Page 59 of Loving Wild

“So, we did what we could to protect him from her, and we stayed quiet. To this day I hate that she got away with it. We were all young and had no idea what to do. To this day, I’ve no idea if we made the right call.”

“You did what you thought was right,” I tell her quietly. “Like you said, you were young.”

“Yeah,” she replies. “Now, being older, wiser, a parent, I probably would’ve done things differently, but back then, I did what I thought was right.”

“It wasn’t so much we thought it was right,” Sam adds. “It’s what we thought was for the best. Now, I’m like you, Jess, I just don’t know.”

“How do the boys feel?” I ask.

“Same as us,” Jess replies. “I think the whole thing has been even harder for them. We’re close to Gabe and Joe, but that’s their dad and little brother. They just want to protect them both.”

“We all went a bit overboard in the beginning, never letting Gabe out of our sight whenever she was around, but in the end, Zac confronted her.”

“Zac scared the shit out of her,” Jess interrupts Sam and says. “Told her we knew, to stay the fuck away from Gabe, then everything all seemed to go to shit at once. Joe announced he was marrying Jackie, then had a heart attack all in the same week. Gabe’s first thought was that it was his fault, that his dad had found out, that Jackie had lied and made it all out to be his fault. His brain just went into overdrive with different scenarios.”

We’re all quiet again as I take time to process how that must’ve been for them all. A shiver rolls through me, and I pull the blanket around me tighter.

“Once Joe started getting better, and it was established he was none the wiser, things just kinda went back to normal, except Gabe kept avoiding family gatherings,” Jess says.

“And that’s never really changed,” Sam adds. “All these years, Joe just thinks it’s because Gabe has an issue with him remarrying, he has no idea what the truth is.”

We all sit staring into the fire, each of us lost in our own thoughts and as bad as I feel for bringing all those bad memories to the surface for them, I feel better emotionally equipped now I know how things went down for Gabe.

“I really appreciate you sharing this with me. I know it can’t be easy to talk about,” I tell them both after a long silence.

“It sucks, but if you’re gonna be with Gabe, you need to know. I’m glad he’s opened up and shared with you. He’s never done that, not even when we got him in with a counsellor, so it’s good. I’m happy he’s finally found someone, and now you know our side of it too . . .” Sam trails off, but Jess jumps in.

“We were worried. We wondered what you might think of us for keeping it a secret all of these years.”

“It wasn’t so much the keeping it a secret I wondered about,” I admit. “It was how you can all just carry on around that woman like she’s not a fucking monster.”

“It’s not easy, believe me. Especially for the boys, but we do it for Joe,” Jess says quietly.

“It’s for Joe and for Gabe,” Sam adds. “Most families are fucked up in one way or another, mine is totally dysfunctional . . .” she trails off as we all stare into the fire, lost again in our own thoughts.

Memories of arguments around the dinner table, physical fights in the back of the car, and my brothers holding their hands over my mouth so our parents wouldn’t hear me cry after one of them had walloped me are interrupted when my hair is slid from the back of my neck.

I smell him and feel the heat of his body right before his lips brush across my bare skin.

“If you’re cold, we can go upstairs, and I’ll keep you company while you change into your hoodie and trackies.”

Smiling, I turn my head and meet his eyes.

“You drunk?” he asks.

Holding my thumb and forefinger slightly apart, I turn my smile into a grin and whisper, “Lil bit.”

“Does that mean I’m gonna get filthy, drunken sex later,” he says against my ear.

“I heard that,” Dani, who’s appeared from nowhere, pokes her head over Gabe’s shoulder and says.

“Play your cards right, Wild, and you might just get lucky,” I tell him.

He moves around my chair, pulls me out of it, sits in my place, then pulls me into his lap. Wrapping his arms around my middle, he kisses my cheek.

I can smell the alcohol on his breath, and along with his aftershave, and the fabric softener I use, it combines to smell like home, like safety, and I’m again hit with the speed at which he’s come to mean so much to me.

Needing a moment to myself, I tell him, “I’m gonna go up and change.”