Lift You Up (Rivers Brothers 1)

His hand moved up, stroking down my wet hair, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

"You won't need clothes either," I told him, wanting to break the silence.

The rumble that moved through his chest was all I needed.

My head lifted, his gaze lowered.

And we were both grinning.

Big.

Stupid.

Happy grins.

I was pretty sure right then and there that Helen had just won the bet.TENKingstonWe found a unique sort of rhythm. Everything required extra steps, more consideration. And as the days stretched into weeks, Savea was getting less and less tolerant of her own limitations.

Padfoot came home which helped her dipping mood, gave her something else but her cumbersome cast to think about. Within two days, she managed a feat with him I hadn't been able to since I got him. She got him to chase a ball... and bring it back. Maybe it happened because there was some necessity in it, seeing as she couldn't get up to get the ball to toss it again.

Nixon had wheeled one of the office chairs in for her which I usually found her rolling around the house in, putting laundry away, cleaning, cooking.

Maybe it was boredom, but I suspected she also felt like she needed to contribute. She couldn't go more than a few hours without thanking me, saying something about how she's sorry she's such a chore.

A chore.

Her.

Like there was anything laborious about picking her up, carrying her around, being close to her.

Maybe it came from being a father figure to my siblings, but I liked taking care of people. I especially liked being able to take care of her when she needed me.

The first few days had been blissful, both of us lounging in bed, taking showers together. The shower always led to my fingers working her, and most times, her taking me into her mouth. I would wake her up with my own some mornings as well.

It held us over, but there was no denying that as time went on, as her pain went away and we were just in the limbo of having a giant cast always making everything difficult, it was getting more and more frustrating to hold off, to deny ourselves what we really wanted.

Every morning she would take the coffee from my hands, look up at me, sigh, and tell me how many days it was until she could get her cast off.

Forty-eight.

Twenty-five.

Seventeen.

Then, the sigh became a smile as the numbers dwindled down to single digits.

Ten.

Eight.

Two.

One.

"I hate him," she hissed as we got back in the car.

"He's just looking out for your best interest," I tried to play devil's advocate even though I shared in her frustration.

"I'm gonna cut it off myself," she added, getting more worked up than I had ever seen her, and I had once seen her lecture someone for forty-five minutes for keeping a beta fish in a glass bowl with no filter.

"It's one more week, Savvy," I reminded her, hand landing on her thigh, giving it a squeeze.

"He hates me and wants me to suffer," she added, sullenly looking out the window.

"He wants you to not have to walk with a limp for the rest of your life."

"Sure, defend the quack," she rumbled, but shook her head at herself. "I can't do it anymore," she added, voice small, thick, her head slamming back into the rest, eyes squeezed tight, a couple tears sliding down her cheeks.

She'd been a fucking rock.

From the moment I lifted her off the floor in that warehouse, through all the testing and prognoses at the hospital, through the pain of the first days, she had held it together.

And, sure, as the time dragged on and she got sick of being on crutches or rolling around on a chair, she got more frustrated, grumbling, cursing at herself and the objects around her that didn't cooperate with her reduced state.

But she hadn't cried.

I wasn't sure if it was that she genuinely didn't need to, or she didn't want to do it in front of me, didn't want it to seem like she was wallowing or ungrateful.

"One week, Savvy," I told her, driving back to the house. "One week. And if he says no again, I will help you cut it off myself. I think you could pull off a limp."

To that, there was a snorting laugh as she reached up to swat at her cheeks.I hadn't meant to do it, really.

I had dropped her off to run a few errands. One of them involved a trip to a specialty dog food store because Savea wanted me to get Paddy some new of kind frozen raw dog food to start mixing with his regular food.

And, well, it was a weekend.

And on weekends, they had adoption fairs.

And Savvy was sitting in the living room, sad, defeated.

And, yeah, I knew one thing that could cheer her up.