Chapter 39 #2
“Good. Maybe you can knock some sense into him.” Oscar looked me up and down. “Physically, he’s better than he should be on the outside, but we’ve advised him to go to the hospital, and he’s refusing. Seems to think he knows better than the trained professionals.”
“Snitch,” I pushed out.
He shrugged. “It’s my duty of care not to lie.”
“Henry!” Nina admonished. “What on earth are you thinking?”
“Nina, love,” James said, coming up behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Give him some room, yeah. He’s a grown man now who can make his own decisions.
If Henry says he’s okay, he’s okay. Aren’t you, Henry?
” He cast a comforting smile my way, ever the rock of the family, the strong father figure who hadn’t batted an eyelid when Nina had opened up their home and offered to take me in.
“Yeah, I’m?—”
“He’s not okay, Jim. Look at that cut on his head.”
“It’s a graze, that’s all,” I lied.
The two of them discussed my condition among themselves before asking for more advice from Oscar, with grumpy Guy pitching in every now and again, clearly ready to kick me off the ambulance and get back to working on someone who would no doubt appreciate his help.
I appreciated it. I just didn’t need anything but the one person I knew would really make me feel better.
Instead, someone else took Phoebe’s place.
Lillie stepped forward from behind her dad, catching my eye, and the two of us held each other’s gazes without saying a word.
I drew a weighted breath into my chest, then released it slowly through my nose as I stared at her, hating the pain I’d caused, hating that I’d dared to ruin what I considered to be family now.
Pushing past her mum and dad, she came to stand in front of me while the others talked among themselves, closer now than we’d been since I broke her heart.
“You’ve taken quite a beating,” she said, as though nobody else stood around us. As though we were an island again, like she’d always wanted us to be.
“I’ve had worse,” I told her, my voice not sounding like my own as I took her in.
Lillie’s beauty couldn’t be denied. Her eyes sparkled no matter the circumstances, and she had a hell of a lot of love to give someone good.
Someone who saw her and only her every time they entered a room full of people.
I just couldn’t be that guy—the one she deserved.
“I know you have.” She smiled that sad smile of hers.
Blame it on the supposed concussion or on clarity finally entering my life, but I opened my mouth before I could stop myself, not caring who heard me, only that I said what I had to say. “You know I’m sorry, don’t you?”
Taking a step closer, Lillie placed her hand on top of my free one that rested on my thigh. “Stop apologising. There’s no need.”
I scowled, confused at the woman standing in front of me. She seemed stronger somehow. More resolute.
“Don’t look at me like that, either.” She huffed out a small laugh. “I’m not as fragile as you think I am.”
“I never thought you were.”
“And I need you to know that it’s okay that you’ve moved on.”
Despite the pain throbbing in my head, I raised my brows and simply… stared at her.
She thumbed over her shoulder. “Big mouth over there filled us in on everything that’s happened on your holiday while he was frantically trying to explain his own remorse when he thought you weren’t going to make it out of the car in one piece.”
I glanced over at Andy, who toed the ground and sheepishly turned back to Jace to avoid my silent accusations.
“He gave you a lot of shit by the sounds of it,” Lillie said, pulling my attention back to her. “You know it was unjustified, don’t you?”
“Lillie, I…” had no clue what the hell to say to any of that. The fact Andy had confessed everything to her, probably Nina and James, too, was enough of a surprise to render me speechless.
What alternate universe had I stepped into?
“He loves you, Cohen. We all do,” she said sweetly, making that once-frozen heart of mine grow that little bit more than it already had thanks to Phoebe.
Phoebe.
God, even the thought of her made that same heart race a little too wildly.
“I just hope this is a wakeup call for you,” Lillie said, making me blink up at her again.
“Wakeup call?”
“To remember life is for living, right? So, stop being so down and out all the time, and go live it for once.”
I had no idea how we’d got here or who had orchestrated this lifechanging incident in the first place, but as I looked up at Lillie, who stared back at me as though giving me permission for something I hadn’t even known I needed it for, I realised what I needed to do and where I needed to go.
Everything fell into place.
“Consider me woken up,” I told her.
Standing slowly shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but I did my best to hide the pain from all the prying, concerned eyes that suddenly turned my way as though I was a timebomb ready to go off at any given moment. Then I pulled Lillie into a hug that said everything my mouth couldn’t.
Because we were family. Not the conventional one, no, but family all the same.
When I pulled back, her cheeks were flushed, and tears lined her eyes, but her small smile seemed real. Her intentions pure.
I turned to Andy, pulling his sister into my side with my arm wrapped around her shoulder as she held me up. “You owe me a favour,” I told him. “And I’m calling it in now.”
“Anything? What is it?”
My plan fell from my lips far too easily, and by the time I’d finished, Andy, Jace, James and Nina all stared at me like I’d grown three heads and sprouted wings.
Only Lillie smiled up at me, fuelling me on.
I hadn’t realised how much I’d needed her forgiveness as well as her brother’s. As well as all of theirs.
“You sure about this?” Andy asked.
“Not a single doubt.”
“It’s risky,” he warned.
“She’s worth everything I have. Let’s go.”