That Thing Between Eli and Gwen (36 page)

His arms snaked around my neck. 
I couldn’t believe how big he was getting.

“Good evening, Sir, Ma’am,” our butler said to us when we stepped inside. “Madam Coraline has already put Wyatt and Donatella to bed, but they wanted to wait up for you.”

“I’ll go to them now,” Melody said and kissed Ethan’s cheek before walking up the steps.

“O’Phelan, anything worth noting happen in our absence?” I questioned.

“No, Sir. Between your mother and Madam Coraline, it was a casual evening. They baked cupcakes, spent some time outside before watching a movie in the theatre with popcorn. Most of them fell asleep after that.”

“Good work, that’s all for the night.”

“Of course, Sir. Goodnight.”

Ethan’s room was only two doors down from ours, in the west wing, with a door that connected to his sibling’s room. It was massive, as per Melody’s orders, the floor covered in soft cream carpets, cherry wood paneling on the walls, and the best view of the backyard over which the Chicago skyline in the distance. His bed was much bigger than it needed to be and when I laid him down, he rolled into the center. I pulled off his tie and shoes and he stirred as I sat him up and took off his jacket and pants.

“Ethan, you need to change,” I told him when his eyes cracked open.

He made a face before lifting up the comforter and crawling underneath in only his boxer briefs. He fell right back asleep.

“Because of you, my night is ruined and yet you sleep like baby,” I muttered as I kissed his head. “Sleep well.”

Moving to the door that connected to Wyatt and Donatella’s room, I turned off the light to his room, leaving the door only partially closed.

“Daddy?”

Donatella sat up rubbing her eyes.

“Shh,” I whispered and walked over to her pink bed. Her brown hair was a complete mess around her sweet face. “What are you doing up, princess?”

She didn’t answer, she just wrapped her tiny hands around me when I was close enough. Closing my eyes for a second, I hugged her back and patted her hair down.

“Come on, bed,” I whispered to her. “Beautiful girls need sleep to stay beautiful.”

“Love ya much,” she said with a yawn.

“Love ya more,” I said and kissed the space between her eyebrows. “Sleep well.”

I moved over to Wyatt, who was snoring softly, kicking off his blanket when he shifted over. Of all of my kids, he was always the most expressive when he slept, making faces. He even talked in his sleep sometimes. If Dona ever heard him, she would tease him the next day. He hated when she did, but he never asked for his own room and neither did she.

“Sleep well,” I said to him and kissed the top of his head.

When I opened the door that connected to our bedroom, I prepared myself, locking the door to their side. Our rooms were all beyond sound proof, we’d never hear them if we didn’t open the door.

“Zip,” Mel said and turned her back to me. Relatively calm?

Is this good or bad? Was she over it? Or did she not want to ruin her dress?
 I couldn’t help but wonder as I pulled the zipper down exposing her beautiful olive skinned back.

She allowed it to fall to the ground and stepped out of it, only in a black lacy bra…that’s it.

Fuck me.

My eyes traveled every length of her body. Over the years, I had watched it chang., She was as fit as ever, but had gotten most of the stretch marks on her body removed except for a few on the left side of her stomach. She said it because giving me my children was one battle she wanted to have scars from.

“What’s wrong with you?” She paused in the center of our room as she took her earings out of her ears. My eyebrow rose at that.

No guns? No cursing? Not even a glare? Everything was wrong.

“Nothing,” I replied and pulled off my tie. When she went into her closet, I moved over to the side table on her side and quickly took the bullets out of her gun. Then I moved to the one under her pillow, and the one strapped to the headboard and the one behind the dresser, and the one under the bed.

“Tomorrow, are you going to be with us for the food drive after church?” she called from the bathroom.

Throwing the pistol back under the bed I stood up straighter. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

No answer. 
What was she doing in there?

Goddamn it.
 This was more stressful than her actually coming out front and fighting me.

Fuck it.
 Kicking off my shoes, I moved to my closet. I stripped down and changed into a pair of black pajama bottoms, running my hand through my hair as I joined her in the bathroom.

Her eyes met mine in the bathroom mirror, a toothbrush in her hand and a silk robe now covering her.

“No guns tonight?” I asked her as I grabbed the toothpaste.

Rising her mouth out, she shook her head. “We have a busy day tomorrow and my husband can’t show up with a black eye. Besides, I think you know how pissed I am. That’s good enough.”

“Look at you being all mature.” I smirked as I brushing my teeth.

“Don’t push me!” she snapped and stomped out.

Leaning back, I watched her ass as she left. “What about our other plans for the night?”

“I put lotion by your sink…have fun.”

I looked down and sure enough, there it was and a box of tissues.

After I rinsed my mouth out with her mouthwash, I followed her. I stepped back into the room and she was already in bed.

“Mel, we don’t go to bed angry with each other,” I reminded her as I moved over to my side of the bed.

She didn’t reply.

“Fine. I’ll wait,” I said. I fluffed the pillow behind me and sat up against the headboard.

Again, she said nothing turning off the lights, now the only source of light—the grayish-blue moonlight streaming in from the window.

This was ridiculous.
 “I took him today because he was ready. He wasn’t in danger, nor would I—”

I froze when I felt the heat in my neck. Reaching up, I touched my skin as a drop of sweat rolled down my face.

She didn’t.

“Ahh…” I hissed at the burning. When I looked at her, she was staring right at me resting her head on her hand, an evil smile played on her lips.

“You should know better than to cross me by now, sweetheart.”

“You…fuck…in…bitch…Ahh.” 

THREE

“There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure.”

~Jim Butcher
 

DECLAN

“You did what?”

She turned back to me as she casually said, “Melody asked me to poison Liam’s mouthwash before you all came home. What did he do?”

My mouth dropped open and for some reason my mind could not process this. Wait. “You help Melody poison my brother and ask what 
he
 did wrong?”

“You and I both know Melody loves Liam more than she loves anything in this world. She’s torturing him a little bit…because again he must have fucked up. So what did he do?” She came over to me and pushed me on to the edge of the bed as she pulled off my tie. I held onto her waist.

She was right. But still. “She’s never been the poisoning type. I expected her to take a bat to his ribs or something.”

“Yes, because that’s more civil.” She giggled as she unbuttoned my shirt. I loved it when she giggled; her nosed bunched up and her brown eyes sparkled. Pulling her closer to me, I rolled us both over on to the bed.

“I missed you tonight. Everyone had their wives beside them and meanwhile, I was surrounded by bitchass cops and Ethan, who is so much like Liam, it’s kind of scary,” I said and she reached up to brush my hair.

“Someone has to hold the fort down. And besides, you survived, it didn’t you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re supposed to say you missed me too, Cora.”

“Am I? Honestly I was so busy with everyone I—”

Grabbing her wrist, I rolled on top of her and pinned her hands down. Her dark brown hair fell in waves cropped at her shoulders. Gravity pushed her breast up higher, and I kissed the top of them both.

“Declan—”

“Say you missed me,” I said above her.

“Make me, baby.”

“Gladly—” We both paused when we heard the baby monitor go off. “Damn it.”

Sighing, I got off of her, helped her up and she kissed my lips softly. “I’ll be right back.”

Nodding, she moved around me and towards Darcy’s nursery, he was only two years old and yet he was expert in cock-blocking me. Taking out the cotton bottoms she’d brought me, I changed and put my phone and wallet on the nightstand before walking into the nursery as well. Darcy was wide-awake. The grin on his face and the way his hazel greens were staring at his mother was contagious. Moving to them, I reached out for him and as he always did he stared at me before trying to grab my nose.

I kissed his light brown finger tips, “You and I are going to have to work on your timing. Daddy was about to—Ahh.” Cora punched, yes punched my side. “He can’t understand me.”

“You don’t know that.” She crossed her arms. “For all we know, Ethan is so much like Liam because you all kept talking about your work in front of him as a baby.”

“He’s like Liam because he’s like Liam. He could have been born deaf and still been the same way. He went on the job with Liam today—”

“He what? Does Melody know?”

“She does now.”

“That explains the poison,” she muttered, running her hands through Darcy’s thick curly hair. When he was first born, his hair looked almost blonde, even his skin was very light, but with each passing day, he got just a little more color to him. He was just as gorgeous as his mother, and had her smile too. Helen, our daughter, even though she was adopted, took after me. She was always breaking things and tearing them part just to see how they worked.

“I heard Helen took apart your laptop?” I asked softy trying not to smile.

She sighed, as if she couldn’t even find the words to say. 

“Baby, you look exhausted, go lie down I got him.”

“But—”

“Father son bonding time. Darcy, say night-night to mommy.” I held him with one hand and pushed her towards the door with the other.  

“I’m going. I’m going.” She laughed, kissing us both before leaving. When I sat down on the rocking chair with him on my chest, I couldn’t help but shake my head…what had happened to all of us?

The big bad Callahans all at the mercy of our children. It was madness…

“Excuse you” I said he when burped

…It was perfection.

However I was nervous…the longer our peace lasted, the harder it would be if something happened and something was always happening with this family.

NEAL

I was married to the most beautiful workaholic in world.

After peeking in on our kids, she all but ran back to our room and plopped down on the couch, her dress puffing up around her. She typed away on her laptop, with three different smartphones beside her. Over the years, I noticed she had a few habits. The first was her pink lips; whenever was excited or nervous, but trying to calm herself down, she would bite down on the corner of them. The second was her black hair, which she always tucked behind her ears when she wasn’t sure what do or say. The third was when she played with her engagement ring. Whenever she rolled the oval shaped diamond around her ring finger, she was trying to make herself confident. Like somehow that ring gave her the power to make it through everything.

Contrary to popular belief Mina was a lot gentler than she seemed. It was easy to forget sometimes when she stood next to Melody, because of how tall she stood, especially at 5 foot 6. She directed and pushed Melody all of the time, not at all like…like Olivia. Olivia did it out of jealously. She’d wanted to be Melody. Instead, Mina wanted something as close to perfection out of everyone around her.

I did my best not to compare Mina and Olivia; they were like the sun and the moon. If someone asked me to make a list of their differences, it would take hours for me to explain. The most obvious difference was that Olivia was a blonde-haired blue-eyed Irish girl and Mina was of Korean decent. Even the sides of the beds they slept on were different. But the most important difference, the only one that mattered…was how happy I was now. When I was with Olivia, I thought I was happy. I thought our marriage was fine…it was only after meeting Mina did I realize that being 
fine
 was as good as being comatose. You’re alive, but there is no way it can be seen as living.

Liam and Melody.

Declan and Coraline.

Neither of their marriages were ever 
fine
. The loved each other with a passion that was sometime so intense, I had to look away. Nothing else in the world mattered to them more than each other. Declan was ready to give up on our family, he begged my father, just so he could be with her. When she got cancer, I’d never seen a man so ready to be devastated. He stayed at her side, picked her off the ground every time she fell with a smile on his face because he was happy she was alive to at least fall. 

Liam….he was so whipped around Mel’s finger, I was sure he was permanently bent. He was the living breathing definition of the term crazy in love. He had to be crazy, what other kind of man would allow his wife to make a habit of shooting him and still comfortably hold onto her. He went to and stayed in jail in the hopes that she would come back for him. He went to war for her.

Now I was the one completely taken over.

If she were sick, I too would fight with her.

If Mina stabbed me in the heart right now, I too would still hold onto her.

I moved over to the couch and she still didn’t notice until I shut the laptop down. Her head snapped at up me, her dark brown eyes on mine when a pout formed on her lips.

“Five more minutes?” she begged.

“Nope,” I said offering her my hand.

She sighed and I pulled her up and spun her into my arms.

“Hello.” She smiled.

“Oh now you notice me? I’ve been staring at you for at least ten minutes.”