Page 125 of Hearts of Stone

Jade

The day Daniel came home from the hospital, I went out on a date. It wasn’t planned that way, but that’s the way it worked out. Harry, Mellors and I had been taking shifts at the hospital, but the staff had remained vague about when he would finally be discharged.

“It’d better be soon,” he’d said, sitting up in bed and pulling at his hair. “I look like Cookie Monster’s ugly little brother right now.”

“Soon,” I said, marvelling over the fact this was a regular thing now. Sitting up, I meant. The first time he’d done it, I’d nearly fallen out of my chair and it’d just made him laugh weakly, then he’d collapsed back into bed, gasping. But each day he got stronger, the stroppier he got until…

“Oh my god, I don’t need a wheelchair ride to the front door.”

That peevish voice had my ears pricking up as I lay on the couch, watching reruns. A clunk on the front door, then a twist at the doorknob, had me leaping over the back of the couch and wrenching it open.

“Daniel…?!” I gasped, standing in the doorway, looking down at him.

“Surprise, bitch!” he said weakly, doing jazz hands before shooting Mellors and Harry a dark look. “I’d intended to make a better entrance than this, but my lovely assistants here seem to be having difficulties navigating this wheelchair.”

“You’re the one that took over and collided with the front door,” Harry muttered.

“Yes, and you’ll find I like to top from the bottom,” Daniel announced imperiously, before he grabbed the armrests of the wheelchair and pushed himself to his feet. “Look Ma, no hands.”

“Jesus, Daniel!” I yelped, rushing forward, only able to see the wobble in his legs, but he just cackled and pushed me away. He took a step, then another, getting faster and faster until he came to a stop, chest heaving.

“See. I’m not that much of a fucking invalid. I can walk, talk, shit, shave—”

“Be very high maintenance and difficult…” Mellors added,sotto voce.

“I prefer ‘discriminating in my tastes and not afraid to ask for what I want’,” Daniel informed him. “You got me that therapist that keeps telling me to be upfront with people about what I want. And what I want is to hug my girl…”

I stepped in and held him tight, trying not to notice how thin he was now. He’d never been the biggest guy, but there was a slippery kind of energy about him, kinda like a ferret.

“Stop worrying, Mother,” he said under his breath. “I’ll be lifting weights and making gains in weeks.”

“Months, I believe the physical therapist said,” Mellors added mildly.

“We’ll get bikini ready bodies for summer together,” Daniel assured me, “but right now, I need to go to bed.”

“Of course,” I said. “So we thought a bedroom downstairs—”

“But that doesn’t have the massive flat screen with surround sound speakers that will block out the most vigorous of gargoyle bonking sounds,” Daniel informed me, taking a shaky step forward, then wobbling theatrically. He smirked as Mellors and Harry leapt forward, catching him between them. “Take me to bed, boys, or lose me forever.”

“We already thought that had happened,” Harry said, stiffly. “Don’t put me through that again.”

“No…” Daniel stroked his face then, his usual manic demeanour settling for just a moment. “Perhaps not. I thought I knew what I wanted, but that put me in fucking hospital for weeks. Maybe it’s time to try something else this time.”

“Or to incorporate what you found thrilling about your past arrangement with Big in a safer and more considered environment.”

Mellors was a picture of perfect composure, but both my mouth and Daniel’s dropped open when we processed what he was saying.

“Oh my god, Lawyer Daddy, why are you so hot right now?” Daniel groaned.

“So…” My eyes flicked from one of them to the other, suddenly feeling out of place in my own home. “Did you want to watch TV or…?”

“I will, in my room,” Daniel informed me, “because you have a date.”

“What?”

The answer came as soon as night fell and a familiar thump let me know that the gargoyles had awoken. I felt stupidly nervous, reading the same line over and over in my book as I waited for them to come down the stairs.

“My mate,” Graven said as a greeting, leaning down to kiss my lips, Seneca and Carrick following suit, but they didn’t do their usual thing and lounge around me, working out what wewould do for the evening. Wulfstan stepped forward with a bunch of roses in his arms. I was pretty sure they were the ones Harry prized particularly for their unusual combination of snowy white petals with red edges.

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