Fighting Absolution

by Kate McCarthy

  I’m swept up in one smooth motion and carried inside. He looks around. The space is open and empty. “Well fuck,” he mutters, his eyes searching for furniture, a couch or a bed, but I haven’t got that far yet. “This won’t do. You’re planning on staying here?”

  “Yes. I just need to buy some basic items, and I’ll sleep on an airbed until I can get some furniture. I thought you’d want something you could renovate. Something you could make ours.”

  Kyle turns in a circle, still holding me as he takes it all in. “I can do that. We can both live here and work on the house together. I can extend. Add a second level.”

  “You can do anything you want.”

  He sets me down, seeming suddenly panicked. “We need to get started. We only have five months.”

  “Plenty of time.”

  Kyle looks at me as if I’m crazy. “Jamie, baby.” He shakes his head. “Renovations aren’t a sprint. They’re a marathon. We’ll never get it done in time.”

  “In time for what?” I say simply, thanking Jake from deep inside my heart for helping me see how easy it was to choose happiness above everything else. “We have the rest of our lives.”

  Epilogue

  JAMIE

  Five years later …

  The video call comes in while I’m standing at the back of the ambulance doors, taking inventory. It shouldn’t be a surprise because Kyle video calls every day, some days more than once, yet I still feel a wild burst of pleasure with every single one.

  Wood walks around the side, bandage packets piled high in his arms. His eyes drop to my phone, and they don’t just roll, they roll hard. “Is that Brooks again?”

  “Yep,” I say it with a long-suffering sigh, acting as if his hovering is a huge inconvenience, but secretly I love it. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel wanted or loved.

  Kyle’s face appears when I swipe my finger across the screen. It’s a tiny bit more weathered now than it used to be. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes are a little deeper, his hair lighter from all the time we spend in the sun. The road trips. The camping. The surfing. I haven’t lived so much, or so hard. Jake would be happy knowing that. My father would be too, because I was born a fighter just like he always said, only the fight I chose was for happiness, and isn’t that the best fight of all?

  “Hey, babe,” I greet him while Wood climbs into the back of the ambulance with his hoard.

  Kyle grins from the middle of our bed, wrapped in nothing but a white sheet, his chest bare and thick muscles bulging. My hormones wobble precariously. I do my best to shut them down. I’m on the clock.

  When he speaks his voice is husky from sleep, and I know it’s because he just woke up and found me gone, the sheets on my side of the bed cool and rumpled. “Hey, my sexy baby mama.”

  Wood rolls his eyes again while he re-stocks our supplies. I don’t see it, but I feel it. “What’s up?”

  “Just wanna say good morning and make sure you’re ready for our scan at the hospital this afternoon.”

  I check my watch. It’s six a.m. “I’ve only just started shift.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t finish until four,” I point out. “The scan is a whole hour after that.”

  “So?”

  I’m four months pregnant with our third baby. I haven’t told him, but I’m secretly hoping for a girl. We have two boys already, and they’re both the spitting image of their daddy. Little heartbreakers with sun-kissed waves that hit their shoulders, golden skin, and hazel eyes too big for their cherubic faces. I can’t deny them anything. “So it’s ages away yet.”

  His bottom lip pokes out. “Don’t be such a killjoy.”

  “I’m not!” I turn my head to look at Wood as he ducks down, jumping out the back of the ambulance. “We need more sterile wipes too,” I tell him, and he nods, disappearing around the back doors.

  “Mmm hmm,” Kyle pipes up from my speaker in a suggestive tone. “Say that again.”

  “Kyle!”

  “Wait, pan out a little while you do it.”

  I stretch my arm out straight, holding the phone high and angling it down because I can’t deny Kyle anything either. “We need more sterile wipes,” I say again and try to pout my twitching lips.

  “Fuck me,” he says, exhaling with a grin though his eyes are dark with hunger. “I love you in that uniform. Sexiest goddamn thing ever.”

  I laugh.

  “You should swing by home. I feel a heart attack coming on. Might need the paddles.”

  I laugh a little harder, my heart a melted puddle at my feet because he still takes the time to flirt with me, even when he wakes and has a million things to do before he gets the kids off to day care and himself off to work at the barracks. His most recent promotion sees him training not only the new recruits, but even the most seasoned soldiers. Kyle is tough on all of them, but he’s also fair and well liked. Maybe even a little revered, by me most of all, and not just because of his steadfast work ethic, but because he’s an incredible father to our babies. Unlike me, he’s unwaveringly patient, even during the midst of a wild tantrum. He guides our boys, gives them endless love and attention, and teaches them about life. Seeing the way they look up to him makes me ache in the best possible way.

  Wood comes back with the sterile wipes in one hand, sticking his finger down his throat with the other, pretending to gag as if he’s never been in love and made kissy faces to Erin on the phone while I’m driving us to an emergency situation. “You guys make me sick.”

  Kyle ignores him. “Lift your shirt. Wanna see my baby.”

  “Kyle!”

  He tips his chin. “Do it.”

  I untuck the front shirt of my uniform and lift it a little.

  “More.”

  I lift it a little higher, exposing my rounded belly. A groan rumbles from his chest. He flops back against his pillows, one of his hands disappearing.

  “Are you hard again?”

  He cocks a brow. “If you want me to lie, then no. I’m totally not.”

  “Kyle!”

  “I can’t help it. I want to fuck you stupid, get you pregnant all over again. You make me crazy.”

  My brows fly up, my tone sardonic as I bring the phone a little closer to my face. “Oh, I make you crazy?”

  “Daddy, daddy, daddy!”

  I hear the thundering of little feet against the white oak timber flooring in our house. It’s morning time. Malin—his name meaning strong little warrior—is our eldest at almost five and usually the first to wake.

  Kyle lets out an oof when he jumps on the bed, Malin landing on his chest in a tangle of pint-sized arms and legs. Excited little fingers grab his face. “Can we surf?”

  “You have day care today.”

  His brows snap together in a mulish frown. “Surf.”

  “No. Day care. And say good morning to your mum. Tell her to have a good day at work.”

  His face turns towards the screen, and I can’t believe I created him, this miniature version of the man I adore. Just when I thought I knew love, Malin came along and showed me just how much of it you can squeeze inside your heart. Kids are incredible. “Have a poopy day, Mum.”

  They’re also little assholes. Though poop is his word of the month and not meant with malice. He thinks it’s hilarious. “Nothing could be more poopy than your face.”

  His little laugh peals through the phone and pierces my heart like an arrow. “Dad is taking me for a surf.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Kyle props his phone against the empty mug on his bedside table so I can still see them both before he wrestles Malin into the bed. “Day care for you.”

  He lets our boy roll him to his back and pin his arms. A move I taught him, which makes my chest puff proudly. He dips his face to Kyle’s. “Surf.”

  “Day care.”

  “Day care stinks.” Malin sits back on his dad’s stomach, releasing Kyle’s arms so he can fold his own in a little
fit of temper. “Royce stole my Iron Man and broke his leg off before giving him back.”

  Kyle sits up, nostrils flaring, going from sleepy, sexy male to angry papa bear in the space of a single sentence. “He what?”

  “Babe,” I pipe up and he turns his face to the phone. “You might wanna ask Malin what he did first.”

  Kyle arches a brow at our little baby, our firstborn, who came out of the vaginal canal with a stubborn frown on his face, the only inherent trait that seems to come from me. The cheeky sly behaviour? That’s all Kyle. One hundred percent Brooks. “What did you do?”

  Malin is chewing at his bottom lip. “Nothin’, I swear.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothin’!”

  It’s going to be that kind of day, I’m thinking. I interrupt the squabble. “I have to get going. Have a good day, babe. Give Angus a kiss for me,” I tell him. My three-year-old is a serious little fellow. I see the same quiet strength in his eyes as his father, as if he’s walked this Earth before. “See you later this afternoon.”

  Wood and I get through our shift. It drags a little because tomorrow we leave on holidays. We’re taking the boys on a road trip along the north-east coast, starting at Cairns, the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. It’s made up of red dirt, croc-infested river crossings, ancient rock art, and the lush Daintree rainforest, a world heritage site. We’re going to snorkel the biggest reef in the world and walk the famous Mossman Gorge trail, and we’re going to finish with five nights at Lizard Island because road trips with kids aren’t for the faint of heart. I’m going to need some serious luxury before we return home.

  I meet Kyle after shift, and we get through our twenty-week scan with flying colours while Erin watches the kids back at home for us. The good news? We’re having another boy. Another Kyle. He holds my hand as we leave, twining our fingers together as the hospital entrance doors whoosh open, ejecting us into a warm dusky afternoon.

  “You’re not disappointed, are you?” he asks me.

  “Of course not. If anyone can handle another male Brooks, it’s me.”

  We reach his car in the parking lot, a late model 4WD. It might be newish but it’s definitely lived in. Boys have a tendency to wreck their toys, and Kyle is no exception.

  I climb in and he reaches across the seat, rubbing a hand across my belly. “I ever tell you I love you?”

  I put my hand over his and he takes it, squeezing. “Only every day.”

  Kyle slides his hand free and grips the steering wheel. He uses the other to turn the key, and the Hilux thunders to life.

  Kyle

  Erin sends me a message as we make our way home.

  Erin: We’re all set. So excited!

  I take a breath, anticipation thick in my blood, my pulse racing with nerves. I send her a furtive message when we stop at a red light.

  Kyle: Five minutes out.

  “Did you finish packing?” Jamie asks me.

  I haven’t started yet. “Of course I have.”

  “You haven’t, have you.”

  I glance her way, widening my eyes. “Would I lie to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ugh.” My hand goes to my heart. “You wound me.”

  Jamie snorts as we pull into the driveway. She’s looking around with brows pulled together, our usually quiet street filled with cars. I hit the button on the garage door remote, and it lifts with a slow steady pace. I drive inside and it lowers behind us, offering a warm muted light as I switch off the engine.

  “So …” I clear my throat. “I did a thing.”

  “You did a …” Jamie’s brows rise high with exasperation. “What now?”

  Maybe I deserve that. I hosted card night this week, and we might have got a bit drunk and broke the oven. Though it was Nathan’s idea to cook nachos, so it’s partly his fault that the door came clean off when I pulled it open. It’s the price Jamie pays for having a muscled husband who doesn’t know his own strength, though she didn’t look impressed when I pointed that out.

  I might have also eaten all her donuts the night before last, the very ones she was saving for after her shift. There was no possible way she could prove it, so I blamed the boys. She cried over the empty box, actually cried, and I felt like such a piece of shit. What kind of monster eats his woman’s donuts when she’s pregnant? I ducked out to the local 7-Eleven and bought her another box, though two somehow slipped free and flew out the open window on the drive home. Such a freak accident.

  “It’s not a bad thing this time,” I reassure her. At least, I hope it’s not.

  The internal door between the garage and the laundry opens. Erin appears, her blond hair set in loose waves, a pearl pin holding them back from her face. She’s stunning in her ankle-length lace dress and made-up face. Wood is punching above his weight so bad. A fact I remind him of every time he blames me for Jamie turning up tired on shift, but it’s hardly my fault she can’t keep her hands off me in the middle of the night, is it? Her sexual appetite for me is almost embarrassing.

  Jamie opens her door and goes to step out. I reach for her, grabbing her hand. “Wait.”

  She stops, turning her head to look at me.

  My heart thunders in my chest. “It’s just … we’ve been so busy. And I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

  Jamie shakes her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I let Erin whisk her away and make my way up the internal stairs to Malin’s bedroom. I swing the door open, confronted by Ryan, Nathan, Monty, and my two beautiful boys, all of them dressed in suits. Even my sons have a small cream rose pinned to the lapels of their smart black jackets, their hair tied back at the nape of their necks.

  Goddamn. I almost tear up.

  Malin and Angus hit my legs, hugging me, and Ryan sets a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Time to suit up, my man.”

  I nod and drop to a crouch in front of my boys, running a hand over each of their heads. “Ready to marry your mama?”

  “Uncle Ryan says you give each other a ring,” Malin says. “Do I get one too?”

  Angus pipes in. “What are rings?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever they are, you’re not getting one,” Malin tells him.

  Angus flares his little nostrils. “I want one.”

  Malin sticks out his tongue. “You can’t have one because you’re stupid.”

  “Hey, hey, hey!” I cut through the escalating situation, knowing I need my boys on their best behaviour tonight of all nights. “How about instead of rings that you’ll both end up losing, we get you a dog?”

  They both gasp and look at me, eyes round. “Yes!” they yell in unison, strands of their hair coming loose as they jump about the room, screaming, “Dog, dog, dog!” like they’re on a trampoline.

  I straighten, knowing Jamie is going to kill me. We discussed, and agreed, on getting a dog later down the track, when the boys are older and can take responsibility for its care. “You have to behave tonight though or it’s not going to happen,” I say in a loud voice, confident my bribery will work. “And that means being quiet and sitting still.”

  They shut up and race to take a seat on the bed as if we’re playing musical chairs and I just paused the song.

  Mission accomplished.

  “And don’t tell your mum,” I add.

  Monty hands me a chilled bottle of beer, and I put it to my lips, tipping my head back as I take a deep pull, hoping it will cool the bundle of nerves in my stomach. He laughs. “Bit late for cold feet, isn’t it?”

  “Mate, we have two-point-five kids and a mortgage, and I still wake up waiting for her to realise she made a mistake.”

  Ryan leans up against the windowsill, his own beer in hand. “Let’s face it. She can do way better than you.” The room erupts into laughter. Except for me. It’s not fucking funny because it’s true. Even my boys laugh, though it rings a little false because they don’t get the joke. “Seriously, though
, Jamie is a lucky woman and the way I see her look at you tells me she knows it.”

  I nod, feeling emotional, and clink my beer to his, and then Monty and Nathan in turn, before we all take a drink.

  Later, after I’m suited up and our bottles are empty, we make our way downstairs through the busy kitchen and living area and out onto the back veranda. I look out over the yard.

  Erin and Julie, Jake’s mother, have outdone themselves. Fairy lights are strung between the trees and the house, creating a warm, happy glow. White tables and chairs have been set out around the lawn, an array of flowers at their centre. Lacy garlands and paper lanterns hang from branches, and all our friends are mingling about, chatting above the sound of music, glasses of champagne in their hands.

  The gates at the far end of our lowset fence are wide open, leading out onto the beach beyond, and a rectangle wooden arbour decorated with lace ribbon, twinkling lights, and cream-coloured roses.

  The noise in the yard dies off when everyone sees me standing at the top of the steps, my boys’ hands in mine and my best friends beside me. They let out a cheer and a few claps and I speak up. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. You might have figured it out already, but if you haven’t, you’re here for a surprise wedding. Jamie and I have been engaged for over four years now, but every time we even think about planning anything, something comes up.”

  “Or you pop another baby out,” someone pipes up from the back and everyone laughs.

  “Jamie wants a big family. Who am I to deny her?” More laughter. “Anyway, it’s almost time, so if everyone can make their way out onto the sand, bring your glasses, and we’ll make this happen.”

  I take my place by the arbour, taking a minute to introduce myself to the celebrant. Malin and Angus stand in front of me, Ryan to my left, followed by Monty and Nathan.