Everybody’s phones suddenly beeped.
“What the fuck are the chances of that?” Elliott said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Fuck, I got an X from Leon.”
Dred looked at his. “I got one from Mark.”
“An X from Ravi.” Jordan showed his phone.
Nik looked at his phone and saw an X-message from Albi, and a message. Someone is in the group home. He broke in through the window. We’re hiding with Maisey.
Nik began to run, followed by the rest of the band. Elliott yelled something to Kendalee, but Nik didn’t stop to listen. The group home was three blocks away. No point getting in cars and attempting to beat Friday night traffic. They’d be faster on foot. His chest contracted, not just from the pressure of pumping his legs but from pure fear. Jenny was in there. And all those kids. And Maisey.
“Fuck,” Nik yelled as they turned onto the home the street was on, only to find it was blocked by two police cars with flashing lights.
“Stay back,” a policeman yelled in a feeble attempt to stop them.
Nik ran by, ignoring the demand.
The sound of Jordan cursing to his right told him his bandmates were following him through.
“My fucking mom is in there,” Jordan said, and the words broke Nik’s heart. Out of everyone, Jordan was closest to Maisey. To hear him cry out exactly what she meant to him tore Nik apart.
Glass lay shattered on the floor, and the living room window was a mess.
They reached the door just as two police officers exited the building with a stranger in handcuffs.
Then out stepped Jenny, a bandage around her hand, and Nik’s knees nearly buckled. He ran to her.
“Jenny, what the fuck happened?”
She wrapped her hands around his waist and he kissed her, long and deep. He didn’t give a shit that people had their phones out recording this shit.
“It’s the new boys’—Thomas and Harry’s—father. He hasn’t been allowed to see them. He’s a desperate man.”
Jordan brushed by them. “Where is Maisey, Jenny?”
“Lennon’s old room,” she said. “With the boys. I told them to go stay there.”
“While you dealt with this?” Nik nodded in the direction of the window. He felt like he would throw up at the thought of her confronting a man nearly twice her size.
“Yeah. I dealt with it, Nik,” she said with a shy smile on her face. “I managed to talk him down off the cliff and got him to wait in the living room until the police got here. He never made it past the living room.”
Nik took her hand and kissed the white cloth around it. “So how did this happen, my little warrior?”
“A bit of flying glass. Nothing too serious. Listen, I need to go in and see to the boys. Then we’re going to need to find somewhere for them to stay while the police investigate what happened.”
“You’ve been enough of a hero today already. Just go and make sure the boys are okay. They’re gonna want to stick close to you, even if they don’t show it. Trust me, I was one of them once. I’m gonna figure out how to solve where you all sleep,” he said.
Jenny nodded. “Thank you for coming to help,” she said. She walked up the stairs and then turned and stopped suddenly. “Wait, how did you know what was going on?”
“The X,” he said. “Albi.”
Two hours later everyone stood in the large family room attached to the kitchen at Elliott’s house. Nik looked around at what they had pulled off. His own home was too much of a building site to be safe, but Elliott’s was perfect. As were the sleeping bags and sleep mats he’d bought from the camping store that were now lined up in the dining room. The table and chairs were pushed up against the walls, but it was impossible to move the two giant Christmas trees that flanked the fireplace. Kendalee, with the aid of Pixie, Jordan, and Lexi, was making the chili stretch by adding masses of garlic bread and salad he’d picked up at the grocery store.
Dred had gone home to grab Pixie and Petal before he’d come back, and Petal was doing her usual rounds. Currently she was clinging to Elliott, who was trying to set up the family room so that nearly twenty people could sit and eat while the movie Elf played in the background.
Hands wrapped around his waist from behind, and he instantly knew it was Jenny. “This was a good thing you did,” she said quietly beneath the hubbub and noise so many kids and adults could make.
“It’s Elliott’s house.” He pulled her in front of him and scooped her hair back behind her ears.
She smiled. “Yes, it is. But it was you who said they shouldn’t be separated, who came up with logistics of how to get it done. We could have just had someone board up the windows and made the living room out of bounds until it was all cleaned up. Now the kids feel like they are on some luxury camping adventure, and more importantly, they feel safe with you, Elliott, and Lennon staying over.”
“How are you doing?” he said, kissing the dressing that covered her hand. “That must have been terrifying, and on top of the week you’ve had—”
“Nik, I’m fine. If anything, it proved to me that I can handle just about anything this job can throw at me. And Dad. Well, you were right. He was never sorry.”
Nik pulled her forward and kissed her forehead.
“I forgive you, Nik,” she said quietly. His heart stopped beating in his chest. “It’s time to let that go. I don’t want you to worry that while you are away I’ll get cold feet, or leave again. And I don’t want to watch you head off expecting you to do something foolish. Because that isn’t the man you are now. This man”—she traced a finger gently down his chest, swallowed, and looked up at him, tears rimming her eyes—“this man wouldn’t do that to me, and I have to hold on to that.”
A weight he wasn’t aware he’d been carrying lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. “You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that.”
“I love you, Nik,” she said as he gathered her into his arms.
“I love you too,” he replied, pressing his lips to hers.
A loud chorus of groans sounded from the hallway as the boys saw them kiss. Nik laughed as he watched Albi make a gagging motion.
“You know,” he murmured, “I’m beginning to wish I’d come up with a different plan, one that ended with you and me going home together.”
Jenny laughed, a pink flush on her cheeks. “No, you don’t. This is the crazy life we dreamed of. One that included a large family.”
And as Nik looked around Elliott’s home, he realized the truth in her words.
He’d wanted nothing more than a family of his own. Nik reached for Jenny’s hand.
And now he had one.
EPILOGUE
Valentine’s Day, and Nik was a man with plans.
Big plans.
Not quite as big as Elliott’s, which involved dropping to his knee over breakfast to tell Kendalee how much he loved her by placing the ring he’d had designed by famous Canadian jeweler Zameer Kassam on her left hand. But big.
He could see snow falling outside the window of their master bedroom, but then he turned to face an even better view—Jenny curled up naked against his side. As promised, she’d moved in after the Canadian tour. In fact, she’d surprised him on Christmas Eve when the band had finally made it home from their final show in Halifax, where they’d been stuck for twenty-four hours, the snow falling faster than the airport snowplows could keep up with. Instead, they’d checked into a hotel where Nik had showered and then slept like the dead for fifteen hours. On Christmas Eve, when the limo finally pulled up outside his home, he’d found it decorated for the holidays. A large wreath on the door and a thousand little lights wrapped around the railing of the porch. And when he stepped inside, he’d found a tree with Jenny beneath it in the hottest red underwear he’d ever seen, a Santa hat perched on her head. When they were thoroughly reunited and sated, she’d informed him that she’d moved in.
Sighing, he looked around the master bedroom. The entire floor
was now finished and decorated. Everything was the best money could buy—the bed, the mattress, the sofa in the sitting space on the third floor—but Jenny had been more interested in adding a small vase from a local store and a throw she’d seen in IKEA. It was theirs . . . exactly how they’d designed it as they’d lain together all those years ago. It was the small things in life that made him happy. Like sitting on the bed watching basketball while Jenny soaked in the tub for an hour.
It was a good thing that the upper floor was so luxurious, because they were spending most of their time there. Smashing up the ground floor had begun with the major walls knocked out and the skeleton of a kitchen left behind. One unit that held the sink was all that was left. The oven sat next to a plastic table that held the microwave. Not once had Jenny complained. She’d treated it as a giant adventure. In fact, it was more than that. Neither of them wanted to leave the first real home of their own, and no amount of discomfort could change either of their minds.
A large PVC curtain cloaked the stairwell preventing dust from the second-floor reno from making its way to their upper rooms. But what Jenny didn’t know was that behind the big tarps on either side of the hallway, the rooms were finished.
She’d been so busy lately, running a new children’s home east of the city. Every day she’d walk to Sherbourne station and catch the subway out to Woodbine. Thirty minutes there; thirty minutes back. He told her over and over to get a cab. Hell, he’d tried one time to get her a limo and she’d freaked out at him. The home was brand new, and purpose built, so along with the usual challenges, Jenny had the additional work of forming a team and dealing with building issues. Again, he’d tried to step in, to pay for what needed fixing if the city dragged its heels—which it had—but she’d refused to let him help.
“I want to work it out on my own. I need to prove I can do this.”
Occasionally it bothered him that her independence was a direct effect of having been left alone by her parents, and then by him, for so long, but he admired her grit and determination.
He slid his hand down her side, savoring the dip of her waist, the soft line of her hip. At first, she burrowed further against him, but as he allowed his strokes to go farther, over the curve of her cute ass, she began to waken.
“Hey,” she said sleepily.
Silently, he kissed her, savoring her sweetness. “Morning, babe,” he whispered against her lips. He turned on his side to face her, so he could feel her warmth, could see those sleepy eyes of hers that just refused to open on the odd day she didn’t go into work.
“Mmm,” she murmured, still half asleep.
Nik turned her so that she faced away from him, then pulled her flush against him, her ass pressed up against his cock, which had woken ready to take her.
“Someone has grabby hands this morning,” she mumbled, but wiggled playfully against him.
His eyes rolled back in his head. Something about holding this naked woman to his body drove him crazy. He slid his hand up to cup one of her breasts, and he could tell the moment she began to fully wake by the way she arched her back. He slid the other hand down between her legs, resting it gently over her opening. “This okay?” he asked, checking that she wanted this as much as he did.
“Mmm, better than okay,” she said lazily. “The perfect way to wake up.”
Nik allowed his fingers to slide between her lips, working her as she became more and more turned on until he could feel her wetness. He kissed the back of her ear at the same time he slid a finger inside her, feeling the way her walls contracted around him. “Keep wiggling that ass back on my dick and this won’t last very long,” he said playfully. Fast or slow—he was down with either that morning.
“Maybe I don’t need it to last long this morning.” The minx wiggled her butt again, but first she was getting what she needed. He pinned her to him, his arm pressed firmly against her breast as he slid his finger faster, adding his thumb to rub against her clit, just the way she liked.
“Nik,” she gasped as she gripped his wrist, holding him firmly against her as she rocked against him. The action sent shockwaves up his dick.
“Yeah, babe. I want to feel you come,” he whispered against her ear, savoring the way she shivered at his words. “And then I’m going to inch into you real slowly, just like this.” He moved his dick against the crack of her ass, hissing as it felt even better than he intended.
“Oh, God, Nik, I’m . . .”
He felt it as she tightened around him, but before she had the chance to come down, he removed his finger, lifted her leg over his, and slid deep inside her. When he was fully in her, he groaned. Watching her get off on his hand had him cranked, and he knew it wouldn’t take long, so he placed his hand back over her clit, rubbing firm circles as he pulled out and thrust back into her firmly. Each stroke edging a little faster, going a little deeper. Each slide a little wetter, every groan a little more desperate until he felt her begin to shudder against him.
She was going to come again soon, and he wanted to come with her. “Jenny,” he murmured against her neck. He could smell the faint scent of her jasmine bubble bath, could feel the way her hands gripped his wrists, could taste the sweetness of her skin, and could hear the way her breath became more and more shallow. His balls tightened just as she came around him, and they fell apart together.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she whispered, then chuckled.
“You remember what day it is?” he asked. “Because after that orgasm, I’m lucky I remember my name. Happy Valentine’s Day, babe. Now we’ve gotta get up. We’ve got stuff to do today.”
It took another two hours before they were in Nik’s car, partly because neither of them wanted to get out of the multi-jet shower, and partly because Nik couldn’t keep his hands off his girlfriend. She looked cute in the thick winter coat he’d bought her for Christmas and a pale pink scarf she’d wrapped around her neck about a million times. He drove them up the side street by their old apartment on the Danforth. “Ready for your first surprise?”
Jenny nodded. “I hope you didn’t go crazy,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the black bracelet she bought him.
“I didn’t, and technically this gift isn’t even for you.” He took her to the side entrance they used to use to get up to the upper floor and opened the door with the keys he’d brought with him.
“How do you have the keys?” Jenny asked, her nose scrunched up.
He hoped she didn’t look up and see the SOLD sign hanging from the side of the building. The smell of paint lingered in the air, but that was because the crew he’d hired to renovate this place had only just finished the cleanup. “You’ll see in a second,” Nik said as he ushered her up the stairs.
An excitement he’d rarely felt filled his chest as he pushed open the apartment door. It was cheap and cheerful, the decor simple, just about everything washable or easily replaceable. He watched as Jenny poked her head into the bedrooms, knowing she would find two made-up beds in each of them.
Leaning against the doorframe of one of them, she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Okay, what gives? Why are we here?”
“This is now a halfway house for kids coming out of care. Four beds. There is no mortgage on this place because I bought it outright, but I think we should charge a minimum rent. People don’t tend to appreciate things they are given for free the way they do things they have to earn. They can stay here for the first two years out of care. Using the very reduced rent, they can build up some equity so when the state stops helping them when they are twenty-one, they have a leg to stand on and—”
“You’re giving them a place to dream,” Jenny said, tears filling her eyes.
“No,” he said, picking up the envelope he’d left on the table, “you are.” He handed it to her. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He’d known she wouldn’t accept anything expensive from him personally, but he knew the way to this woman’s heart was through her kids. “You get to pick the kids.”
Th
e tears spilled over. “Nik, this is too much. I bought you a bracelet for goodness’ sake.”
“Which I’ll treasure, as you will this, right?”
Jenny stepped up onto her toes and kissed him. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s not really enough, but . . . thank you.”
“You are welcome. Now we have to go. We have other things to do.”
And they packed them in. Over coffee, he showed her Wilfred’s letters. Over brunch, he handed them over to Wilfred’s forty-eight-year-old great-grandson, a testament to the fact that Wilfred had indeed survived the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Wilfred had lived in Brampton with Avaline until he died in 1994, two weeks after his hundredth birthday. Avaline had died the following day.
They’d dropped flowers off at Ellen and Maisey’s house and swung by Elliott’s to congratulate the new couple. Kendalee wore her ring with pride, a fact that caused Daniel to make gagging sounds.
And finally, they’d driven over to Pixie and Dred’s to take Petal out for a little while. Pixie, literally days away from popping, had been sleeping. At first, Petal had been quite adamant that Nik didn’t hold Jenny’s hand, but when the smart toddler realized Nik had two hands, she finally relented.
By eight o’clock, when they finally sat down to eat Chinese out of the boxes at Jenny’s request, they were both exhausted, but Nik had never felt happier.
Jenny reached for the remote. “Mindless TV or movie?”
Nik poured her a glass of sparkling water. “Mindless TV.”
The TV flickered to life. “So join us after the break as we learn more with Nikan Monture on Who Am I?
Jenny turned and stared at him as the commercials began. “Why didn’t you tell me this was on tonight? We should have saved it or something. Or had the boys over and we could have—”
“Because it doesn’t matter to you,” Nik said, reaching for her hand. “It doesn’t matter to Jordan or Dred, Elliott or Lennon. It doesn’t matter because you guys already know who I am.”
“But it mattered to you, so it mattered to all of us.”
“It did. It does. But there is nothing in the show you don’t already know, and it won’t change your perception of who I am. I did it so I could show others.”
Nikan Rebuilt Page 24
