Dancing with Danger: a Jay McGuiness+ TW Fanfiction

Chapter 8

Two Months Later:

I held 5 year old Clara on one hip while handing Lucy some of the shirts from her closet. "You can stay with me and Mum. I'll make sure Henry stays away."

Lucy pushes some of her short blond hair out of her eyes as she carefully folds the shirts. "Shaun, I'm not going to ask you to do that. Henry's your brother. I promise you he's still in there; he just needs to get help. I'm hoping that losing me and Clara will propel him to get that help." She reaches out and takes her sleepy daughter from me. "I do want him in her life. She needs a father. Just not this Henry. She needs the old Henry back."

I sigh and nod, because back then, he was still my protector. Then I grab her now full suitcase and sling Clara's old diaper bag over my shoulder, following her out to the car.

Suddenly, I sit up in bed wondering what woke me up. My brain registers the ringing phone under my pillow. It's probably 2 in the morning, and only one person would be calling me this late, so I grin and answer it. "Hey Jay."

I can hear his smile in his tone, and the peace that comes with his voice chases away the dream. "Hey lovely. What time is it there?"

I chuckle a little to myself as I tell him, "2:46."

"Shit, I woke you up. I'm sorry. I just wanted to hear your voice." I was glad he couldn't see the blush spreading across my cheeks, no matter how many times he said stuff like this, I never got used to it. "I'll let you go back to sleep now."

I smothered my yawn, and said, "Its okay, I wasn't sleeping well anyway."

There is some noise from behind him and he calls out muffled, "Shut it you lot!" His voice is clearer and calmer when he continues. "You have rehearsal tomorrow, Shaun. You need to sleep," his voice softens as he adds, "Even if I would love to talk to you all night."

I smile and lay down, the phone still next to my ear. "I wish I could talk to you all night. I'm miss you, and I'm not the only one. Clara keeps asking when she'll get to see you again." I hear his little laugh, and I can imagine how his eyes would crinkle slightly while he laughed. "Well I'll be home before you know it. How about I take you and Clara out for dinner? And afterwards we'll go on a walk or something and talk as long as you want."

This time my yawn refuses to be smothered. "That sounds lo-o-o-vely."

"Go to sleep Shaun. I can't wait to see your beautiful face again."

"Night James. Don't tease Nath too much, and make sure Tom doesn't break anything."

"No promises! Night Babe." And then he was gone. I sigh bittersweetly, and toss my phone back onto the other side of the large bed.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

You know how people say that meeting the right person can completely change your life? Well it's true. In two months, I went from working dawn to midnight, barely scraping by while I tried to help my mum raise my niece, to so much more.

Some of it was just luck I suppose. My mum got promoted, from managing just one local store, to managing all the branches in our region. She worked solid hours now, and earned more than enough for us to pay for our new apartment. Henry hadn't resurfaced yet, which was lulling me into a sense of security.

But a lot of it was due to Jay. He introduced me to several of his musician-friends, all of whom were very impressed by the music video. Including Jessie J, who had hired me to be a dancer in her newest video, maybe even go on tour with her. With the money from that, I was able to get Clara set up properly for this school year, and we were not hurting for cash anymore