Our Bruised Bodies | Bradley Bradshaw

ACT FOUR - PART THIRTEEN

Cheers to this mess!

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Ten minutes, ten whole minutes. That was how long Ice was staring at the text message his daughter had send him. The screen had turned off a few times already, but each and every time he unlocked his phone again, the text was still there, still starring at him.

B and I are getting married, and I need you to be there. It won't be a grand affair. You and dad are safe. We're just going down to the city hall before having small BBQ in our backyard. Saturday in two weeks, if you could manage. Please let me know, asap.

Reaching the message again, Ice had thought about calling Grace, but then he decided talking with the victim won't get him any further, he had to talk to the culprit.

"I know what you did and it's wrong." Ice said the moment the call connected. He didn't even wait for the person on the other side of the line to say hello or mutter any other greeting. He also didn't care what time it was at home right now. He needed answers and Pete better be ready to give them to him right now.

"Oh Tom, come on." Mavrick muttered, not even denying that he had his fingers in all of this. There was a soft rustling sound on the other side of the line, which told Ice that Mav must have been laying in their bed at home. How much he longed to be there too, to be with his family.

"They needed a little push into the right direction. And I know that you know that too. Why should we keep watching them being unhappy when we can help them out?" Maverick offered, which had Ice exhale while pinching the root of his nose, his eyes closed for a moment.

"You had no right, Mav." Ice reminded him. "And you also didn't help. I think you made it worse. What were you even thinking? Gracie just got out of one marriage and now you're pushing her into the next. I know that might sound a bit untraditionally, especially for me, but I have no issue with my daughter not being married. So, you can stop selling marriage to her."

"Our daughter." Maverick muttered. "I thought..." He added, but Ice was quick to stop his ... his Maverick.

"No, listen. Do they look happy to you right now? Pushing them to get married might be the worst thing we could have done to them." The older aviator pointed out, which had Maverick move in the bed a bit, Ice could hear it, before the answer came.

"Do you think that because of the annulment?" Mav questioned his ... wingman.

"I think that because Grace has told Bradley that she is afraid of being with him. She told him that she thinks being with him will reduce her to being nothing." Ice told Maverick, who stopped, not knowing how to answer to that. He had no idea. Mav just thought that caring for Bradley was taking a tool on both of them.

"She didn't say a word about that to me." Maverick let Ice know, which had the older aviator exhale again. He really wanted a cigarette right now and he guessed his daughter felt similar about the entire situation.

"Well, she sure as hell did talk to Bradley and to me." Ice muttered, already trying to come up with solutions. With ways to repair what Maverick had broken, hell what Grace had broken in the first place.

"What did she say to you?" Maverick wanted to know, his voice suddenly so small, Ice wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault. That their children were very much capable of causing a mess on their own without his help, but there was no denying that Maverick had his fingers in that game and that things have taken a turn for the worse because of it.

"Apart from telling me what had happened with Bradley. She told me that she thought she was nothing but a bad memory to Bradley after she left him for good after everything that had happened concerning the Baltimore and that she wonders that coming back to nurse him back to health might have been wrong. For all she thinks she can offer him is more pain." Ice repeated his daughter's words for Maverick.