Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“UNCONDITIONAL” BY FREYA RIDINGS
NOX
Itake my Petal’s free hand as Jus grabs Ant’s and leads us over to the car. Henry is standing by the open passenger doors — because there are two of them — his weathered, pale face wreathed in a wide smile, silver threaded through what's left of his dark hair as he watches us approach.
“Welcome home, boys,” he greets when we reach him, and I find my lips tugging upwards. “You were sorely missed.”
“Thanks, Henry,” I say, and our eyes meet, his warm and full of affection that I hadn’t realised I’d earned.
The car is one I’ve not seen before, a big fuck off seven seater so Jus drags Ant into the seats behind the driver, leaving the back for me, Blossom and Steele.
Fine by me.
I need to be close to her, to touch her and know that she’s real and not something I’m imagining in that fucking concrete cell.
We pile in and then we’re driving away as if the past few weeks never happened. Were just another nightmare to add to the collection.
My hand finds my Petal’s thigh, and I briefly lament the fact she has jeans on so I can’t feel her skin. I press my fingers into her anyway, assuring myself once again that she’s here. That I’m fucking here. And that we’re all going home.
Steele’s arm wraps around her shoulders and she leans her head onto him. His thumb moves in slow circles on her arm, grounding himself as I am.
Ant twists briefly, placing his hand on her knee and squeezing while Jus talks at him a mile a minute, telling him all the things we missed including the fact that more than once Debbie slept in his room, Blossom huffing a laugh at that.
She’s like the star we gravitate around, all of us needing to orbit her after weeks of concrete walls and controlled, forced distance.
Her hand comes to cover mine on her thigh, our fingers intertwining like it’s the most natural fucking thing in the world.
Her smell fills my lungs as I inhale her deep, cherry blossom and spring breezes, and it starts to lower my shoulders by increments. Starts to loosen the tension that I feel like I’ve carried since the night of our wrongful fucking arrest.
It feels like it takes both minutes and hours until we’re pulling up to the guardhouse, the gates.
Unlike that very first time, the guards give us nods and don’t look at us like we’re dog shit.
I suppose not being in Ant’s beat up truck might help, but also, this is our home now.
Which sounds fucking crazy given people like us don’t get to live in a mansion on the nice side of town.
Though I guess now we do and everyone else can go fuck themselves.
We make our way up the drive, and the front door opens before we’ve even fully stopped. The kids pour out like a flood, my chest lightening when I see their smiles and waves and the way they each seem to be incapable of keeping still.
“They are so excited to see you,” Blossom tells us, her smile in her voice as she lifts her head from Steele. “Made you a banner and everything.”
I look back and huff a laugh. Mitchel and Anna are holding up a huge bit of paper that looks like a rainbow troll vomited all over it.
“I helped them spell it all,” Jus says, a hint of pride in his voice as we pull to a stop.
Carnage hits us as soon as we open the doors, barely able to get out before small bodies surround us talking over the top of each other until my ears ring. But I find my grin wide, my cheeks hurting as they all touch and hug us.
Sally has her arms wrapped around Blossom, she’s always so attuned to my Petal’s state. Anna is right behind her, and Blossom’s smile matches my own.
Mitchel and Noah got straight to Steele, pressing into his side and I see the way my brother swallows hard as his large hands come over them, pulling them closer, holding them there.
There’s relief and tenderness and something protective on his face, things I feel like a mantle settling on my shoulders.
This is our family. These are our children.
Someone tugs my hand, and I look down to find Peggy, who lets go and brings her arms up in that universal sign of pick me up. So I do, my body acting before my mind catches up. Her small arms come around my neck, her cheek pressed against my cheek.
“Missed you, Nox,” she says in her still baby sounding voice, and a lump forms in my throat.
“You too, Squirt. But I’m here to stay now,” I reply, pressing a kiss on her soft hair and breathing in that smell that only small children seem to have.
She pulls back, trusting me to hold her as she looks into my eyes. “Pinkie promise?”
I shift her weight to one arm, then hold out my pinkie finger. “Pinkie promise, Squirt.”
She links her tiny finger with mine, then shakes it like this is the most solemn of vows.
I look over to see none other than Debbie the chicken strutting her way up to Steele, and I don’t even bother to keep in my laugh when she pecks his big feet. He looks down, and just like I did with Peggy, he bends and scoops her up without thought, like this is natural.
Debbie settle in his huge arm immediately, looking smug as fuck about it.
Warmth radiates throughout my entire body as I take in the scene around us.
This is it. This is what we were fighting to get back to.
And it somehow makes all the shit we’ve been through throughout our lives worth it.
Because if we hadn’t gone through it, maybe we wouldn’t be here with a family that feels so big and full.
Tina comes bustling down the steps in the way that only she can, and when she catches my eye, she gives me a smile and a nod. She makes her way to Blossom, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“You did good, girl,” she says, and I’m not sure if she’s referring to helping us get out, or to the fact that without Blossom this family wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t be complete.
“I almost lost them,” Blossom whispers, and my arms tighten around Peggy.
“But you didn’t, girlie.” Tina’s voice is matter of fact, no sentimentality. “You fought for them. You fought for your family.”
She places a brief kiss on Blossom’s cheek, then walks away.
I move closer to my Petal. “Okay, Princess?”
She turns to look at me, her eyes bright and a smile on her face that I want to wake up to every day. “More than okay. Absolutely perfect.”
The kids start to drift back inside, and Ant takes Blossom’s hand and leads her in, alongside Jus who won’t leave his side. Not that I can blame the poor kid. What happened was fucked, even for us, so much must have been hell for him.
Tina’s voice carries from inside as I reach the door, Peggy still in my arms. “Brunch is in ten minutes and I will not be repeating myself so wash up.”
Home.
It lands deep in my chest, becoming part of my bones as I step into my house, surrounded by my family.
“INSIDE” BY GODDESS NO HOLY
BLOSSOM
We spend the rest of the day just absorbing each other, everyone staying together as the kids play in the garden and we breathe each other in. One of the guys is always touching me, either holding my hand or has their arms wrapped around me, and it feels like heaven.
Tina makes everyone’s favourite food for dinner, so we have an absolute feast and the guys eat as if they’ve been starved for the past few weeks.
I can’t blame them, I bet the food was terrible and maybe they’ll talk to me about it, though today I got the feeling they just wanted to bask in being back home.
We all help put the kids to bed, each of us taking a couple to read stories and tuck in, though the kids demand the guys say goodnight to each of them which takes a while but no one minds.
I shut Sally’s door, turning and finding all three men starting at me. They take my breath away for just a moment, and then butterflies take flight in my stomach.
“I have a welcome home present of my own,” I confess, sucking my lower lip in.
“We didn’t need anything, Flower,” Steele assures me, reaching out and taking my hand in his. He brings it up to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it. “Just you.”
“I know, but…” I trail off, taking a deep inhale. “Come with me?”
“Always, Bloom,” Ant replies, Nox giving a single nod with a look in his emerald eyes that sets my heart racing.
Keeping Steele’s hand in mine I lead them down the hallway, to my wing. I feel their confusion as I don’t stop at my door, but carry on to the end of the hall.
“Princess?” Nox asks as I stop in front of the final door, one that wasn’t here before they were arrested. “I don’t remember this door.”
“It’s new.” My hand reaches out, pausing on the handle as I take another inhale, then breathe out slowly. “I should have probably asked first. But I needed something to do with my hands while you were gone, or I was going to lose my mind.”
Steele’s hand gives mine a squeeze as I open the door and step inside.
My eyes sweep over the huge room, one made from several guest rooms and my old one.
I decorated it like the rest of the house, off white walls with colourful furnishings.
The crowning glory of this room is the massive bed, big enough to fit all of us every night so that we never have to be apart at night again if we don’t want to.
I turn, Steele’s hand dropping from mine as I look at them, watch them take in our space.
“I wanted us to have somewhere that was all of ours, that we shared. So that we didn’t have to sleep separately, unless of course you want to.”
“I don’t want to,” Ant states into the quiet, his gaze running round the room, noticing the door next to the one we came in from. “What’s that?”
I walk towards it, opening it up and showing him the giant closet that used to be my old room. “A closet for us all. I had your things put in there already.”
They all step closer, taking in the space where we each have our own areas, though admittedly mine is a little bigger. Nox walks in, and my cheeks heat when he immediately goes over to the drawers and pulls the top one open. He stills, then slowly lifts his head to look up at me.