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When Doreen arrived a bit before eight, I almost wanted to tell her that she could go home, that we’d stay instead... but I had to face the music, and quite frankly, Jeremiah needed some downtime. He needed some rest.
I just had to make sure he got that, and not a standoff between me and my parents.
I didn’t see any reporters on my way home, and I was going to tell Jeremiah that I’d take a different route to him—because reporters couldn’t follow us both—when I realised I didn’t care if they saw us go home together.
In fact, I kinda hoped they would.
Yeah, clearly I was still in the pissed-off and defensive stage.
When we got to my house, it wasn’t just my parents who were already there, but my two brothers’ cars were there as well.
And that little seed of anger and defensiveness sprouted into a whopping tree of rage.
Was this a whole family meeting? Were they all going to stare at me and give me the ‘we’re so disappointed’ lectures? Because I wasn’t about to cop that.
I got out of my car and held Jeremiah’s door for him. He saw me glaring at the offending cars, and he nodded toward them before the roller door blocked them from view. “Who else is here?” he asked.
“Ellis,” I replied. “And Rowan.”
“Oh.” He looked uncomfortable. “Your eldest brother’s here too?”
The brother I wasn’t particularly close to. “Yeah. Look, Jeremiah, if you want to hang out upstairs, that’s fine with me. I’ll face the firing squad and—”
“I’m not leaving you,” he said, a hint of determination in those incredible eyes.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
I took his hand and led him in through the laundry to a scene I hadn’t expected.
At all.
My mum was in the kitchen. She was cooking something that smelled great, but on the balcony... was my dad and two brothers boarding up the glass panels.
“Uh, what’s going on?” I asked, surprised. Shocked, if I was being honest.
Mum looked up from the dishes of food and gave us a smile. “We figured you’d been so busy you wouldn’t have had time to take care of your house. I used your spare key.” She walked over, took Jeremiah’s arm, and led him into the kitchen. “Tully, go help your brothers. And behave yourself. There’s a drill and a nail gun involved, and quite frankly, I don’t want to explain any intentional mishaps to the ER doctors.”
Intentional mishaps.
I snorted, still shocked, and seeing Mum enlist Jeremiah into her duty list, I went out onto the balcony.
“Oh, look who it is,” Ellis said. “Blister’s here. Always shows up after the hard work is done.”
“Ellis, hold it straight,” Rowan grumbled.
“I am holding it straight,” Ellis griped.
Rowan drilled the screw in, then stood back to look at the slightly crooked board. He tried to whack Ellis with the drill. “Shoulda went to Specsavers, dickhead.”
“Tully, hold this,” Dad said, lifting another board into place. I held it and Dad fired a nail into it. Thank god he had the nail gun and not the other two.
“Oh look, it’s the only straight thing Tully’s ever done in his life,” Ellis said.
I tried to take the nail gun from Dad but he wouldn’t give it to me. “For Christ’s sake, boys,” Dad said. “Ellis and Rowan, go upstairs and start on the bedroom windows.”
Ellis, who now had the drill, gave it a few whirrs. “Not the only thing getting drilled in there, huh, Tull?”
I wrestled the nail gun off Dad, but by the time I got my hands on it, Ellis had already laughed his dumb arse up the stairs.
