Page 46 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Chapter Seventeen

I’m moving into the Thorne house.

I can’t even believe I’m saying this, because it doesn’t seem real.

It feels like a dream I had when I was twelve.

When I found out about them for the first time and would see them around town.

I wanted to move into their house back then and be a part of their family, me and Snow. But of course, that was crazy.

As crazy as this is. As crazy as the past couple of weeks have been.

First and foremost, my sister is fine. Thanks to the people I went to for help.

I knew it was a lot to ask for. Not only because they hardly knew me, and whatever they knew, they knew through Callie.

But also, because they all mostly have families now, plus the season was— is —coming up and they all needed to be in top form for that.

But they never asked any questions or raised any objections.

They all got tested and Conrad turned out to be the only match.

Since Snow’s condition was dire, they wanted to do the surgery as soon as possible.

But the hospital in Bardstown was already at capacity, so they couldn’t find an opening as quickly as they had wanted.

So Conrad took charge, and at his insistence, they transferred Snow to a hospital in New York City that was able to fit her in right away.

And now my sister is recovering and getting better every day.

Conrad too, by the way. He’s already back at work and prepping to go on the road.

I guess I should’ve known or at least guessed that they wouldn’t raise concerns over helping Snow after how they defended me against my mother.

How all the brothers collectively formed a wall between her and me, and all my friends and my stepsister held onto me to keep me standing.

Like they said, I was their family, their own.

It has to be the most surreal feeling in the world. To be someone’s family. To belong somewhere. To have people you can depend on. To not sleep with your bedroom door locked to keep your stepdad out, or with the baseball bat hidden under your bed.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to wrap my head around the other stuff that happened aside from Snow’s surgery.

Namely that Conrad, while lying in the hospital bed, declared that we’d move out of our apartment and into their house.

Even though he made a very compelling case about my neighborhood being shitty and me needing help with Snow and whatnot, all I could do was stare at him with my mouth open and eyes wide.

Wyn was right by Conrad’s side, holding his hand, and she threw me a serene smile. “He usually gets what he wants. You should probably listen to him.”

Callie scoffed from behind me where she sat in one of the chairs. “Yeah, right. No, you should listen to Wyn . She’s the boss of the boss.”

“I don’t have a boss,” Reed chimed in from where he was sitting beside Callie.

It was Ledger’s turn to scoff then, who was seated in one of the chairs also but on the opposite side of Reed and Callie. “Says the man swimming in poopy diapers. All because he doesn’t want his wife to have to wake up in the middle of the night. That’s whipped behavior.”

“Hey, stop giving my brother a hard time,” Tempest said from beside him. “You changed the twins last week because you didn’t want me to ruin my new manicure.”

“Which is very gentlemanly, Ledge,” Wyn said.

“Exactly,” Callie confirmed. “It doesn’t mean whipped, it means you love your wife so much, you’d do anything for her.”

“You fucking started it,” Ledge grumbled.

“Watch your fucking language, yeah? That’s my wife you’re talking to,” Reed argued.

“I can talk to my sister however I want,” Ledger argued back.

“Don’t talk to my husband that way,” Tempest chimed in, before turning to Ledger and blowing him a kiss.

“Then tell your husband to not mess with me,” Reed grumbled in much the same tone as Ledger had.

“Oi, take your own advice and watch how you speak to my wife,” Ledger said.

“You—”

“All right, enough,” Conrad barked, putting a stop to their perpetual ribbing of each other. “No more arguing. And just to make it clear”—he turned to Wyn, his blue eyes intense and his lips twitching—“she is the boss, and if it means I’m whipped then I fucking am.”

Wyn blushed and everyone hollered and clapped.

And I thought this is what I want . This is what I always wanted, a family, comradery, bantering, being surrounded by people who care about each other.

Not to mention I wanted this for my sweet and shy sister, who’s always been around toxicity and drama.

And if there was a chance she could get that, I should take it.

So I said yes—not that they would’ve let me say no—and then and there they all sat down and made a plan, a schedule of sorts, of who will do what and on which day.

Callie, Tempest and Wyn would take turns making meals for me and Snow, so I didn’t have to worry about cooking.

The guys would be in charge of talking to my landlord and then helping me pack things so we could move as soon as possible, without giving any notice.

There were duties involving laundry and who would drive Snow to the doctor’s appointments.

Who would be there for Snow when I had to go to work and so on.

And I would’ve taken all of that. In fact, I am taking all of that, without feeling completely overwhelmed and freaking the fuck out that none of this is real and could be snatched away from me any moment.

Until Callie brings up the topic of college. And not Snow’s college but my college.

It’s moving day. So it’s been a couple of weeks since Snow’s surgery and we brought her home from the hospital today, and by that I mean the new home: the Thorne house.

The moving is all done. Ledger and Reed brought in all the boxes and the girls helped me unpack and set up my room and Snow’s as well.

She’s taking Callie’s old room upstairs, and I will be in the downstairs room, the one I had slept in the night that changed my life.

The fridge is stocked. The pantry is stocked.

We have beef chili for dinner and vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting for dessert.

Everyone is gone; Tempest and Ledger had to leave early because they had to relieve their sitter; Wyn went home too, to be with Conrad, and Reed is picking up Callie soon.

So I’m totally not expecting her to drop this bomb on me, but she says she’s been looking into colleges for me and Bardstown Community College has a dance program.

She herself wanted to go back when she was at St. Mary’s and if Juilliard hadn’t accepted her application.

While it hadn’t been her first choice, she still wanted to dance—she’s a ballerina—and she would’ve taken any opportunity to go to college to study it.

I know it’s rude, but I cut her off mid-speech and say, “But I… I can’t go to college.”

We’re standing at the kitchen sink, putting away last of the dirty dishes from lunch.

Wyn and Tempest insisted on helping but I shooed them away.

They’d already done so much; I can handle a few dirty dishes that I simply have to stick in the dishwasher.

A curious fact: I don’t think they had a dishwasher when I came over the other night.

Plus the steel looks super shiny and new.

It’s crazy, but they didn’t have it put in just because Snow and I were moving in, right? Because that would be kinda insane.

“Why not?” Callie asks.

“Because Snow needs to go to college,” I reply.

“Why can’t you too?” she asks.

A blush paints my cheeks, but I persevere. “College takes money and I don’t really have any.”

Callie watches me carefully. “If I told you we’d help you, would you take offense?” My back goes up and I open my mouth to retort but she keeps going. “How about you think of it as a loan of sorts?”

I stare at her for a beat, my heart racing, my heart hoping for things, wishing. But then, I say, “That’s…really sweet but I can’t. You guys are already covering her surgery and other medical expenses on your insurance. I don’t know if it’s really a good idea to pay for my college too.”

It's not an easy thing to change insurances, but Conrad pulled some strings and she was brought on to his insurance policy. Which is how we were able to move her to a different hospital so quickly. It was really awkward, accepting financial help like that either, but I had no choice. But this is too much. They’re already doing so much for us.

I can’t let them do this too. All I really need and want is for us to be a family, that’s it.

“Look,” Callie says, turning to me. “Even though, for me, our parents were out of the picture pretty much all the time, I still had a big family. I still had my brothers looking out for me, caring for me, coming to my rescue. So I don’t know how it feels to be doing everything alone.

I don’t even think I can imagine it, so maybe I don’t have any right to say this, but you do have a family now.

I know it’s still new and will take some getting used to but please tell me you’ll think about it? ”

I promise her that and soon after she leaves with Reed, I go upstairs to check on Snow.

She’s in bed, watching soccer on TV while also reading a book.

Her nightstand is filled with flowers and get well soon cards, courtesy of everyone over the last few days.

Plus there’s a couple of balloons tied to her bed posts that Ledger brought this morning when we went to pick her up.

Snow closes the book when she sees me at the threshold and smiles. “Hey.”

She looks a little pale, and I think she’s lost some weight, but overall she’s doing much better.

She’s eating more; finished most of her lunch today.

Her breathing is better too. I was a little worried about her room upstairs and her having to take the stairs every day, but the doctor said it’s for her own good.