Chapter 17 #3
She cries for a long while before finally looking at me. “I hate that you guys didn’t get to do this.”
I wasn’t expecting that, but I should have. I should have realised that the reason why Magan wasn’t accepting the help I’ve been offering her was because of this.
I unwrap my arms from her and take hold of her hands. My heart is squishing itself all over the place in my chest as I look at my sister with so much love. “This is why you won’t let us help?”
She swallows hard and nods, more tears sitting close. “It must be so hard to see me with a baby. I don’t want that for you.”
“Oh, honey.” I squeeze her hands as my own tears move on in.
“No. It’s the most wonderful thing seeing you with Harper.
You both make me so happy. And Henry too.
I love you guys. If I had my way, I’d be here every day with you, Magan.
Please don’t push me away because you think this is too hard for me. That would be too hard for me.”
“I can’t even imagine going through what you did.”
“I’m glad you didn’t have to.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you as much as I should have been.”
“You were there exactly how I needed you.”
“No, I wasn’t. I was too busy focussing on myself.”
“Well, you were a teenager the first time we got pregnant. And only twenty-two the last time. And that was your first year teaching. Your focus was where it should have been.” I squeeze her hands again.
“I would have been more upset if my miscarriages had affected your studies and your life. Watching you find happiness helped get me through my darkest days.”
If only she knew just how much she helped me by living the life she wanted.
I refused to let my pain and disappointment dictate the way I lived.
I refused to drown in that pain, so I had to find reasons to get up every day.
Griff, Magan, and my Storm family all gave me those reasons.
Seeing my chosen family happy helped me find happiness.
When tears fall down her cheeks again, mine finally fall too. We pull each other close and hug our way through the feelings.
This is how Griff finds us. It’s his soft but gruff “Fuck” that draws our attention.
I lift my face and meet his gaze as Magan lets me go. There’s so much love and concern in his eyes as he watches us intently.
“I love you, Griff,” Magan says right before she throws her arms around him and hugs him like she might not ever let him go.
This is so unusual for her that it catches him by surprise. It does the same for me, and I can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up out of me as I watch him stumble his way through this hug and all these big feelings consuming Magan.
His arms go around her, and he returns her hug as she thanks him for everything he’s done for her today.
His eyes are firmly on me, though, and I can practically see his brain processing everything he’s seeing and hearing.
My husband’s priorities are me, Storm, and Magan.
In that order. There’s not one thing he wouldn’t do for us, and I know that right now he’s figuring out what’s next on his list of things to do.
He allows Magan to carry on with her thanks and her hug for longer than he’d ever let anyone besides me hug him before pulling back and looking at her.
“I’ll be back over tomorrow to do a couple of last things with the garden.
Then, I’ll be back in two weeks to mow again.
And if you need anything before then, you pick up the phone and call me.
I won’t be happy if I turn up here and find shit that needs doing that I could have done. ”
His tone makes it clear he doesn’t intend on listening to any argument over this, and Magan reads him perfectly. Instead of fighting him, she says, “Thank you.”
With one last nod at her, he gives his attention to me. “You ready to go?”
I smile as I move towards him. “Take me home, handsome. I’m putting you in the bath and giving you a foot rub.”
The arch of his brows at that statement makes Magan and I laugh.
I’ve spent a decade trying to get Griff in the bath, and I’m still trying.
I never miss an opportunity but it’s one of the only things I want that he never gives me.
My husband has his boundaries and while he’s allowed me to break many of them down, he stands firm on some.
Griff’s POV
9:00 p.m.
Madison
Willow’s broken arm might kill me. If I don’t make it to the clubhouse tomorrow for our meeting, you’ll know I’m dead.
Carla
Oh, man, is she struggling with it?
Velvet
The poor little poppet. Do you guys need any help, babe? I’ll send Nash over if you do.
Chelsea
LOL Velvet. What’s he done now?
Madison
Yes, send Nash. When he gets here, I’ll leave him and J to handle all these kids and I’ll come live at your place for a while.
I walk into the en suite where Sophia is rubbing cream into her face. When her eyes meet mine in the mirror, I ask, “You’re meeting the girls at the clubhouse tomorrow?”
She nods. “Yeah, we’re gonna clean it before we set up for Christmas Day. Scott’s given the go ahead for us to decorate.”
I frown. “You girls decorate it every year.” We’ve already got tinsel and crap all over the place there.
Turning to face me, she brings her hands to my chest. “This year, he’s letting us go to town. You should prepare yourself now.”
I have no clue what the fuck their idea of going to town on decorating is, but I can imagine the clubhouse is gonna look like Christmas vomited all over it.
Since Scott and Harlow had their first kid almost a decade ago, this season has slowly taken over every time it comes around.
And while it’s still the time of year I don’t much like, I’ve slowly come around to it. My wife has seen to that.
Sophia loves Christmas almost as much as she loves me. She’s taken great care over the years to be considerate of my feelings about it, but there’s not much I wouldn’t give her, and I’ve given her Christmas since the day I made her mine.
I pull her close and brush my lips over hers. “Consider me prepared.”
She hits me with a smile as she threads her fingers up into my hair at the nape of my neck. “I want you to take me away after Christmas.”
“I thought you were back at work on the twenty-seventh?” Sophia has a mini empire between her brand strategy business and her art gallery, and while she usually takes time off over Christmas and New Year, she’s too busy to do that this year. Or I thought she was.
She gives me more of that beautiful smile.
“I was supposed to be but I called Sonny this afternoon and asked her to free up my schedule so I can take two weeks off.” She presses herself into me and kisses me again before saying softly, “I haven’t stopped since I got back from Fiji.
I need a break and I need time with you.
Take me somewhere secluded. I want to be naked with you for two weeks straight. ”
Sophia began a new tradition with the Stormgirls two years ago.
They pack themselves up every August now and spend a week together in Fiji.
Since her last miscarriage and then hysterectomy five years ago, Sophia had to find herself all over again.
Having children was something she wanted deeply.
Thanks to the adenomyosis that caused severe pain and other problems for her, and meant she struggled to carry a baby to term, that dream was stolen from her.
She has so much love to give, and spending time with her girls is a high priority for her.
Their week away each year has become something she treasures.
I tighten my arm around her. “Careful what you ask for, sweetheart, because I’ll give it to you.”
Heat flares in her eyes. “Good.” She curves her leg around my body in the way that signals she wants me.
When I’ve got her on the bathroom vanity a moment later, she lifts my shirt over my head and discards it on the floor.
Her eyes are all over my body as she says, “I want you to spend two weeks fucking me until I don’t even know what life is anymore.
I want to sit on your face every morning before sucking your dick.
And I want you to find new ways to make me come every night. ”
“Fuck,” I growl. “This mouth of yours is getting filthier as you get older.”
Something I say causes a shift in the direction she’s taking this conversation. Where she was all heat a moment ago, she’s suddenly all soft and vulnerable. “I want to grow really old with you, Griff. Like, older than old.”
I search her eyes, finding more love than I’ve ever found there, and that’s saying something because if Sophia has given me anything in the last decade, it’s more love than anyone’s ever given me. “We’re growing old together. There’s no fucking way we’re not. End of story.”
She inhales a long breath and then slowly exhales it. “The year you broke your leg, I actually wondered if we’d make it.”
This is news to me. It was a hard-as-fuck year with Magan moving out after living with us for three years, Josie passing away unexpectedly from a heart attack, me breaking my leg after a bike accident, and Sophia struggling with the emotional impact of three miscarriages in three years.
However, she never let on that she thought we were struggling to the point of maybe not making it.
At my frown, she says, “You’re not a good patient, and I’m a little overenthusiastic when I’m playing nurse. I honestly thought at times that you’d leave me.”
“For trying to boss me the fuck around?”
She smiles. “Yeah, but”—her smile disappears—“also because I was carrying on about not getting pregnant again until my body was as healthy as I could get it. We fought so much that year. I never want us to fight like that ever again.”
“I’d rather you fight with me than shut down on me.” She might have thought the year I broke my leg was hard; I thought the year after her last miscarriage was the hardest because Sophia threw herself into her work and sought space from me while she worked through her pain.
“I know,” she says softly. “I like this place we’ve gotten to now.”
I do too. It’s been a long fucking journey getting here, but I’d do it all over again for her.
“I won’t ever leave you, Sophia.”
Her hands come to my chest again. Their home. “I know you won’t. I also know you’ll do anything and everything for me and our family. I love you, Griff.”
I thread my fingers through her hair. “I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve a woman like you, but I’m fucking glad I did it. I love you, too.”
My lips crash down onto hers and I kiss her. I take everything I need from this kiss and give her what she needs. And when I finally end it, I say, “You are a fucking overenthusiastic nurse. I hope to fuck I never break another bone.”
She laughs. “Do you think I’ll be able to wear you down one day and convince you to get in the bath with me?”
“Not a fucking chance, sweetheart.” With that, I lift her into my arms and carry her into our bedroom, and I spend the rest of the night showing her just how much I love her and need her.