Page 12 of If I Didn’t Have You

He had a point. She did say that this wasn’t her furniture. But if we got rid of it now, where would we sit? “Just put it in the damn corner.”

“It’d look better in the dumpster,” he muttered under his breath.

“And if we had a dumpster, I might let you toss it in there, but it doesn’t come until Monday.”

“Where’s Ma?” Jeff grumbled. “If she wants this done, why isn’t she here to move all this shit out?”

“I’m sorry, are your arms broken?” I snapped at my son.

“No, but I was shot.”

“There’s only so long you can use that argument. And since you were out drinking at the bar the other night, I don’t think you have a leg to stand on.”

“I’m lucky I even have legs. You know, when I was laying on the ground⁠—”

“Fucking hell, Jeff!” Liam snapped. “How many times do we have to hear about your heroic efforts? Yes, you were shot. Yes, you called it in with your dying breath. We get it. You’re a fucking hero.”

I chuckled as Jeff glared at his brother. It’s not that we weren’t all terrified when he almost died. We all thought for sure that was it, but if we had to hear one more time about how he bled out on the side of the road, one of us was going to shoot him again, just so we could watch the replay instead of hearing about it in ample detail.

“Nobody fucking cares that I almost died,” he grumbled. “Maybe next time I’ll actually die. Then someone might shed a tear.”

An ache grew in my chest as I tried to forget that day. There was nothing that came close to hearing that your son had been shot and was fighting for his life. And then to have my wife nearly die not even a year later…

I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t affected by any of it. Hell, half the time I sat in my chair, I just stared at the television screen to block out the shit running through my head. Even after all this time, seeing with my own eyes that he was okay…Some part of me still felt like I would wake up and find out he’d died on the table and I was just living a nightmare where I thought he was fine.

But he was really dead.

I sucked in a ragged breath, then looked long and hard at my son. He was still here. They were all here, and they were damn lucky Austin hadn’t taken them out.

I was lucky.

“I’m just saying, a little bit of sympathy wouldn’t be amiss!”

“Amiss? Did you eat a dictionary for breakfast?” Liam jested.

“Hey, I have smarts.”

“You have the ability to read. There’s a difference.”

“Let’s get this shit taken care of,” I interrupted. “The furniture isn’t going to move itself.”

“Yeah, Jeff. Stop pretending you’re injured and get to work.”

Jeff flipped him off, and then Liam tackled him to the ground, giving him a noogie just like they did when they were kids. Chuckling, I ignored their horsing around and focused on things in the present.

And I did a pretty damn good job of it until the afternoon when Clara stormed into the house with a flurry of bags, along with Bailey and Krista in tow. I had never seen so much shit in all my life.

Well, when the kids were little, there had been a few Christmases when Clara went overboard. But this…

“What the hell is all that?” I muttered.

“Looks like Ma went a little crazy at the store,” Liam grinned.

“Yeah, well, don’t laugh at me just yet. Your wife went with her.”

His smile instantly dropped, and he rushed off to find his wife. “Bailey! I think we should talk.”

“See, you guys are all chumps,” Jeff chuckled. “I’m the only smart one. The bachelor of the family. No woman to tell me what to do. No woman to spend my money.”