The Way We Burn

Six: Gigi

Dad was in the hospital a total of four days before the doctors deemed him well enough to ship home. He still wasn't allowed to return to work, which I'm sure was driving him just about as crazy as the diet my mother was putting them on. It honestly made me laugh. With the way they spoke to each other, the little bites and snaps, the frustration and annoyances, any one on the outside would've thought that my parents had spent their entire marriage on the brink of divorce. But that was just them. They argued and poked and prodded each other to no end, but they loved twice as hard. My father would die for my mother, and vice versa. They could battle each other day in and day out, but the second anyone came toward one with any sign of disrespect, the other was ready to go to war. I absolutely adored the way they loved each other. It was the only type of love I wanted, that I would even accept. That be all, end all, fuck the world around us kind of love. The kind where you called each other out in private, but never in public. The kind that no matter how much they annoyed you during the day, you went to bed in each other's arms, knowing everything would be fine with the coming sun. It was my idea of perfection and it was probably too lofty, which Is why I had yet to find it.They didn't make people like my mom and dad anymore, at least none that I had found.

The one bonus, in my eyes anyway, of my father currently being stuck at home, meant that my mom stayed out of Kindling. I fucking loved that woman, but she was driving me absolutely batty with her constant cleaning, and judging, and ideas of how I should be doing things. I felt kind of guilty about it, but it was honestly nice to have her attention elsewhere.

In the midst of dealing with my father's heart attack, my mother also had her first oncologist appointment, and by the grace of whatever god was watching over us, we were told that a lumpectomy was likely to take care of it. No chemo, no radiation. The cancer was caught early enough that she would likely get away with a relatively minimal surgery considering how things could've gone. To say we were all thrilled would've been an understatement. She would still need more appointments, and her surgery had been scheduled for two weeks out, but by everything the doctors were saying, she would be absolutely fine, and that fact alone was more than I could've ever dared to ask for. Things were definitely looking up for the Castellanos family, and just in time for Christmas no less. Well, Christmas and my sister's lavish engagement party that would be taking place on the twenty-eighth, but I was trying to have as little to do with that as humanly possible.

A few days after they released my father from the hospital, I'd played the good daughter, and picked up groceries for my parents before heading to the bar. It was cold, and we'd gotten nearly a foot of snow overnight which I had begged them not to attempt to go out in. My mother had insisted she needed things from the store, so instead of letting her head out on her lonesome, I did it myself. I did not, however, anticipate what greeted me when I pulled up in their driveway.

Or who greeted me, rather.

"Well, well, well," I said with a smirk as I stepped gingerly out of my car. The driveway was scooped but I didn't need to chance hitting any ice.  "You do snow removal now? I got a huge parking lot I may need help with."

Sully stopped scooping and crammed the end of his shovel into the snow-mound next to him. His complexion was flushed from the bitter cold and his hair and ears were hidden beneath a thick, fire department beanie, but the grin he gave me said the cold wasn't phasing him a single bit. "Depends what I'm offered in return," his deep voice responded through a thick cloud of breath.

I chuckled. "Oh man, you really like to set yourself up for me to go all in, don't you?"

Sully rolled his mossy colored eyes but the smile didn't leave his chiseled face. "I should probably just shut up around you, huh?"

"Or figure out a way to shut me up," I retorted with a wink.

I turned around the back of my car as Sully shook his head , still grinning like a fool, and went back to shoveling snow. I loaded up my arms with a few of the bags and headed up the already cleaned walkway, but as I hit the top step on my parents front porch, my boot came in contact with nothing but a thick sheet of ice. In a flash, my legs flew out from underneath me, and the groceries dropped to the ground, but before my ass could join them, I felt two thick arms band around my waist.