Unlikely Hero

by Sean Michael

  He had his lover back, he had a little girl. He had a family.

  He had a life.

  Go him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  BROCK HATED this part.

  He’d hated it the first time, and he hated it now. The “waiting in the hospital for someone to tell you what’s going on” part.

  This time Josie was awake and aware instead of sleeping. Luckily there was a little TV with what seemed like an endless supply of cartoons on it. Brock was trying very hard not to start pacing and not to start throwing his weight around.

  He made fun of the cartoon in his head for about the eight hundredth time and willed himself not to look at the door to the waiting room to see if the doctor was there to give them an update yet.

  “Mr. Vencenza?” A broad-faced man smiled at him from the doorway.

  He was up like a shot. “Yes? You have news for me? About Eric Wilson?”

  “I do. He’s resting. I’m Dr. Blackwell, the on-call surgeon.” One huge, meaty hand was held out to him.

  He shook it. “Resting. That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Absolutely. I wanted to talk with you for a moment.” At his nod, the doctor leaned against the doorframe. “He’s got some bleeding, some tearing. We can go in and repair it and, if you think he can’t be trusted to let himself heal, that’s what I’ll suggest. However, I’d much prefer to let his body recover without more trauma.”

  “I’ll make sure he follows your instructions to a T.” Or, so help him, he’d beat the man himself.

  “Well, then. I’d like to keep him for an hour or two, just to watch that hematoma, but you can take him home tonight. Just please, keep him still, quiet. He needs to heal.”

  “He won’t lift a finger. Is walking okay, or do we need a chair for him?” He was going to be able to take his family home.

  “No lifting. No straining or twisting, that sort of thing. Easy, gentle walking is fine.”

  He nodded. “We’ll make sure gentle walking is the most that happens.”

  “Good. And you need to bring him back in the second the bruise expands in the slightest.”

  “Trust me, I will.” If Eric so much as thought of doing something on the list of not-alloweds, Brock would kick his ass. “Can we see him?”

  “Is there someone who can sit with her? She’s not allowed in triage, but you’re welcome to see him.”

  “Yeah. Gordon can watch her.” He waved his friend over. “I’m going to go see Eric. You okay with Josie?”

  “Absolutely. She and I have made friends. You might let her know it’s cool, though, Boss.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.” Turning back to the doctor, he asked, “Is there anything else or can I go see him now?”

  “He’s almost asleep. The pain meds make him groggy, but you can come now.”

  “Thanks. Just a second.” He went over to Josie and crouched down. “I’m going to go see Daddy now, you stay here with Gordon, okay?”

  “Josie come, too?”

  “Not this time, honey. But we’ll take Daddy home with us later, okay?”

  “Okay. Can I have ice cream?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you go to the cafeteria with Gordon? And you have to do something for me, honey. You listen to Gordon and you stay close to him, okay?”

  “I be good, Daddy Bee. I p’omise.”

  “Thank you, honey. I’ll be back soon.”

  Gordon nodded back, then smiled at Josie. The apocalypse could happen and nothing would hurt his daughter. Someone deserved an enormous bonus. He took a last glance at the two of them and then headed toward triage to find Eric.

  It didn’t take much. There was a detective that he vaguely recognized talking to a nurse, arguing about speaking to Eric, and he slipped in behind the curtain. He went over to the bed, hand automatically going to Eric’s. His lover looked pale, but he was clearly breathing.

  Eric’s eyes opened. “Bee, is Jo okay?”

  “Hey, baby.” He smiled. “Yeah, she’s fine. Gordon’s got her.”

  “Cool. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Glad it’s over. Except for the bit where I sic my lawyer on your mother’s ass and she pays for what she’s done for the rest of her life.” He couldn’t help growling.

  “I don’t want to talk about her.” Eric took a shallow breath. “Am I okay?”

  “You are. Doc says he doesn’t have to do surgery if you let yourself heal. I told him I’d make sure you would.” He leaned in and gave Eric a hard look. “Even if that means I have to tie you to the bed.”

  “We have a child to look after, Bee.” Yes, and Eric needed to let the nanny come in, do her job. Every day.

  “Yep. And she has two daddies and a nanny who adores her. You don’t need to do anything more strenuous than moving from the bed to the couch and back. I mean it, Eric. I’ll get the nurse back in, too, if I have to.”

  “No. No, I’ll do it. I didn’t mean to. I….” He paled, suddenly looked so scared. “Brock, they… they shot guns in your house.”

  He growled and squeezed Eric’s hand tight. “They did, and now that little asshole is going to go to jail. All we need to do is make sure your mother can’t come within a thousand miles of the place and we’ll all be safe.”

  “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry, Brock. She hates me.”

  “You’re her kid; that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Eric’s eyes closed, face defeated.

  “Hey. It’s not your fault she’s a horrible person. You’re not responsible for her.” He hated that look on Eric’s face. Hated it.

  “I have to be, at least partially.”

  “Why? You’re not her parent.” He was not going to let Eric make this out to be his fault.

  “I don’t want to talk about her yet.”

  “As long as you’re not sitting there blaming yourself, I can live with that.” God knew, he didn’t think the old bat deserved another moment of their time.

  “I just.” Eric sighed. “Whatever. Right now I need to go home.”

  “Yeah, I’ll talk to the doc, make sure he’s working on getting that paperwork ready.” He leaned forward and kissed Eric gently. “I’m glad you’re going to make it.”

  “I would hope so.”

  Chuckling, he kissed Eric again. Eric reached for him, clung a bit.

  “I have you, baby. I do. This is it, right here.”

  “You should stay with Jo. She’ll be scared.”

  “Gordon’s got her. I do believe there’s ice cream involved—she’ll be fine.”

  “Was she scared?”

  “For about ten seconds, and then her daddy Bee came to her rescue.”

  Eric grinned. “Her hero.”

  “That’s me. Daddy Bee, the hero.” He grinned. For all he was being sarcastic, he liked being Josie’s hero. He liked being her daddy’s hero, too.

  Eric nodded happily. “That’s right. Tell them I need to go home.”

  “No more lifting anything or bending or anything, okay? If you agree to that, I’ll see what I can do about hurrying you out of here.”

  “I won’t. I didn’t intend to.”

  “No more of that, though, whether you intend to or not.” He bent and kissed the top of Eric’s head.

  “Sir, the police would like to speak to you.”

  He smiled at the nurse. “All right. I’ll go talk to them while you see what it’s going to take to spring him, okay?”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “Excellent.” He gave Eric another kiss. “I’ll be back, baby.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  That had him chuckling. “I imagine you will be.” He winked and headed off, finding the police officer right outside the curtain.

  “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “I need a statement, sir. I need to know what happened in there.”

  “My partner had reinjured himself and I was about to take him to the hospital. When I opened the door, Tim McCarthy was standin
g there with a gun to my bodyguard’s head.”

  “And then what?”

  “We tried to talk him down. Eric tried to reason with him. When that didn’t work, Jeff ducked and there was a shot and I don’t know what happened after that because I ran to make sure Josie was okay.”

  “So, Max was the one who shot first?” The look in the police officer’s eyes was suddenly sharp.

  “I don’t know. I heard the shot, but I didn’t see who got hit.”

  “But he fired first.”

  “I don’t know. Max was behind me and I was worried about Eric. He was bleeding internally.” He thought Max had shot first, but he didn’t know it, and he wasn’t going to sell Max down the river for saving their lives.

  “Okay. Okay, I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”

  “I’m sorry. My attention was seriously split. My lover needed the hospital, and my little girl was just in the other room.”

  “I’m sure. Did the kid tell you why he did it?”

  “He said Eric’s mother told a bunch of lies about him. Which the kid believed.” He had no problem selling her down the river. She deserved everything she got.

  “Man, I hate family shit.”

  Brock nodded. “It’s the worst. This is particularly nasty family shit, too.”

  “Is the little girl okay?”

  “She’s amazing.” Brock couldn’t stop his smile.

  The police officer smiled, nodded. “Well, just so that you know, we’ve taken Max Fontaine into custody. It’s a formality, but he has fired on two teenagers in a short amount of time, and he is a civilian.”

  “What? He was a cop the first time he fired, and that little brat had already put two slugs into my partner! If it wasn’t for Max, Eric would be dead and Josie might be, too!” It just wasn’t right; Max deserved better than this.

  “It’s the law, sir.”

  “He didn’t do anything wrong. The kid showed up at my house with a gun, had it at Jeff’s head.” Brock shook his head. He’d get Max a lawyer, make sure this didn’t become something more than “just a formality.”

  The police officer shrugged, and Brock’s phone rang. Gordon.

  “Can I go now?” The officer nodded and Brock headed for the little visitor’s lounge where he’d left Gordon and Josie, hoping they’d headed back there after getting ice cream.

  Gordon’s eyes were flashing. “Boss, they arrested him. They’re holding him.”

  “I know, I just heard. I’ll call my lawyer.”

  “Thank you.”

  Josie looked between them, eyes worried.

  “Come here, honey. Did you get your ice cream?”

  She nodded, running to him. “It was pink.”

  “Strawberry pink or bubble gum pink?” He picked her up and handed her over to Gordon. “Give me five minutes to make a couple of calls, okay, honey?”

  “Okay, Daddy Bee. This is my friend.”

  Gordon nodded. “That’s right, kiddo. Gordon will always be your good friend.”

  Brock nodded and stepped out of the visitor’s lounge, flipping open his phone to arrange a lawyer for Max.

  This whole thing was frigging insane.

  He spoke to Devon, who promised to send someone from the firm who dealt with this kind of thing. He also arranged to have someone come over tomorrow for them to move forward with the adoption and making sure Eric’s mother stayed out of their lives.

  “They’re going to meet you down at the station, Gordon. I need to stay here.” With his family. He and Gordon shook hands. “They’ll have him out of there in no time. Call me if you need anything.”

  “Are you okay? I’ll stay, if you need me.”

  “No, I think we’re good. I appreciate everything you and Max have done for us, man.”

  Gordon needed to be with his family; Brock wasn’t going to keep him.

  “It’s my job.” Gordon winked. “Bye, kiddo.”

  “Bye!”

  It was Gordon’s job, but Brock liked to think that he got special treatment.

  He and Josie waved as Gordon left. He put her down and they headed out to the nurses’ station. “Let’s go see if we can spring your daddy yet.”

  “Spring?”

  “Um… get him out of the hospital and bring him home.”

  “Okay!” She skipped along beside him, then stopped short. “Daddy Bee?”

  “What, honey?”

  “Where will home go?”

  “What?”

  “The bad mens comed to Daddy Bee’s house. Where does Josie go?”

  “We’re going back to Daddy Bee’s—my—house. The bad boys didn’t get in. We have a bodyguard, honey. The bad boys can’t hurt you there.”

  She looked confused. “But… when the bad boys came before, we went to Daddy Bee’s house.”

  “Yeah, but this time we stopped the bad boys before anything could happen. And the bad boys are in jail now. They’re never going to hurt Josie, ever.”

  “And me and Daddy come to your house?”

  “That’s right. My house is your house now. You and Daddy and me are all going to live together.”

  “Oh.” She smiled, nodded. “Good. Okay. Go home.”

  “That’s right.” He tugged her over to the nurse’s desk and put on his best smile. “I’m here to pick up Eric Wilson and take him home.”

  “Has he been released?”

  “I don’t know. I was told he could come home today.”

  “Give me a few minutes and….”

  Eric came out of the double doors, wheeled carefully by a nurse. “See? I knew I heard him.”

  “Daddy!”

  Brock kept hold of Josie’s hand. “Careful now, sweetie. Daddy’s got more boo-boos and we need to be gentle with him.”

  “More?” She shook her head. “Daddy’s tummy hurts.”

  “Yeah, it does, and we have to be very careful of it, okay?” He led her over to Eric. “If you want to sit in his lap, I’ll lift you up.”

  “’Kay. I wanna ride.”

  Brock chuckled. “Eric? She okay on your lap if I lift her there?”

  “Always.” Eric smiled. “Hey, Jo.”

  “Daddy.”

  He lifted Josie up into Eric’s lap, made sure she wasn’t sitting on anything sore or making Eric strain to hold her in place.

  “I can wheel him out,” he told the nurse. He was ready to take his family home.

  “Absolutely.”

  Eric held Josie close as they headed out into the night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  BROCK’S PANCAKES were misshapen and odd, but he was inordinately proud of them. He and Josie had made them, under Eric’s seated supervision, and they had chocolate chips in them and they were actually edible. Josie was now a sticky mess, her face equal parts syrup, chocolate, and whipped cream.

  They’d had a nice morning, though.

  He hadn’t realized just how much having Tim McCarthy out there had been weighing on him. Eric looked more relaxed, too, and the paleness that had come with yesterday’s overdoing had given way to a healthier pink. Eric wouldn’t be running marathons soon, but he no longer looked like walking a few steps would send him back to the hospital. Hell, Eric’d even felt good enough to call Jack, talk about the christening for the new baby.

  “What did you want to do today?” he asked Josie. The nanny wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.

  “Want to swim-swim!”

  Eric chuckled, grinned.

  “You do?” He gave Eric a wink. “In the tub?”

  She opened her mouth, stopped. “Daddy Bee? Where’s your backyard?”

  What? “I don’t have a backyard, honey.”

  “Why not? Where would you put a pool?”

  “Oh, there’s a pool and a workout room up on the roof.”

  “Show me!”

  “Jo,” Eric interrupted. “You ask nicely.”

  Brock laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  Josie pouted. “I want the pool, plea
se.”

  “Sure. We can take the elevator so Daddy can come with us. They’ve got deck chairs and everything.”

  “What? I don’t get to swim?” Eric asked.

  “No.” He didn’t even hesitate.

  “No?” Eric looked honestly surprised.

  “I go get my suit.” Josie stood, chocolate and whipped cream going everywhere.

  Brock winced. The cleaning lady wasn’t coming in until tomorrow. “Josie, wait, honey. You need to get hosed down first.” Or at least cleaned off with some paper towels.

  Eric chuckled softly.

  “Easy for you to laugh, you don’t have to clean the mess up.”

  “You know I’ll help.”

  “No, I don’t. What I know is that you’ll sit there and let me do it under threat of me cuffing you to the bed and calling the day nurse back in.” He gave Eric his best “I am deadly serious” look. “And I know you thought Mark was cute, but I’d rather not have to have him back.”

  “He was cute, but he wasn’t you.” Eric’s eyes twinkled. “Or queer.”

  “You asked?”

  “Sure. Didn’t you?”

  “No, I did not.” He’d only had eyes for Eric.

  “Well, I wanted to know. I didn’t want a homophobe making money off you.”

  “Awww. That’s sweet, baby.” He leaned over and pressed a soft kiss on Eric’s cheek. “Just for that, I’ll grope you in the elevator.”

  “Promises, promises.” Eric looked at him. “You were jealous.”

  He shrugged. Maybe a little.

  “Don’t be. I only want you.”

  “That works for me.” He bent and kissed Eric, on the mouth this time.

  Eric smiled for him, tongue sliding on his bottom lip. He hummed into the kiss; he wished sex wasn’t on the forbidden list, he really did. Still, as sore as Eric was, he could be patient. He could.

  Damn it.

  Besides, a pint-sized interruption was coming skipping out of her room, dressed in a little bikini, complete with pink bows.

  “Ready!”

  Eric grinned, shook his head. “You are. Did you get a towel?”