoop, they don’t know the half. We should probably warn them, but fuck, this will just be too entertaining to watch.”

  “What?” Brit whispered quietly, and then Sean chuckled.

  “It will be entertaining,” I said again, knowing that wasn’t what she was talking about.

  “What?” she said again, and Sean laughed harder.

  “Honey, you leave a window open, and we are gonna listen,” Sean finally said.

  Brit whipped her head around and screeched, “WHAT?”

  Sean got out of the car and walked around to her door while I opened mine and slowly pushed my way out of the car. Brit shook her head yelling toward the window, “We are so not done with this.”

  I smiled and shook my head. Yes, we were, and then I saw Angelique getting more irritated and she began waving her arms. Hell, the girls had been giving her lessons, that move was totally Maria, and the cock of her hip, yeah that was Petal.

  “I do not care one iota who in the heck decided the sleeping arrangements. I am telling you no way in heck am I sleeping in a room that connects with yours,” Angelique snapped.

  I frowned as Sean got Brit out, who was still turning a pretty shade of red. I was sure she was running through her head what she and Angelique had said with the window open.

  “Connecting rooms? These two houses are laid out the same and we don’t have connecting rooms.” I whispered, and Sean grinned.

  “Must have been a part of the remodel,” Sean said.

  Mace said something in a low voice we couldn’t hear, and Angelique stomped her foot in frustration.

  “No, just no,” she said holding up a hand to both. “Josh can take that room, and I will take the other one.”

  Cal growled a response, and once again Angelique lifted her hand and said, “I do not hear you.”

  Mace shook his head
and said to Cal, “Did she really just do that?”

  “I need popcorn,” Brit whispered. “I swear, I never used to be this amused by family dynamics before. But ever since I met everyone here, it’s like a soap opera that I seriously am addicted to. Cal and Mace are so, well you know, seriously black and white, while Angelique is not, and she doesn’t get black and white—she is a rainbow of colors.”

  I looked at Sean who was trying not to laugh as we leaned against the SUV and watched. She was right, it was just like a soap opera, down to the point where I saw the neighbors walking by and stopping to look as well.

  Then Reilly pulled up and got out of the car and stomped up to Cal and glared at him. “What did you do now?”

  Cal frowned and opened and shut his mouth. “What? Nothing!”

  Reilly shook his head, and then took Angelique’s hand. “Come on, darling girl, let’s get you inside.”

  “What in the hell are you even doing here?” Cal snapped, and his father turned and shook his head sadly.

  “Son, you had better get used to living with a teenager and fast. He had you on video the second you stepped out here. Thought it was funny.”

  Angelique snapped. “WHAT?”

  “Only on the family message,” Reilly said, and Cal looked toward Sean.

  “Did you know there was a family message?” Cal asked.

  Sean shook his head, and then looked at Brit. What the fuck? I saw her face turn red and she avoided his eyes. Oh hell, there was a family chat, and it seemed none of them were on it. That was so not good. The parents and women could be plotting and ganging up on us.

  “Well,” Brit said loudly and grabbed our hands. “Let’s get a move on. I feel like cooking something good for Jet’s welcome home.”

  “Oh fuck,” Mace said before Brit pulled us away. He closed his eyes before he said to Cal. “I wish you were an only child sometimes.”

  “Me too, you will never know how much,” Cal whispered as we passed by them.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sean

  Our first night in the brownstone had gone decently until Brit made us tell her what exactly we heard through the windows. Then she had locked herself in the bathroom and called Angelique to warn her, which made Cal and Mace open the window and yell at us about keeping our big mouths shut. So needless to say, it took us an hour, plus ordering Italian food, to get her to come back out, then we had kept her up most of the night showing her how much we loved her. Which with Jet’s ribs taped up, we had to be inventive.

  Jet and I had taken the week off to get settled. And Jet had some healing to do. Brit hadn’t though, and we were okay with that because, during her work hours, we would go in with her. We needed to attend a few meetings anyway about what had gone on after the fight.

  Briggs and Larue had stopped by for one of the meetings to fill us in on what they had found, which wasn’t anything different than we had already known. We were still trying to locate who placed the fifty million on Jet. And we figured it wouldn’t take that long since we weren’t the only one not paid out on the bet made. At the odds, we were owed five hundred million, a drop in the bucket compared to the 2.5 billion owed to the unknown better. Larue said we should be able to take a small breather even if they knew who we were. We not only beat them at their own game, but not being able to pay their debt would cause an uproar. Yeah, funny how even criminals have a code.

  Originally, we had planned on having breakfast in bed then discuss our elopement, which was what Sean and I decided. This morning Brit had no less than five phone calls from all the women asking colors, flowers, and venue. Which led to Brit into convincing us to have a real wedding, which really wasn’t that hard. Jet and I informed her we didn’t give a shit as long as it was soon. The date would be set today, but Jet and I said that was our only stipulation. Okay, that and no ugly foo-foo shit.

  Life was normal otherwise, or as normal as it could be. So after dropping Brit off with the other women at my parents’ house, because God knew they needed to plan a few weddings, and since our festivities for the day had been changed, we were heading to baseball practice. It would be the first practice after Jet’s injuries. The other practices we were scheduled for last week had been blow off with everything that had happened. We debated on even going to this one, but the phone calls started after we missed our scheduled times, so we just decided to give up and just do it.

  Jet was still sore, which meant he was playing right field. Brit insisted on calling one of the trainers from the NY Yankees and have her come over and tape his ribs before we left. I was playing shortstop as always. I smiled when I thought about the games. We were doing something for the community that was seriously going to help for a long time. Hell, Brit had even convinced a few of the New York Yankees to come to the first game and sign autographs for the kids. It was gonna be awesome; of course, winning would be the icing on the cake. When some of the teams heard the O’Malleys were playing, it had turned into a feeding frenzy on who got to play us first. They didn’t really care so much about playing us, they figured with our families we would be making more money than some of the others because people would pay to see what we would do next. Especially considering the girls had decided they were going to be cheerleaders, which let’s face it, wasn’t heard of in baseball, but it didn’t seem to matter to them. Apparently, the men in blue had been talking about it over the radio, which did not make any of us O’Malley boys happy.

  I looked over at Jet. “You sure you are gonna be good out there?” I asked Jet who grunted, and then nodded his head. His ribs were taped, but Jet had still been moving slow. It had only been a week since Josh and he had been released. But at least, we’d all settled into some type of routine.

  Brant, who had originally been going to move in with us, of course hadn’t since things had changed in the living relationships. Now, Brant lived with Angelique, Mace, Cal, and Josh. He went to the gym to work out every day, and then back home where he hung out with Josh to keep him busy. We were all making it work. The best part was that the brownstones were now equipped with not only the panic rooms, but state of the art cameras, motion detectors, and other built-in security also. With that, the boys were given a little bit more freedom without being lax on security.

  I had watched Jet for the last few days, and I knew that taking a life was weighing heavily on him. Aristov’s autopsy had come back just two days ago. He had been on roids, which was no surprise, but the drugs in his system were grade A. The coroner had said there were so many different kinds in his system, it was like he’d been given a drug mixed cocktail. Aristov had died from cardiac arrest, brought on by the death blow Jet had given him.

  It didn’t matter whose life it had been, though, Jet had killed someone with his bare hands. I knew it was messing with his head, he just needed to get it out. I was sick of dancing around the subject.

  “You know we need to talk about it,” I said, and Jet leaned back against the seat, and he sighed.

  “I know, what bothers me the most is that in that second, even though I knew I could have been killed just as easily, I felt relief. It was weird because I wasn’t relieved I had won or was alive. I was relieved he wouldn’t be on the streets anymore and wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else. Taking someone’s life, I shouldn’t feel that, you know? And Aristov, how does someone become like that?”

  I was silent for a second, and then I said, “Environment? Not sure really, but it doesn’t make it any less true that if you hadn’t administered that blow, he would have been the one to kill you. I seriously don’t think he would have even thought about you afterward. The look in his eyes, fuck, I know he would have been happy to kill you. When you were down, he was going to do exactly that, and that wouldn’t have been an acceptable outcome.”

  Jet turned to me and shrugged. “You are right, he wouldn’t have. But does that make me any better than him? I’m not sure it does, and that scares the shit out of me. I guess I thought I should feel something e
lse, like remorse. But there is nothing, and that is what I’m feeling guilty about. I don’t think that’s normal.”

  “Is anyone normal in this situation? What makes you better is the fact you have a whole family who loves you. Also, you have a woman who loves you. If you were the type of person who didn’t feel guilty about taking a life, there is no way in hell you would have all that. It is gonna mess with your head, I know it, and so does Brit. We will work through it every single time it does. But you need to talk to us about it.”

  “At the hospital when she laid in my bed, I’d decided then not to let it bother me because she didn’t care that I had killed a man. She loves me anyway. But, Sean, I don’t want this ugliness to touch Brit. Sometimes it feels like it’s gonna consume us, this fucking darkness that surrounds us,” Jet said angrily and looked out the window.

  “The whole thing is ugly, there is no way around it. We are just gonna need to be honest with each other. This is going to pass, this whole thing will be over, and we will move on. Until then, we will deal together,” I said.

  “Yeah, I get that, and I promise I will. But right this second, I’m more concerned about getting this practice over with so we can go pick up our lady before they corrupt her thinking,” Jet said changing the subject, and I knew I had to say one more thing.

  “You are a good man, and my best friend, you know there is nothing we can’t talk about. I will not let this consume you or us. We will fight together. Now, that is the end of this conversation for now. Besides, you are right to be worried about Ma and the others. But I will draw the line at fucking doves. I heard Ma say something about releasing them. Hell no, those things are scary as shit, and they will peck our hands, which I’ll need for the wedding night.”

  “I had a nightmare about orange and blue tuxes like in Dumb and Dumber. Shit scares the crap outta me.” Jet snorted.

  I chuckled, “Yeah, well we are going to have the final say.”