Chapter Twenty-Three
REILLY
HE’S COMING HOME TODAY. I actually get to take Bray home today.
I feel like I’ve been waiting for this day to arrive forever.
Yet, for Bray, I’d probably wait the rest of my life.
If I had to spend my life living in a hospital to be with him, then so be it, I’d do it.
I can’t be without him. That fact has been made abhorrently clear.
I came so close to losing him. I’ve never been one to take my loved ones for granted.
I already knew they could be taken away in the blink of an eye.
It’s the very reason I pushed Bray away so much at first, why I didn’t want to get involved with him.
I knew that if I let myself love him, then I’d really freaking love him.
Which also meant I’d be left in pieces when I lost him.
The last six weeks have been gruelling, gut-wrenching, an emotional rollercoaster.
Bray has undergone intense physical therapy to be able to relearn everything.
It was tough, watching him push himself day after day to do the most basic of tasks like walking, dressing, eating.
But it’s all paid off. He is now able to walk unassisted; it’s still at a slower pace and at times unsteady, but he is walking.
His speech came back to normal after two weeks.
The first full sentence he uttered was to tell me he loved me. After I bawled my eyes out, because I honestly never thought I’d hear those words again, I told him just how much I loved his ass and asked him to marry me. I did not get the reaction I would have hoped for.
“I love you,” Bray said—the full sentence—no stops, pauses or breaks. He just told me he loved me in one fell swoop. I can feel the tears well in my eyes. I don’t even try to stop them, letting them fall. Bray telling me he loves me is something I thought I’d never hear again.
Once I compose myself again, I tell him, “I love you so much, it hurts. I love you more than I thought I could love anyone. You complete me, Bray. I always thought Holly was my other half, but it seems I have another, and that’s you.
You are the other half of my soul. As soon as we get out of here, I want you to fly me away and marry me.
” Bray’s eyebrows draw in, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I… already.” He points between us both.
“Married?” he questions. As I’m trying to decipher, he points to me and says, “Mrs.” Then he pauses again before he gets the words out.
“Call you Mrs.,” he says while pointing to the door.
He thinks we are already married because all the doctors and nurses refer to me as Mrs. Williamson. Huh, I never thought to correct any of them. I liked being called Mrs. Williamson, so I let it continue so long that I forgot why it started in the first place.
“Wait, you think we’re already married? Do you remember getting married, Braydon?” I wait for his answer. To which, he shakes his head no.
“No, you know why, because we haven’t. Trust me, the day you marry me, you are not going to forget. I’m a damn catch!” I laugh.
Bray’s eyebrows raise in question. I’ve gotten really good at reading his gestures and figuring out what he needs or wants over the last two weeks. Right now, he wants more information.
“Right. When you were first brought in, the doctor was questioning how I was your family. Zac was there and, without flinching, he told him I was your wife. I just let the little lie continue all this time.”
I watch as Bray’s face lights up; his smile is a welcoming sight that I want to spend the rest of my life receiving.
Over the next four weeks, as Bray’s speech improved, we spent nights planning out our life together.
We talked endlessly about what we wanted.
Bray wanted eight kids. I vetoed that straight away and said maybe two, definitely no more than three.
His reply was, “Babe, junior’s boys are champions; they’re going to impregnate you quicker than you can blink.
They’re just going to swim right on up and pop those eggs of yours. ”
I didn’t bother to argue, but in my head, I was reminding myself to make a doctor’s appointment for birth control, ASAP.
I’d let mine lapse over the last few months.
It’s not like junior was getting anywhere near my eggs, not that Bray didn’t try to persuade me.
The number of times he told me to lock the door and climb on—yeah, it didn’t take long for him to be able to say those words—I denied him.
There was no way I was doing anything to jeopardise his recovery.
The most he got, because I kind of felt bad for junior, was my hand and mouth.
Although, I won’t lie, it was different without feeling the metal of his Prince Albert.
The doctors removed it the day he got brought in.
I told him how much I was going to miss that thing; he promised he was making an appointment with the piercer to get it back. I silently thanked the gods. Because that tiny bit of metal gives an unbelievable amount of pleasure.
Pleasure like I’ve never felt before it. Not that Bray’s junior isn’t impressive without it, because it is.
I’m watching Bray as he dresses. We’re waiting on Zac to come and pick us up.
Both of us cannot wait to get out of here and go home.
I haven’t told Bray, I didn’t even ask, I just took the liberty and moved myself into his house.
I figured he asked me to move in with him enough times before the incident, the offer would still stand.
I had Holly arrange for my things to be moved. My mum cried. She’s been amazing throughout this process, spending many hours just sitting in the hospital with us. When Bray woke up, she made sure to visit every other day with baked treats for him. I wasn’t allowed to eat any of them.
It pains me to watch how much effort it’s taking him to get dressed by himself, to do a simple thing like pull his sweats up and put a shirt over his head.
I want to help him, I’m itching to help him, but he’s determined to do it all himself.
The fact that he’s a fighter has never been clearer than it has been watching him through his recovery.
He was able to push through pain, frustration and fatigue like I’ve never seen before.
I admire his grit and determination. I admire how much he fought to be able to achieve the simple things most take for granted.
He never gave up; he pushed his body beyond limits that even the doctors were amazed at the speed of his physical recovery.
I won’t lie, as he stands before me in a pair of grey sweats, no shirt, no shoes, I’m kind of enjoying the slowness of that shirt being pulled on.
My eyes travel up and down his body. He’s lost a fair bit of his muscle mass, but he’s still toned and defined as hell.
The things I want to do to that body. I lick my dry lips recalling the things I have done to, and with, that body.
I’m lost in my thoughts until Bray breaks my daydream, my very enjoyable daydream.
“Babe, unless you want me to bend you over this bed and fuck you senseless right now, you need to stop looking at me like you’ve just seen a tall glass of water in the desert.” He finishes his comment with that smirk, the one he knows makes my damn panties wet, just at the sight of it.
I look up at the clock, like I’m actually considering his offer. As much as I want to, there is no way that’s happening here. In this hospital room.
“As appealing as that offer is, your brother should be here any minute.” I shrug in a too bad kind of motion.
“I’ll lock the door and he can fucking wait,” Bray offers, just as said brother walks through the door.
“Who can wait? You guys ready to blow this place or what?” he asks.
“I’m ready, so ready,” I tell him, as I get up and greet him with a hug. Yep, apparently that happens now. Zac and I, friends? Who would have thought? “Thank you for picking us up.”
“I’m doing it for you; that asshole made us wait fifty-nine fucking days. It would only be fair if we made him wait on a ride home.”
Zac reminds Bray as often as he can that he slept for fifty-nine days. Tortured us for fifty-nine days. Not that he had any control over it, Zac knows that, but I’ve learnt that’s how they communicate with each other.
“You know, I’m still not sure if I’m on board with this newfound friendship with you two. It’s not fair to gang up on the injured. Whatever happened to rooting for the underdog?” Bray says.
“Deal with it. Reilly is my new sister, so if you fuck up again and I have to watch her heart break, again, I’m gonna kick your fucking ass,” Zac says, with a very serious tone in his voice.
“I’d let you kick my ass. But, I’m not planning on fucking up again. We’re getting married, we’re having eight babies and we are going to grow old and grey together.” Bray walks up and wraps his arm around me.
“Two. Two babies,” I correct him.
“So I keep hearing.” Zac rolls his eyes. It’s true, Bray mentions the fact that we’re getting married and having babies as often as he can drop it in conversation.
He even has all the nurses swooning over him. Which brings me back to the shirt. There is no way in hell, he’s walking out there with only a pair of grey sweats on. I’d end up having to claw some eyes out for sure.
I walk over to the bed where he left his shirt and pick it up.
I don’t bother handing it to him. I pull it over his head and let him do the rest. Once he has his shirt on, it’s no better.
He still looks like sex on legs. Damn it, I really need to get laid.
Soon. As I’m looking him up and down, I can feel myself getting more and more turned on.
“Reilly,” Bray growls, snapping me from my dirty thoughts, again. He really needs to stop interrupting my thought process.
“Okay, if you two are finished eye-fucking each other, let’s get out of here.” Zac picks up the two bags by the door and leaves the room.
I take hold of Bray’s hand and walk out with him.
Walk out of this dreary, cold place and into our future.
He once made me a promise that he would always fight for us, because we were worth fighting for.
He kept that promise. He has fought day in and day out to get back to who he once was, to be able to give us the future we both so desperately want and dream of.