The Brothers Down The Street

Chapter62

Time dragged by slowly and painfully. I couldn't take my eyes off the clock.

Ross said he was going to get coffee, that was twenty minutes ago and he went the opposite way. I'd mapped out the hospital from the last time I was here, with Maddy when she birthed Lilli.

"Where's Lilli?" I asked Gale, the baby suddenly springing to mind.

"As soon as we heard the news we got Liam to pick her up." She replied.

I nodded, glad she hadn't been forget throughout this mess. "I'll be back." I said, standing up and going to look for Ross.

I walked outside and looked around. Turning a corner I saw Ross sat against the hospital walls, a lot cigarette in between his fingers.

"Since when did you start smoking again?" I asked, slowly walking over to him.

"Since my girlfriend hated me." He replied.

I kicked the cigarette from his hands before standing on it. "She doesn't hate you." I said. "What happened out there?"

"It all happened so quickly." He said, breaking our eye contact and looking at the ground. "One minute they were there and the next they weren't."

I could see it troubled him to talk about which I supposed was good sign: he really did care.

"I called just about every emergency service you could get before getting down there myself." He presented his hand out to me, palm up with a large gash cutting across the base of his hand, dry blood surrounding it as more pumped out still. "And I'll tell you, it wasn't easy."

"You should get that checked out." I said.

"What does a scratch matter when they're both in there fighting for their lives?" He questioned. "Once I got down there, they were trapped in the car, Maddy was awake, Tom wasn't. So I broke Maddy free, she wouldn't get out without her dad. Somehow she managed to wake him up, he told her he was right behind her but I knew something wasn't right and he did to."

"What do you mean?"

"I pulled Maddy out of car and Tom still hadn't moved, nor could he." Ross explained. "He told me to get Maddy out of there, the car was on fire, I thought it was going to blow any minute."

"And you did?" I questioned.

"She didn't want me to." He sighed.

"But you did."

"Well you'll be glad to know she was singing your praises earlier." He replied in a dull tone. "Recons you would of listened to her."

"Saying this is going to kill me, so you better listen up." I sighed, sitting beside him. "I would of listened to her, I would of got Tom out like she wanted but if she'd of got hurt anymore, I would never of forgiven myself. You did the right thing Ross and I'm glad it was you there and not me because I would of gotten her killed."

For a moment we were silent. We both just stared into the carpark in front of us as if it was something interesting, which it wasn't. We'd never done this bonding thing before, we never got alone, neither of us knew what we were doing.

"I'm sorry." He said quickly, not taking his eyes off the BMW he'd fixated his eyes on. "You had her first and I should of respected that but I couldn't, I loved her too much."

"I know." I sighed, leaning my head back against the wall. "But you won."

"I want you to know," He said, turning to face me. "Maddy isn't about getting one over on you, I really love her and I will take care of her."

I could see in his eyes he meant every word, didn't make it any easier though. "I know."

"So what do we do now?" Ross asked, amusement on his face.

"Well Mum will be glad to know we aren't trying to kill each other anymore." I scoffed.

"She still here?"

"The Kingsley's kicked her out about ten minutes ago."

"And she just left?"

"Well Rachel has a fist full of Mum hair to show from it." I replied.

Ross laughed.

"Why are you laughing when it's your problem?" I asked.

"They don't like each other, meaning I don't have to bother trying to get them together for family meals." He replied. "You always looks for a problem where there isn't one which is why I'm so relaxed are you've got my knots that a boy scouts rope."

"We should get inside." I said, standing up. "See if they're awake or anywhere near."

He agreed standing up, the two of us walked back inside.