Page 44 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Chapter Sixteen

THE WRECKING THORN

There have been times when I’ve heard my siblings say that our mother made a mistake.

As in, she made a mistake having kids too early or having so many of them.

Especially when she knew our father was such an asshole.

Well, it mostly comes from Conrad, the oldest brother who’s more like a sensible parent than a sibling.

Which is why he flipped out when Callie turned up pregnant while still in high school; to be honest, we all flipped out, mostly because the guy who got her pregnant was the biggest asshole in this town, Reed Jackson.

Anyway, Con had the same reaction when a year later, Ledger got Tempest pregnant.

His reasons were different, but yeah, his reaction was much the same.

All of this is to say, I never once thought Mom made a mistake.

I never once thought I would like to have fewer siblings than I do.

Because despite our problems, if we didn’t have each other, we never would’ve made it.

I know people like to tell stories about us, and while most things tend to be exaggerations, the fact that our life was hard isn’t one.

It’s also not an exaggeration that we did stand together, through thick and thin.

All of that to say, I never really expected to have any more siblings either. But apparently, I do. A sister. A half-sister, Snow.

“It’ll be me,” I say and three pair of eyes focus on me, two blue and one dark brown like mine as they stop whatever they were discussing.

We’re gathered in the backyard: me, Con, Ledger and Callie.

Stellan isn’t here because he’s keeping his promise.

I told him I needed space and he’s giving it to me.

I don’t like it, but it’s necessary. And as much as I wanted this—all of us together, just us siblings, like the old times—I don’t like this either.

I don’t like that we’re discussing something that shouldn’t be up for discussion.

“It’ll be you what?” Con asks from where he’s sitting in the rocking chair.

I’m too restless to sit though, so I’m standing off to the side, by the railing. Because again, I don’t like this. I don’t like being among people, even though those people are my family. I haven’t wanted to be near any people for the last three weeks.

“I’ll be donating the bone marrow,” I say.

Callie sits up in her chair right next to Con. “Hey, you don’t get to decide that. First, you have to be a match. And second, I thought we were going to take a vote, which is why we’re gathered here.”

Ledger is sitting on the steps, his thighs sprawled, his elbows resting on them. At Callie’s words, he chimes in, “If there’s going to be a vote, Callie isn’t a part of it.”

“Excuse me? Why not?”

“First, because you’re our little sister and we wouldn’t allow it.

Second, your husband wouldn’t allow it either, because he’d lose his fucking shit if you had to go through another surgery.

He still isn’t over your emergency c-section for Flora.

And third, you have two kids who depend on their mother.

So it doesn’t make sense for you to be laid up in the hospital again. ”

Callie glares at Ledger. “First, you guys don’t get to tell me what to do, because I may be your little sister but I’m not really little anymore.

Same goes for my husband. If anything, I tell him what to do.

Case in point, he isn’t here, is he? I told him to stay away because this is between us, and we need to deal with this as a family, as siblings. And?—”

“All right, enough. We’re not arguing about this,” Con goes, cutting Callie off. “All of us except Callie will take the test tomorrow and?—”

“No, only I am getting tested tomorrow,” I declare, and when I have their attention once again, I continue, “And if I’m a match, then I’ll be the donor.”

“And what if you’re not a match?” Con asks me.

“Then you’re free to take the test and whoever is a match can donate. But if there’s more than one match, the decision on who will donate goes through me.”

“And why do you get to decide that?” Ledger argues.

I glance at him. “Because that’s how this works.”

“That’s how what works?” Callie chimes in.

“This.”

She frowns. “What does that even?—”

“You do understand donating bone marrow means surgery, which means recovery time,” Conrad speaks over Callie, watching me carefully.

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” I tell him.

“And you also understand we have a season coming up in a few weeks.”

“Recovery takes about a week to ten days. So I’ll be back for the season.”

“You’ll lose practice time when you’re already falling behind,” Con reminds me.

I clench my jaw. My game’s better, but it’s still not where it needs to be when the season’s so close.

Conrad has managed to convince the board to let me stay and play a few games before they take matters out of his hands and bench me for the season.

And yes, having a surgery will be a wrench in the already fucked up game.

I could lose my chance, my captainship, everything I’ve worked for my entire life.

But it doesn’t matter. Because I’ll manage.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell the same to Con.

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “So tell me again why is it that you’re so hellbent on getting this procedure when we don’t even know if you absolutely have to yet, before the season you absolutely did not want to miss?”

Anger heats up my blood, but I keep my cool.

There’s no reason for me to go off on my big brother when he doesn’t know the whole story and can’t see the entire picture.

Because I’m not going to share it with him.

I’m not going to share it with any of them.

Just the fact that we’re standing here discussing this is making me lose my head a little bit, so there’s no way I will share anything else with them. Because it’s mine.

This situation is mine.

She is mine.

She may be Callie’s best friend and Callie may have brought her around initially, but I found her first. In all the ways that count, I saw her first. Despite her penchant for hiding and standing off to one side, looking like an outsider, wanting to belong—and now I know why— I was the one to notice her first. Not to mention, I was the first to know her secret.

So yeah, mine.

Not theirs like Conrad said back there. And fuck me but I didn’t like that either, him calling her that. I’m still fucking pissed about it. And this is pissing me off even more, them asking questions and interfering in what’s supposed to be my business.

“Things change,” I finally tell him.

“What things?”

“Important things. Things that have nothing to do with you.”

Unlike a lot of guys out there, I never really thought about being a girl’s first. In fact, I always thought it would be too much work. Too much responsibility. Too much fucking hassle I didn’t need. But I was wrong. I do want to be someone’s first. I want to be her first.

Her first kiss. Her first touch. First to teach her things, show how it is between two people, as obsessed as we are with each other.

First to make her dance in my lap, to sneak into her room through her window.

First to watch her sleep. First to take away all her burdens, to solve her problems. First to keep her safe .

I feel safe with you…

Because I’m also the first one to break her heart. To ruin it, wreck it into pieces. And all because I couldn’t get over my goddamn anger. I couldn’t get over my rage after that phone call. The betrayal. It felt like a stab in the back.

There were a million scenarios running through my head about why my pissant of a father would be calling her.

Until I contacted one of my high school friends who owns a security company, Ark Reinhardt, and asked him to look into her background, and found out the real situation, something I never could’ve expected in a million fucking years.

Never in a million years could I have expected that her mother is married to my father.

That she’s connected to me. Connected to me in a way that’s out of my control.

That was put out of my control years and years back.

And that pissed me off so much, this betrayal, this unwanted connection with her until I couldn’t see straight. And all I wanted to do was hurt her back. Hurt her like she’d hurt me by lying to me, keeping things from me.

Not once did I stop to think about her side of things.

That so much was out of her control too.

Or that if he was an asshole father, it stands to reason he’d make an asshole stepfather too.

And maybe, just maybe , she’d been living through what we lived through.

I knew our situations were similar, but I didn’t know how much.

And when I found out, instead of being her safe harbor like she said I was, I broke her heart. I wrecked her body.

Not her spirit though.

Thank fucking God or I don’t know what I would’ve done except break the world, break the sky, killed everyone, ruined myself to get it back.

But she’s brave. She’s strong. She’s fucking magnificent and as soon as I saw her sitting on that couch, spilling her story, telling us about Snow, I knew. I knew there’s no one else like her.

“Do you have any other plans then?” Conrad asks, breaking into my thoughts.

“What?”

He keeps watching me. “Since you’ve thought about the surgery, I’m sure you’ve thought about other things too.”

I don’t generally care for sharing my plans but I’m going to need their help with this so I might as well tell them. “Her apartment is a dump.”

Conrad frowns. “A dump.”

“It’s in bad part of town.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“She’ll live here,” I declare.

“Here. In this house?”

“Yes.”

“But you live here,” he tells me like I don’t know.

“Season starts in a few weeks, doesn’t it? I won’t be living here then,” I explain. “And until then, there’s enough room.”

Con again watches me for a few beats. “What else?”