Page 4 of All The Things: The Last Thing He Needs Omnibus

“You sure?” Tommy knew from the look in her eyes she was grateful to the point of tears, but also willing to stay up and make sure everything was done if he wanted her to. It broke his heart a little.

“I’m sure I’ll kick your ass if you don’t get upstairs and get to bed.”

“Thanks, Tommy.” Pausing as she started to pass him, Colleen pressed a small kiss to his cheek, then to Max’s. The baby looked almost as tired as her, his eyelids drooping, then snapping back up, his thumb tucked between his lips. “Bottles are ready for ’em, if they’ll take anything this time.”

“I got it, you go on.”

She flashed him one more weary smile. “Night.” She looked at Bobby and added, “And good night, Bobby, thanks for stopping in.” She disappeared through the door as if afraid some new emergency would drag her back and keep her from her bed.

“Night, Colleen,” Bobby said too late; the girl already gone.

“You can go on, I got this.” Tommy cradled his brother in his arms.

“You kidding me? And miss out on these cuddles? No way.”

He grinned like it was a joke, but he held Zoe closer and settled down into a chair at the scrubbed pine table.

Tommy could only shake his head, wondering what was wrong with a guy who could be out getting laid but decided to stay in and feed a sick baby. “Either you party way too much,” Tommy told him as he passed one of the bottles over to Bobby, “or not nearly enough, if this is your idea of fun.”

Bobby laughed as he took the bottle. “There’s lots of kinds of fun.” He tipped Zoe into his arms so she could reach her bottle and smiled again when she took it greedily. “This is one of ’em.”

“If you say so.” Tommy had settled at the table with Max in his lap and was feeding him as well. Max’s hand curled around the bottle for a moment, and then he reached up to touch his brother’s face. Tommy brushed a small kiss to the tiny, pudgy fingers, rocking him without even realizing he was doing it at first. He’d never admit it out loud, and he didn’t find this fun exactly, but there was a certain comfort from it, as if these kids kept him just as safe as he meant to keep them.

“I do,” Bobby murmured, looking over at Tommy and then down at Zoe. He tightened his hold on her, as if he intended to keep her to himself.

Before long, both babies were sleeping peacefully, seeming comfortable and in need of the rest. “I hate to put ’em down, don’t wanna wake them…,” Tommy whispered as he started to rise from his seat.

“They’ll sleep better in their own beds.” Bobby stood with him. “Which way?”

Another crunch of unease bit at Tommy. He didn’t want someone who had the ear of social services seeing anything in their house, let alone the tiny bedrooms with too many beds crammed into them. “Upstairs.” He swallowed his nervousness as he led the way.

The twins shared what would be a master bedroom with Collin, Davey, and Mike. One crib and two bunk beds. The babies were already too big to share the crib, but they slept better when they were together, and hell, there was no room for them anywhere else. When Max was older, he could take the spare bottom bunk, and Zoe could go into Colleen and Carrie’s room, but until then, this was it.

Leaning over the crib railing, Tommy gently set his brother down. He found Max’s blanket and draped it over him before tenderly sweeping his hair back from his face. Bobby did the same with Zoe then stood back as Tommy raised the side again, locking it in place before switching off the small lamp on the dresser next to them.

“I’ll get Collin,” Bobby said, starting to turn out of the room.

“Nah, he’ll flip if he wakes up and you’re carrying him. He’ll think he’s headed to foster again.”

Bobby looked as if he was going to say something meaningful, but all that came out was “Oh, right.”

They all remembered the one time the kids had been removed from the home. Collin was only three at the time, but even seven years later, it still put a chill in his eyes whenever they talked about it. The boy had fought like a lion, raging against the caseworker as she tried to pick him up and carry him to the car. Collin bit the hell out of her. She let her temper flare with a totally unprofessional curse.

Tommy, only fifteen at the time—not old enough to stop it, but old enough to understand—told the woman she should’ve minded her own damn business and let them be. Then he added that that’s what you got when you messed with an O’Shea, and Collin was a good boy.

Several months had passed before they were all home again. They were worse off in the state’s hands than they were in their own parents’—and that was saying a lot.

As much as he resented Cal and Cheryl, he had to be grateful to them for pulling it together long enough to get the kids back. Cheryl could have easily bailed on them. She had only been a part of their family for a few short months, and Christ knew she didn’t care about any of them.

Their first night back home that summer, Tommy promised them he’d never let it happen again. A stupid thing for a fifteen-year-old kid to promise, but so far, he’d made good on it. “I’ll keep us together, or I’ll die trying,” he had told them.

“I was there that day,” Bobby blurted out suddenly as they crept into the hallway.

Confused, Tommy stared at him. “What?”

“That day… the day social services picked you guys up. I was jogging by and stopped when I saw the cops and stuff. I….” Bobby glanced at the floor before looking back to Tommy. There was that half smile again. “I was glad you didn’t have a gun.” He snorted a laugh and added, “I wasn’t sure who you would’ve shot first, the social worker or the cops hauling your parents off.”

Tommy took that in, ignoring the faint glimmer of embarrassment trying to spark up inside him. “The social worker. She had the kids.” He knew it was a harsh thing to say, but he remembered how he’d felt that day. He had never been so angry and scared. He shook off the memory and quietly made his way downstairs.

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