Unforgettable: Always 2 (17 page)

My gut dropped at the blunt question. Raph’s nostrils flared, and Amanda gasped.

Maci however, raised her hand and let out a wry grunt. “That would be me.”

Parker dipped his head in a single nod. “You know, of course, you’re ineligible.”

She returned his nod with one of her own. “I do.”

Parker turned his attention to Raph. “And before you go into over-protective mode and punch me for being callous, I want you to understand,
my
primary focus is your friend’s son. Right now, we don’t have time for PC tip-toeing. Understand?”

Raph drew in a slow breath.

“He understands,” Maci answered, smoothing her hand up Raph’s arm.

Raph released his breath in a sigh. “Yeah, I do.”

Parker nodded again. “Excellent. Now that’s out of the road, you must be Raphael Jones?”

“I am.” Raph extended his hand. “What do you need me to do?”

Parker shook his hand. “A simple blood test. If it looks like you’re a possible match, we’ll move onto tissue matching, okay?”

“Okay.”

With a slap of his hands on the back of the chair, Parker rose to his feet. “Right, let’s punch it, wookie.” He turned to me. “Are you okay to stay here with these lovely ladies, big guy?”

“If one of them buys me another coffee, sure.”

Parker turned to Raph. “Ready?”

“Yep.”

As they walked away, I heard Parker ask, “So, named after the painter or the turtle?”

I’m pretty certain I heard Raph reply, “Turtle.”

When I turned back to Amanda and Maci, it dawned on me I was sitting at a table with the only two girls I’d ever loved. It was surreal. I would have made a joke out of it, but this wasn’t the right time. Not under these circumstances.

As it was, before I could open my mouth to break the silence, Maci did, in typical Maci Rowling fashion – quickly and to the point.

“Just to get the awkward out of the way,” she said to Amanda, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, her right hand firmly clasped around her left to contain its trembles, “I’m going to be up front. I didn’t like the way you broke his heart” – she tossed a sideways nod in my direction – “or left him in the cold about your son.”

I saw Amanda stiffen. And Maci frown. My gut clenched.

“On the other hand,” Maci went on, her eyes fixed on Amanda’s, “I’ve been in the position of not wanting to tell anyone about my own illness, so I get it. And it sucks. It sucks a lot. So we will do anything we can to help you.” She gave me a warm smile. “Both of you, and your son.” Settling back in her seat, she let out a short breath and turned her smile to Amanda. “There, that covers it, right?”

Amanda let out her own breath, hers far more wry. “Breaking Brendon’s heart was never the plan. Nor was any of this, trust me. I’ve just been trying to survive one wave at a time. It wasn’t until Bren arrived that I realized I can survive
whatever
the world throws at me, even … even what’s happening to Tanner, when I’m with him.”

“So you love him? He’s not just here because you hoped his bone marrow would match? Or that you needed his sizeable shoulders to lean on?”

Amanda met Maci’s intent gaze. “I don’t think there’s words to describe how much I love him. I never
stopped
loving him. Ever.”

Suffice to say, my heart tried to thump its way out of my chest at that. And damn, I had a hard time not leaning over to kiss her senseless.

Maci’s smile grew warmer. She stood, walked around the table to where Amanda sat, crouched down beside her and without a word, slipped her arms around her waist and hugged her.

I’m not going to lie. I had to blink a lot to clear my eyes.

“Gonna get us coffee,” I muttered, rising to my feet.

Ten minutes later, the three of us sat drinking the poor excuse of a beverage the Americans call coffee, while Amanda and Maci talked about Parkinson’s disease, Australia, Tanner, and any other topic that crossed their minds.

I sat silent in my chair, letting their soft voices flow over me, watching them, but not really watching them. I was being. Just being. Not meditating, but existing, drawing comfort from Maci’s company, drawing strength from Amanda’s love.

My mind – like their conversation – flittered about, jumping from one subject to another, never lingering on one for long. Tanner, Raph’s blood test, living in America, American financial systems, my mum and dad’s tests, Charles Sinclair, Robby Aames, working in the States, living here … My mind touched on all of it.

I wasn’t searching for answers. I was just … existing. Decompressing.

I was still doing so when Raph returned. Or maybe I was dozing? I didn’t hear him arrive that’s for certain, nor did I hear he and Maci tell Amanda they were going to check into a hotel, but apparently that’s what happened.

Or so Amanda told me, a soft chuckle in her voice after she gently nudged me back to the here and now.

“C’mon, my Wonder from Down Under,” she murmured, tugging me to my feet. “It’s almost three-thirty. We won’t get the results for Raphael’s test for another two hours. Parker told us to go home and get some proper sleep. We’ll be back by the time Tanner wakes.”

Home
. The word played with me. Going home with Amanda.

I tightened my fingers around her hand, stopping her as she began to walk away from the table.

She turned, a confused frown pulling at her eyebrows as she looked up at me. “What’s up?”

I drew her close and lowered my head to hers. “I love you, Mandy,” I whispered. “Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”

She looked up at me. Stared into my eyes. And then smoothed her palms up my chest and smile. “Yes,” she whispered back.

I kissed her there in the cafeteria. I knew there were other people around us, not many, but a few. I knew, given why they were at the hospital in the first place, the last thing they probably wanted to see was someone else’s raw happiness, but I had to kiss her. I didn’t have any other choice. I loved her. And she loved me. And when you realize something as profound as that, when it really really hits you, you have no other choice but to surrender to your heart.

Lifting my head from hers, our breaths mingling, I brushed my thumb over her bottom lip and nudged her forehead with mine. “Home?”

“Home.”

We drove back to her apartment in relative silence. There was nothing strained or uncomfortable about it. I sat in the passenger seat, eyes closed, my hand resting on her thigh.

Mrs. Garcia, I was almost surprised to see, wasn’t perched in her usual spot at her window when we arrived. Hand in hand, we walked into Amanda’s building, up the stairs to her floor. I wanted to scoop her up and carry her over the threshold when she opened her door, but honestly, I don’t think I had the strength. Exhaustion had finally claimed me. I was beyond drained.

I followed Amanda into her apartment, a slow smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as I saw she’d returned Tanner’s toys, his high chair, from their earlier hiding places. When had she done that? When I’d stormed out, angry at her and her non-relationship with Robby and his Rolex?

A warmth spread through me as my tired gaze fell on a collection of Transformers toys in a basket next to the sofa, sitting there waiting for Tanner to play with them again. I could hear his giggles as he waved them about. I could see his grin.

“Oppimus da,” he crowed in my head, waving the robot at me. “Tuck tuck!”

Warm fingers found mine and I lifted my gaze to find Amanda leading me through the living room. I think I was asleep before I made it into her bedroom. I don’t remember lying down. Nor do I remember undressing.

But when I woke, almost two hours later, and found Amanda stretched naked beside me, the pre-dawn sky painting her body in delicate purple shadows, I remembered our kiss in the cafeteria. I remembered my question.

I remembered her answer.

And
every
molecule in my body – from the base organ between my thighs, to the thumping organ in my chest – reacted to that answer, and the future it meant. Rolling onto my side, my pulse fast, my breath shallow, I skimmed my hand up over her bare leg, over her hip, her belly. My fingers found the tiny stretch marks in her flesh, and traced them. She moaned in her sleep, the softest of sounds, and shifted on the bed, moving into my touch.

I drew closer to her, my fingers exploring the incredible swell of her breasts, the puckered tip of her nipples. My pulse quickened more as I noticed the way the dark points grew harder, the way her body responded to mine. Returning my hand to her hip, I traced the silky lines there as I leaned toward her and took one of her nipples in my mouth.

“Oh yes, Bren,” she murmured, her voice husky with arousal. Her hand fisted in my hair, holding my mouth to her flesh.

I drew harder on the peak, sliding my hand to the curls of her pubic hair, and lower.

“Yes …” She rasped, arching as my fingers parted her folds and sought out the very center of her sex. “Yes …”

I worshipped her breasts, her sex, with my mouth and my hand. When I lifted my mouth from her breast, when I moved it to her mouth, when I took possession of her lips with my own, she moaned into the kiss and closed her fingers around my wrist. She guided my hand until I felt her inner muscles begin to tighten around my fingers.

“Oh Bren,” she groaned against my lips, squeezing my wrist and holding my hand still between her legs. “I don’t want to come that way … I want you inside me. Please … be inside me.”

“No worries,” I murmured against her lips, teasing the tiny button of her clit with my thumb before withdrawing my hand and moving above her. I supported my weight with my hands and knees as I kissed her over and over, as I feasted on her breasts and lost myself to her flesh.

I explored her beautiful body. I kissed her belly, traced her stretch marks with my tongue. I parted her pussy lips with my fingers and licked at her clit, teasing it. And then, as she moaned again and pleaded with me to be inside her, I moved up over her again, aligning our bodies, our hearts. Hips together, thighs tangled, I rested my weight on one elbow and caught her wrist with my other hand. I raised her palm to my lips and kissed it center.

Holding her gaze, I whispered
I love you
, and then entered her. Filled her. Made love to her. Gave myself to her forever.

And when her phone and mine chirped beside the bed, when Parker’s name flashed up on our screens, for a selfish moment I wanted nothing more than to pretend it hadn’t. For one split-second, selfish moment that vanished again just as quickly.

Because our
forever
– whatever it may be – was waiting for us at the hospital, and I didn’t begrudge that at all, even as I feared it and hoped to God it was the future we wanted.

Remember how earlier I’d mentioned my thoughts on the concept of hope? As I sat in Parker’s office, Amanda’s fingers squeezing mine so hard it hurt, I knew there was a reason for my dismissal of it. Hope had royally fucked me over.

Raph wasn’t a match.

I don’t know at what point I’d believed one hundred percent that he was going to be. But at some stage in the last three hours, between when he’d hugged me in the hospital foyer to when he’d left with Parker to have the tests, my stupid optimism had taken charge of my commonsense and I’d convinced myself my old rival and friend was going to save my son’s life by being the perfect bone-marrow match. Maybe because he was a born chick-flick-hero kind of guy. Maybe because he’d saved Maci’s life by loving her. For whatever reason, I was convinced he was going to be a match and save my son.

He wasn’t. He didn’t know that yet. Neither did Maci. It was only Amanda and me and Parker in his office, the 5:30 am dawn sun streaming through the window, its promise of a new day mocking us with cruel light.

My heart pounding in my ears like a canon, I stared at Amanda sitting beside me, her stricken profile. Inside I was … empty.

“No.” She shook her head at Parker.

Parker’s sigh filled the office. He’d come back to the hospital dressed in gray suit pants, a white shirt and a purple and green polka-dot bowtie. The frames of his glasses were lime green. A purple handkerchief poked out of his breast pocket. I knew the colorful display was for the children, but I wanted to take that handkerchief and tear it to shreds.

Fate, life – hell, maybe even God if he really did exist – had fucked us over again.

I wanted to hurt something. I wanted to scream at something. I wanted to rage. And cry. Jesus, I wanted to cry.

But for Amanda’s sake, I wouldn’t. She needed my strength. Not bitter tears and futile anger.

“We’ll put out another call to the donor bank,” Parker said, his voice calm and gentle. And yet, I could hear defeat in it.

A
critical stage
. They were the words he’d used last night, talking to me about Tanner’s condition. How critical must it now be for that tone to taint his normal confidence?

I ignored the cold fear creeping through me. “Have you heard from my parents?” I asked. Thankfully I sounded calm. I didn’t feel it, not by a long shot. “Have they had their tests yet?”

Parker shook his head. “Their results haven’t come in yet. I’m coordinating with the head of Oncology at your mother’s hospital, but there’s been a delay in the processing.”

I ground my teeth. “Of course there has,” I growled.

Seriously, if I could, I’d kick Fate in the arse right now.

“Tanner’s a—”

“Fighter?” I finished for him. My knuckles creaked as I balled my fists. Was it wrong to be sick of hearing how much a fighter my son was?

“Bren.” Amanda’s warm hand closed over the back of one of mine. “Being angry doesn’t help,” she said, the words kind. “Trust me, I know.”

I stared at her. She
did
know. She’d ridden this rollercoaster for over a month now. Me, I’d only been on it for a day. If I was ready to splinter under the pressure, how was she even functioning?

As if seeing the confusion, grief and bitter rage war on my face, she leaned towards me in her chair and pressed her hand to my jaw. “You are strongest when you’re not angry, babe,” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. “You’re like the anti-Hulk that way.”

My Adam’s apple slid up and down my throat as I swallowed. Holding her gaze, I let out a slow breath and nodded. “What now?” I asked, turning back to Parker.

Sympathy and sorrow swam in his eyes. “For now, you both go be with your son. Enjoy his life, his smiles. Enjoy him. I’m going to put out another call to the donor bank. You never know, a donor may have registered late last night. People do unexpected things in the wee hours of the morning.”

That was true. I’d bought a one-way ticket to LA in the middle of the night, only thirty-six hours ago.

Amanda and I went to stand, but Parker cleared his throat.

“Before you go …” He closed his eyes, and raked a hand through his hair. “Before you go,” he began again, opening his eyes to level us with a steady stare, “I need to tell you, Amanda, that your father is pressuring the hospital to do the transplant using Robert Aames’ bone marrow.”

My blood turned cold. “What the …?”

Amanda froze. “He what?”

Parker sighed, disgusted. “One of his students is the daughter of one of our board members, and she thinks he walks on water. He’s using that leverage to pressure the hospital into saying you’re not fit to be Tanner’s legal guardian. From what I understand, he’s also started legal proceedings to be named as Tanner’s legal guardian instead.”

Amanda burst out laughing. Parker blinked. I gaped at her. She stood beside me, eyes closed, hand on her belly, shaking her head, laughing. A completely loud raucous laugh. And then it became something else. Something … angry, brittle.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” She shook her head some more, wiping at her eyes. “I don’t …” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and looked up at me.

A dark hate sliced through my chest at what I saw in her eyes: defeat. Utter defeat. Professor Charles Sinclair, her father, the man who was meant to care for her, protect her from hurt and grief in any way he could, was destroying her. When she was at her most vulnerable, he was ripping her apart.

I wanted to kill him. Plain and simple, I wanted to kill him.

“Can he do that?” I asked Parker. If I didn’t ask a question, if I didn’t focus on the legality of Charles’s callous intent, I have no doubt I would have left the hospital, caught a taxi to the Sinclair’s house and beaten the crap out of him. For a horribly enticing moment I even saw him opening their front door, recognition filling his face a split second before my fist smashed into his jaw …

I fixed my eyes on Parker, my pulse wild, waiting for the answer to my question.

“He can.”

At Amanda’s broken whisper, I turned to her. There wasn’t a sign of laughter, not even angry laughter, now. The defeat in her eyes had leached into her face. She was sitting again, her spine stiff, pinching at her thumbnail.

“He can,” she repeated, a little stronger now. “But it’s a lengthy process. He has to prove I’m unfit to be Tanner’s parent.” Her lips moved into a sad smile. “And now you’re here, he’d have to prove you are as well.”

I dragged in a slow breath. The urge to walk out of Parker’s office and find Charles Sinclair overwhelmed me again.

Parker cleared his throat. “As Amanda said, it’s a lengthy process, one that …” He cleared his throat again, removed his glasses and rubbed his thumb at the corner of one eye. “… one that, if we don’t find a donor match, will outlive Tanner.”

Cold pain lanced my rage. I ground my teeth. “So why is he doing it?”

Parker shook his head, and put his glasses back on. He grimaced. “Charles is a determined man.”

“Determined to let his grandson die because he has issues with me?” I balled my fists. “Or because he will do anything to ingratiate Robert Aames into Amanda’s life?”

“Bren.” Amanda touched my wrist. “Dad’s …” She broke off.

“A condescending, arrogant bastard?” I finished for her. I shouldn’t have gone there, I shouldn’t have let my anger control me.

Amanda frowned. “Yes. You’re right. He
is
both of those things. But he loves me, I know that, and he thinks … He’s doing it from a place he thinks …”

She stopped and slumped in her chair, dropping her face into her hands and shaking her head.

I watched her, feeling helpless. I had no clue about the American court system, about US law. I had no clue what Charles’s legal case meant for Tanner. I had no fucking clue what it meant for me and my future with him. If Charles got his way, I had no doubt he’d make sure the “dumb Australian jock” had no contact with his grandson ever again.

What I
did
have a clue about was what he was doing to Amanda. It was right in front of me. And she was still defending him. He was destroying her, and she was still trying to protect him from my rage. Because she loved him, as any daughter who’d grown up with a father who cherished her, who doted on her, who wanted only the best for her … she loved him.

Which didn’t change my desire to break his jaw at all. But it did keep me in Parker’s office.

Drawing in a slow breath, I lowered myself into my seat and looked at Parker. “You said Charles is pressuring the board. What does that mean?”

“He’s making noise, via his student’s father. It’s a dead-end. The board has no sway over any medical decision, but Charles and Jacqueline
do
have legal permission to make medical decisions about Tanner’s treatment if Amanda is incapable of doing so. I think Charles is trying to see how much that permission allows him at this point.”

“
Allows
him?” I echoed. My gut was a knotted mess.

Parker pulled a face. “It allows him nothing. All Amanda needs to do is revoke that right. Now that you’re here, it makes sense she does that and gives it to you anyway.”

“Jesus, Dad,” Amanda muttered beside me.

I looked over at her. Her cheeks glistened, wet with tears. But she was sitting straight. Her jaw was set. Strong. She was so strong. Stronger than me.

“And,” Parker went on, “he’s trying to scare you. Both of you.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Parker grunted. “You’re both young. You, big guy, aren’t from around these parts. You don’t know our laws. Charles knows that. If you’d been a match, he wouldn’t have been able to play this card, but unfortunately you weren’t.”

“What time is it?”

I blinked at Amanda’s sudden question. So did Parker. He checked his watch before I did. “Close on six-fifteen.”

Amanda let out a sigh and turned to me. “It’s a Saturday. Dad’s not going to be awake for another hour or so.” She smiled. A real smile. One full of warmth. “But Tanner
will
be. He’s probably already awake, waiting for me. Waiting for
us
.”

Us.

Smile growing softer, warmer, she rose to her feet again. “C’mon, Bren, let’s go spend the morning with our son. We’ll deal with Dad later, okay?”

I frowned, but didn’t move.

She grinned. Actually grinned. “Who do you want to spend the morning with right now, Bren? My dad? Bruising your knuckles on his jaw? Or your son? Maybe getting whacked in the head with Optimus Prime a few times and refining your diaper-changing skills?”

Parker chuckled. It was a strained sound, but running beneath it was the playful humor of the man I’d very first met. “I’ve heard those skills need some work.”

Amanda held out her hand. “Come see Tanner with me, Bren. You can help me change his, what do you call them? Nappy?”

“Nappy.” I rose to my feet, took her hand and smiled. “And I can change him myself.”

We were at the door to Parker’s office when Amanda turned back to face him. “Thank you, doctor.”

He nodded. “I will do everything I can to save your son, Amanda. Everything. Even if it means telling a loving daughter her father is being a bit of an ass.”

A dry bark of a laugh burst from me before I could stop it.

Amanda fixed me with a melodramatic glare, her lips twitching. “C’mon, Bren.
Nappy
time.”

We left Parker’s office, hand in hand, and headed for Tanner’s room. The hospital was waking up, its young patients beginning to interact with nurses, some laughing at whatever was taking place in their rooms. I heard the sounds of Pokémons battling, the Wiggles singing and Finn and Jake going on another crusade in
Adventure Time
as we walked the corridors heading for the Oncology ward.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda murmured just before we arrived, stopping me with a gentle squeeze of my hand.

I turned to her. “For what?”

“For Dad. For him not liking you.”

I chuckled, cupping the side of her face. “Do you think I remotely care what your father thinks of me?”

She shrugged. “It must make you feel like crap though?”

“I’ve got to admit, I’m not used to people not seeing how awesome and incredible I am.”

She laughed, rolling her eyes. “Of course, that must be brutal.”

“I’ll get over it. And so will he. But until he does, he’s going to have to learn to live with me. Because I’m not going anywhere. Got it?”

Amanda nodded. “Got it. Hope you don’t mind me going a bit psycho on his ass when we see him next though?”

I grinned. “Only if I can take photos. Maybe Chase can Instagram it?”

She rolled her eyes again, leaning into me a little. “I don’t think she’ll have a problem with—”

My phone buzzed and vibrated into life in my pocket.

Grabbing Amanda’s hand before she could turn away to give me some privacy – there was nothing I didn’t want her to know anyway – I pulled my phone free and looked at the screen.

Raphael Jones. At the sight of his name, the fact he was here in San Diego flooded back to me, the bleak reason behind it.

I pressed Accept with my thumb, and raised the phone to my ear. “Jones. How you going this morning? How’s Maci?”

“You got the results back yet?” he asked. Raphael Jones never used two words when one would do, and he never wasted time when he wanted something. It was a character trait that drove a lot of people mental, but I’d always respected him for it. Even when we’d been in the middle of a non-event love-triangle for Maci’s attention.

Looking at Amanda, I released a slow sigh. “Yeah, we do.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry, mate.”

I brushed Amanda’s lip with my thumb and let out a wry grunt. “The fact that I’m not at your hotel, kicking your door in and dragging you back here to the hospital, wasn’t a giveaway you weren’t a match?”

Raphael responded with his own grunt. “Yeah. Wish to hell I was.”

“It’s all good, dude.” It wasn’t. Not at all. But there was no point ranting at the cruelty of fate. “We’re not giving up yet. Mum and Dad are being tested in Australia. There’s a strong chance one of them will be a match.”

“Your optimism never ceases to amaze me, Osmond.”