Chapter 63

Jamie

Several weeks later

"Oh my god…" Millie walked into our house, looking around wide eyed. "This is your new place?"

"Is this half of the pub's inventory of alcohol?" I countered, sweeping forward to take the shopping bags from her.

"That isn't," Hunter said, coming in carrying yet more bags and then dumping them on the kitchen counter. Our new kitchen counter. "But I'm fairly sure this is."

"We didn't need this much—" I protested, but Millie leaned over and pressed a finger to my lips.

"This is your house warming. You're shacking up with not one, not two, but three of my brothers. Honey…" She cracked a premixed can of rum and Coke and pushed it my way. "You need as much alcohol as you can get to survive them."

"Thanks," Hunter said drily, helping himself to a beer. "I'm gonna remember that when you find your guy or guys."

He was too busy blustering about his sister's lack of support so he didn't see it, the moment Millie went perfectly still. I stopped chopping up vegetables for a salad and stepped closer. Hunter said any guy that went out with her would need an alcohol IV to endure her presence, but rather than snap back, her cheeks went very, very pink.

"Is there more stuff in Millie's car?" I asked Hunter.

"Yes." He let out a long-suffering sigh before setting his beer down and swooping in for a kiss. "I'll go and get Hay Bale to gimme a hand because Brock is obsessing over the new barbeque. It has to reach ‘the perfect temperature' he's saying, otherwise it'll be the fall of Western civilisation or something."

"Thank you." I made sure to give him another long, slow smooch to keep him distracted, then sent him on his way before turning to face my best friend.

"What was that about?"

"What was what about? Buying you a king's ransom worth of alcohol? You're welcome, by the way." I put my hand on my hip and stared her down. "What?" She fiddled with the bags, then began unpacking them.

"Millie."

"Jamie."

"Millie."

I watched her drag each bottle of spirits out of the bags, setting them up on the counter in neat lines before she let out a sigh.

"So…" Her eyes slid my way. "How did you get three guys to agree to be your boyfriends?"

I was moving across the kitchen and sitting up on the counter beside her in seconds, a gleeful smile on my face.

"What, and I say this in all earnestness, the fuck is going on?"

"So you remember that fire that started in the pub kitchen a week or so ago?" Her reluctance to meet my eyes told me everything, so I bent down to meet her gaze.

"Right."

"Well, the fire department came and put it out."

"Makes sense."

I was sitting on my hands now, barely able to resist the urge to bark at her to tell the story faster. Three hot firefighters for my bestie? Yeah, I was one hundred percent on board with that idea.

"So one of the guys was Slade. Do you remember him from school?" she said.

"The real tall, skinny guy." I wrinkled my nose. "People were always giving him shit, calling him beanpole."

"Right, so." She reached for a drink and I slapped her hand away. I needed the goss and it felt like she was stringing this shit out needlessly. "He's not so skinny anymore, and one of the other firies is as chatty as he is hot, and the other one is all big and silent and brooding, and we all know how hot that is, right?"

I grinned.

"Right."

"So… One thing led to another?—"

"What thing? What another? You are skipping over some very important details here, Mills."

"Girls, are you in here?" Heather's voice floated up the hallway, and we both stiffened like we were still teenagers, getting caught doing something we shouldn't.

"Anyhoo, they're coming tonight, so if you see some hot firefighters and can work out a way to help them see the light when it comes to poly relationships, that'd be awesome."

Millie spoke so fast I couldn't reply before Heather breezed in the door.

"Darlings!" She held her arms out wide and we couldn't help but rush forward and give her a hug. "This place looks amazing, but I need a tour."

I shot my best friend a dark look behind her mother's back, promising silently that we would be discussing this further.

"Let me show you the house, Heather," I said.

"Mum." I stopped then and turned around to see Millie's mother staring at me with suspiciously shiny eyes. "I mean, if you've gotten those boys of mine to settle down, then maybe you could call me…" Her nerve faltered and she waved a hand. "Oh, don't worry about it."

"Come and take a look at the house we bought, Mum," I said, the word feeling weird, awesome, and just right all at the same time in my mouth.

"I knew I'd make you a McDonald," Millie said, linking arms with me. "Now, show me the house before my brothers ruin it with their boy germs."

Hours later the backyard was full, of our friends, of the guys from work. The beer was flowing and Brock was cooking up a storm on the new barbeque. I slid in behind him, earning myself a slow smile as he turned the sausages over.

"Your mum loves the house," I told him, "and I love you, so I figured I better keep you hydrated. I also love sausages…" I grabbed a fork, ready to spike one and snatch it away.

"They're yours," he said, pointing the tongs at a pile on a plate. Not burned, but cooked through."

"Just the way I like them?" I was ready to grab bread and sauce, then make myself a sausage sanga, when someone called my name.

"There she is!"

I dropped the sausage to find Nadia and Frankie standing there. It was my future sister-in-law that called out. She waved madly and then rushed forward, enfolding me in a hug.

"You came!" I pulled back to look at her, then my brother. "And you brought a present? You didn't need to do that."

"About that." Frankie dumped the wrapped box into my arms. "We've got more than one."

"What…?"

My voice trailed away as I caught his uncomfortable expression, his eyes going to Nadia. She smiled gently and nodded.

"You might not want it, so we kept it outside," he continued.

"Why wouldn't I…?"

I found out for myself, walking outside and finding my dad standing by Frankie's car. For the first time in my life, my father looked uncomfortable, his eyes darting around at every sound. He visibly brightened when we walked up, though. I got a smile, but it quickly faded when I didn't rush forward, and there was a good reason for that.

Your parent shouldn't send your pulse racing, right? The people you're supposed to trust the most in the world shouldn't have you feeling a vicious adrenalin spike rushing through your body. Dad had sent me one message since we'd kicked Mum out of the party telling me he'd got her home and that she wouldn't bother us anymore. I hadn't replied, didn't know what to say in the face of it, and so I just ignored the text.

I hadn't deleted it though.

Nor blocked him, or removed his contact from my phone and I think I knew why, and it wasn't this present.

"Hello, love." The smile was back again, and the tension in his face let me know he was determined to maintain it now. "The house looks nice." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Those gutters might need a bit of work, though."

"Dad…" Frankie hissed.

"Well, I'm not staying long," Dad forged on. "I just came to drop this off." Something tall, wrapped in bright paper was wheeled forward as I came closer. I looked at him, then the present, and when he urged me to open it, I peeled a corner of the paper back.

Damn, this was thousands of dollars of tools standing here.

"I didn't do enough to support you during your apprenticeship. Part of me was sure you weren't going to stick it out," he explained. "More fool me. Doesn't let me off the hook, though. When you were in your second or third year, I could've stepped up like I did your brothers, but I didn't."

His hand shook as he put it down on top of the towering tool box, each drawer stuffed with high-end tools. I'd be the envy of every bloke in the garage come Monday.

"I didn't. I made a mistake, many really." The quaver in his voice had me meeting his eyes. My big, tall, tough dad was collapsing before me. "That's become clear. So now I'm trying to make things right, before it's too late."

I spied the white band of pale skin on his finger before he said the words.

"I'm divorcing your mother. Should've happened years ago, to be honest. I know now how hard she rode you and the other girls." He was talking about my sisters-in-law. "But at the time, I thought she was just directing all that venom at me. Never fucking happy, your mother."

My eyes widened at the sound of him cursing. It usually only happened when he was watching the football or when he was working on the car.

"She pick, pick, picks until there's nothing left."

His hand slid across the toolbox slowly, ready to grab mine, or leave me be if that's what I wanted. Feeling him hold my hand was weird. We didn't really do shows of affection in my family, so I didn't really know what to do.

Dad did.

When I didn't pull away, he gripped it tight, giving it a squeeze before continuing.

"I thought I was the only one she was haranguing. I thought if I just held her focus, she'd leave you lot alone."

"The boys." I croaked that out, my throat suddenly dry, and when a drink was placed next to me, I grabbed it, drinking it down greedily. People had come spilling out of the house to see what was happening, Millie and her parents hanging back, but not my guys. They took up positions around me, staring at my father meaningfully. If my family thought I was an easy target before, that was no longer the case.

"You made sure the boys were left alone." I jerked open a drawer, picking up a gleaming spanner and then turned it back and forth, watching the way the moon played along the chrome. "That's why I came down to the garage or the games room or the garden. I needed to escape…" It took conscious effort to slow my breath down. "To escape her."

"I know." His face crumpled then, and for a moment I just stared. I'd never seen my father cry for even a second, and it took me a moment to realise what this was. "I failed, love. I failed you."

"Dad—" Frankie moved closer, but our father brushed him away.

"No point trying to soft soap this," he ground out. "I fucked up. I let my fucking wife talk like about my daughter every day. I know this is something you can't ever forgive, Jamie?—"

"Forgive?" I shook my head feeling curiously light. No psychologist would say my family trauma was healed by this one admission, but you know what? It felt like a step was taken. One that finally, finally took us away from the shitty patterns of the past. "Probably not. Too much happened to just brush that under the carpet."

Dad nodded sadly, and as I watched him collapse in on himself, a thought occurred to me.

"But finding a way forward to ensure the same problems aren't repeated?" He met my eyes. "I'm open to that."

"I'm Angus McDonald." The guys' father stepped forward then and offered Dad his hand. "Me and my wife, Heather." She appeared by his side and he wrapped his arm around her waist. "We've seen a lot of Jamie over the years. We've been there when she's had her successes and dried her tears when things haven't gone to plan."

"I'm glad my Jamie had that," Dad replied, shamefaced.

"It hasn't always worked out right. Sometimes we've said the wrong thing or tried to smother her, right when she needed space. Parenting's difficult like that."

Dad met his eyes and I saw a brief flicker of hope there, but it was ready to be extinguished with one word from me.

I didn't say it: get out, leave me alone, never come back, and it wasn't the shining tower of tools that changed my mind. I'd practised this scene over and over in my head since the party, but faced with the reality of it, things changed. I couldn't imagine my father saying sorry for one, or admitting he was wrong. Dream Dad was a monolithic enemy in my head, negating my feelings over and over, whereas in reality, he was just a man. A man who fucked up, but right now, was willing to work on that.

"But with help, sometimes you can get it right," Angus said finally, before turning to me. "The boys told me what happened at the party, Jamie. You know we've got your back. Any unwanted family members start hanging around, we'll sort them out." He nodded sharply. "McDonalds don't take shit from anyone."

But I had. It was why their house was always so alluring. It gave me a glimpse into a life where boundaries were respected, where people were allowed to be happy, and that had affected me somehow, letting me move beyond my parents' conditioning.

But did that mean leaving them behind?

"You should have a beer with Angus," I told Dad. "He says he makes mistakes, but his kids…" I turned around and saw each one of them. "They have great relationships with their parents. If anyone can help you, it's him."

"I'd be glad to talk to you, mate." Dad offered Angus his hand and Millie's dad shook it firmly. "Any advice is good advice right now."

"You should have a beer now," I prompted, then looked back at the house. Hayden looked wary, frowning at Dad, and Hunter was curious, but it was Brock's eyes I found. There was a gentle, persistent love there that I just soaked up. Whatever I decided, he'd back me all the way, and so I made my decision. "Come inside, have something to eat, and maybe keep the embarrassing stories about me as a kid to a minimum?" I stepped back then, gesturing to the front door.

"Embarrassing stories?" Heather said. "Oh, you'll have to share. What do you drink, Arthur?"

I watched the two of them herd Dad inside, past the apparently defective guttering,, and into the backyard.

"You're a braver woman than me," Hayden said. "I was ready to kick the old prick to the curb."

"After we took the fancy tools because damn… These are all Snap-on?" Hunter opened drawers to inspect it all for himself.

"But you didn't." Brock watched me steadily. "What do you want from him?"

"Dad?" I shrugged. "Probably nothing. I'm not sure if the old prick even has the ability to be the kind of father I need him to be, but…" I shrugged. "I guess I'm not ready to give up hope yet, y'know? Maybe he can get it together. Maybe he can be the man he always should've been. I mean, with your dad to guide him?—"

"Yeah, you think Angus is great, but wait until he gets your dad farting out his own name, cackling the whole time," Hunter said, steering me back inside. "Then had follow through."

"God, remember when Dad sharted on that family trip…"

Millie's voice, all of theirs, washed over me and that's when I had a realisation. I couldn't allow my mother into my life under any circumstances, that decision only bringing relief, not grief, but Dad? I didn't need a family, a father figure, because I already had one in the McDonalds, but being around them taught me one thing. Having more than one person that loved you was a blessing, not a curse. Time would tell if Dad could take advantage of that or mess it up, and that outcome was entirely his responsibility to deal with.

As we walked towards the house, ready to rejoin the party, I felt it, a smile spreading across my face. It got wider when Hunter stubbed his toe trying to move the toolbox into the garage. Brock was forced to help as Hayden came closer.

"And what's got you grinning?"

"Hope," I said, watching him consider my input, then nod in understanding. "With hope, anything's possible, right?"

"With hope, it's all possible," he confirmed, squeezing my hand.