Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I’d gotten over a thousand people to get tested, including my friends at the local PD. My fellow firefighters. And even my brother and his friends.
People had come from as far as Benton, Louisiana, a little town about an hour away, home to a well-known motorcycle club.
In fact, the entire club, The Dixie Wardens MC, had also been tested.
“Do you think he found a match?” I asked.
Mia smiled hopefully. “I want to think so.”
Suddenly, I did, too.
The little boy that was holding my hand was sweet, and he’d fallen asleep in the two minutes it’d taken me to ask his mother about the bone marrow transplant.
He had this adorable snore going on that was making my brain start to contemplate the joys of parenthood…a thought I tried to cut off before it got too far, but found that I just couldn’t.
“So who,” a man that sounded like the doctor I’d spoken with on the phone, said, “Is Jackopa Stoker?”
I blinked.
“That’s my brother,” I answered.
The doctor, Dr. Griffiths according to his nametag, smiled widely.
“Well, I have a near perfect match when I compare Colt’s labs to Jackopa’s.”
My mouth dropped open.
“You’re shitting me,” I said.
He shook his head. “No. Not at all. Yours was very similar, as we discovered, but your brother’s is near perfect.”
Elation started to pour through me at the thought that this kid might have a fighting chance.
“So what now?” I asked since Mia seemed busy trying to gain her composure once again.
She wasn’t doing too good of a job at it, either.
“Now we get them both more deeply tested to make sure they’re truly a match. Then we start making plans to get the transplant done, that is if Jackopa is still amendable to donating,” Dr. Griffiths said.
I grinned.
“Oh, he’ll be amendable.”
I guaran-fucking-teed it.
***
Three hours later, I had Catori, my five-year-old niece, in my lap as I watched her parents fight.
“You what?” Winter yelled.
“I swear to God, Winter, I didn’t fuckin’ mean to do it!” Jack growled, throwing his hands up in the air.
“You can’t just go and do this shit without freakin’ telling me! I’m your wife, I deserve to know if you’re going to go do something life-changing like this,” Winter spat.
I grinned.
“I would hardly call a tattoo life-changing, Winter. I would probably call it more of a…,” he hesitated, looking over at his daughter that was in my lap.
“Call it more of a what?” Winter asked, not realizing that her daughter was listening avidly.
“A sexual enhancement,” he said, looking over at his child once again.
Winter burst out laughing.
“Honey, you could wear a damn sack over your head, and I’d still fuck you,” Winter teased.
“What is fuck?” Catori asked.
Jack shot Winter a dirty look.
She shrugged unabashedly.
“So, what did you come over here to talk about?” Winter asked, plopping down onto the couch right next to me.
She growled and leaned towards me, pulling a naked Barbie doll out from under her ass and tossing it to the already-cluttered-with-cars-and-Barbie-shoes coffee table.
“You get a call from the doctor yet?” I asked.
“No. Why?” My brother questioned.
I shifted Catori until she was on the couch next to me and wrapped my free arm around Winter.
Winter leaned into my shoulder and laid her head against my chest.
My brother ignored that, instead pulling out his phone from his pocket and scanning it.
“Yeah, I got a call from a number I don’t know. Why?” He pushed.
Instead of listening to the voicemail he knew I would explain, he waited to hear it from me.
“You’re a match for that little boy,” I said.
He blinked, then his face became contemplative.
“That’s good. What’s the time frame here?” He asked.
No backing out for my brother.
He was always the hero.
He had to be when it came to me.
I was the bad boy. The one who couldn’t take care of himself. Jack, however, cared for me when nobody, not even I, could.
And, unfortunately, I’d been too caught up in my own crap to save. I had to want to be saved, and I hadn’t been ready to do that until after Adam had died.
My mind, however, shied away from thinking about Adam.
The man I was supposed to protect but didn’t.
My firefighter partner.
My brother’s best friend.
The man I’d watched blow apart into tiny fleshy pieces…
“Tai!” Winter said. “What are you thinking about? Your heart is racing.”
I shook my head, hoping the shaking would physically force those wayward thoughts from my brain.
“Nothing. The doc told me that on Monday you’ll go in for the testing to confirm that you are the perfect match.” I said. Once that’s all done, he said we’d move on to scheduling the donation and transplantation procedures,”
“You do realize, right, that you’re going to have to take it easy for at least a week. You’ll probably have some pain for that first week or so, and you might be tired, too. You can forget going to the gym for a while, too, buddy. It’ll be a month and a half at least before your body replaces that marrow. While you’re recovering from that, I’ll have my eyes on you,” Winter said, pulling her knees to her chest while leaning her head in my direction in a silent request for me to scratch it.