Page 120 of Well Aware

The door behind us burst open, and Black was there, taking in the scene.

Thirty minutes later, Able McDuff was on the way to the police station, despite him complaining that his balls hurt.

Everyone chalked it up to being kicked in the balls.

Hopefully they’d find out too late that he wasn’t just spouting nonsense. He really had his nuts banded. And it would be too late for him to ever use them again.

Needless to say, when it was time to get Iris from school, I was forced to go with Beau. I also went to the store with him and got way more junk food than he would have had he gone by himself.

But I was emotional and eating my feelings.

It wasn’t until later that night, as we lay in bed watching the snow fall, that Beau admitted, “That was the worst moment of my life. Hearing that you’d been violated that way.”

Just as he said that, his phone rang.

Since it was Black, he picked it up. “Yeah?”

“Good news and bad news,” he said. “Good news, Able McDuff lost his nuts. Took him to the ER, and they were fucked up. Also good news, he was charged with breaking and entering, attempted rape, as well as false reporting for what he did in Texas. He won’t be getting out anytime soon.”

“And the bad?” Black asked, his chest rumbling underneath where my face rested against his chest.

“The John Doe that we couldn’t identify was Cain McDuff. He’s not doing good. Lost a leg, an arm, and is in a coma. Doctors don’t think he’ll be cognitively ‘there.’ At least, that was what I heard the doctors say to the father when I was letting him know about his other son.”

“And what about Mr. McDuff Senior?”

“Headed home. He told the doctors he only came because he was at a ski resort in Vail and thought he’d run by on his way home.”

Beau chuckled, causing his chest to bounce beneath my face.

I bit him lightly, and his hands fisted in my hair.

“Is it over?” I asked once he hung up.

“We’ll keep an eye on the patriarch of the McDuff family. But it sure looks like it.”

I melted into him. “Thank God.”

He hugged me tight. “I don’t ever want to be scared like that again.”

Me, neither.

“The rest of our life is going to go exactly how we want it to, Beau,” I promised. “You’ll see.”

And I was right.

I got everything I always dreamed of. The only thing missing was my big sister.

But she lived on in my heart and in Iris.

Every day that she grew, I got glimpses of who my sister once was when she was happy and whole.

It may not be what I expected out of our life, but Beau was able to make our lives into something worth living.

One flying fact, dad joke, or act of service at a time.

EPILOGUE

My head hurts. I think my horns are coming in.