Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,108

in the way the timings worked, one of his deposits was made on his birthday. So, he got to see in a new year of his life preparing for aggressive cancer treatment and jacking off into a cup while watching Porn Hub on his phone, and worrying whether he’d live to see another birthday.

Then, and at so many other points in the grueling process, I’d been truly in awe of Raine’s ability to constantly see the funny side in situations that were pretty-much nobody’s idea of fun. I’d known that a lot of the time he’d been putting on a happy face to spare my feelings, but even the capacity to do that—although I told him hundreds of times that he didn’t need to for my sake—was something I admired beyond measure.

“We got married the very next day. Aunty Michelle ran out and bought me a wedding dress, and everybody else—all our closest friends and relatives—dressed up nicely too. But the day before the day your Daddy proposed, I’d had an idea, and I’d shared it with everyone, and they’ d all agreed.

“Daddy was totally bald by this point—no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, no scruff, even, and I didn’t want him to be alone in that, so I decided to shave my hair, even though your Daddy insisted it wasn’t necessary. I told everyone else what I was doing, and as a surprise, they all joined in, so where Daddy thought it was just going to be me being bald, it was everyone.

“We had our wedding—nothing like a normal wedding as your daddy was so sick that we had to make sure he was protected from germs, so that he didn’t get any sicker. I had to wear a hospital gown over my pretty wedding dress and a face mask, too.

“Not only that, but our guests couldn’t come into the room with us, for the same reason. Not even Uncle Zed, who was Daddy’s best man. I’d been staying in the hospital, so I was allowed into the room, but we couldn’t afford for anyone else to bring in germs from outside and make Daddy even sicker, so everyone was out in the hall, watching through the viewing window. Even with all of that, it was still the most beautiful wedding I could ever have asked for.”

“Except for our second wedding.” The voice came seemingly out of nowhere, and I nearly had a heart attack as a result.

“Jesus Christ, Raine! You nearly scared me half to death. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I know. And once I realized you were telling her the story again, I decided not to interrupt.”

“But then you couldn’t resist?”

“Well, it’s my moment of glory, after all, and you know for damned sure that I love to have the last word, so...” He shrugged unapologetically, and cracked his most panty-melting smile. I’d love to be able to say I was immune to it after all those years, and more water under the bridge than a Roman aqueduct, but that would be a barefaced lie. He still tied me in knots when he looked at me like that.

“I thought you weren’t going to be back until much later tonight.”

“So did I, but our meetings wound up early, so we managed to squeeze onto an earlier flight.”

“You should have called and let me know”

“I decided to surprise you. Hi, honey, I’m home.” He put on a fake voice like a 1950’s TV actor.

“Well, you certainly did that.” I lowered my voice so that Lila wouldn’t hear the next part. “It’s a good thing I sent my side dick home early today, or else you would have caught us in flagrante, and that would have been ‘a little’ awkward.” I laughed, and Raine joined in with a sarcastic chuckle.

The fact was, he still did it for me as much now as he had when I was a doe-eyed temp, walking into BR&ND, and into the whirling dervish that was Raine Alexander Davies, like a deer in the headlights. In many ways so much had changed since those early days. Everything, really. But in others, nothing had. The part where Raine took my breath away definitely hadn’t.

Epilogue

Raine

* * *

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“Munchkin!” At the sound of my voice, Lila had pretty much dropped the framed photograph and thrown it to the ground, in favor of launching herself into my arms.

I kissed her all over, as though I’d missed her more than life itself while I’d been away on business, which wasn’t