Chapter 5

When we got back to the house, Gina’s car and Hanna’s jeep were already parked out front. When we got inside, they were chatting with Mom and Lilly who had emerged from her refuge next door for a few moments, so it seemed.

Tricia gushed about the painting I’d done of her and her parents and everyone was impressed. Hanna had seen it, but no one else had. When she’d had her fill of telling them how perfect it was, we all said goodbye to Mom and Lilly and went out to the cars.

“I don’t think there’s room in any of the cars for all of us,” Emma pointed out. “I know Matt needs to travel in something bigger than I’m driving. He’s complaining it’s too low. Hanna, you want to take him and meet us at the restaurant?”

“Yeah, that works,” she said. We were having Chinese tonight and had booked ahead to make sure we got ourselves a table given that it was a week before Christmas, most of the restaurants were doing booming business from people who didn’t want to cook after a long day of shopping.

We split up and I was much happier with getting in and out of the jeep.

“You officially back on your feet now?” she asked when we were on our way.

“Depends on how I feel tomorrow,” I admitted. “I want to get away from depending on the chair and send it back as soon as possible.”

“Good attitude,” she said in agreement. “Look, I’m sorry that I’m not taking a more active role in your physio,” she said, looking over at me.

“Forget it,” I said. “You’re not really using your degree right now because you don’t want to work with the catastrophic injuries you’d see from wounded vets or deal with their depression. I can’t ask you to put yourself through that for me. All you need to do is give me an aggressive plan to get me fit based on my recovery. I want to walk into that event in April looking like I just walked out of a comic book.”

“That’s important to you, huh?” she asked.

“I grew up on superheroes,” I said simply. “I read everything, but every little boy wants to be Captain America or Spider-man or Batman. It’s my shot to live that dream for a day. I get to hang out with movie stars, wear a costume and show off. Of course it’s important to me. It’s a chance to be everything I wanted to be when I was six years old.”

She smiled. “That’s cute. Once a little boy, always a little boy, huh?”

“I guess so,” I said with a chuckle. “Between you and me, what’s your feel on my shoulder. You think I’ll get a hundred percent out of it?”

“I think so,” she said hopefully. “You’re young and you concentrated on shoulders in your workouts before this. You had a good surgeon and I saw the x-rays. The damage was everything you’d expect from a bullet, but it could have been much, MUCH worse. It could have hit the bone and shattered the whole joint. Then I’d have said you’ll be asking for help opening jars for the rest of your life.”

I nodded. “Just another reason to feel lucky things didn’t happen just a little different,” I said solemnly.

“That’s a good way to look at it. If I WAS going to work with trauma victims, I’d want them to have the chance to talk to you. Your outlook is kind of amazing. I haven’t seen you get discouraged about your condition at all. Why is that?”

“Honestly? Part of it is the summer I had. I learned to listen to doctors when they warn me not to push harder or when they tell me that I CAN do more. I know it’s not going to come overnight. That and I’m more worried about the scarring right now.”

“Why? Better to have your arm back than be pretty with your shirt off,” she scoffed.

“It’s the first major scarring I’ve had,” I said. “I’ve been hurt before and recovered, but I’ve never looked down at my body in horror at the condition of it.”

“Emma said you caught a look at things before they started closing you up,” she said delicately. “Try not to let it get to you.”

“Even now, I look pretty brutal. I go get my stitches out on Wednesday and get checked out by Samantha to see how everything’s working out. Everything looks pretty grizzly at the moment. I’m hoping she gives me some options for scar reduction. I don’t want to think about having to wear shirts to the beach or deal with people staring.”

She nodded. “Ask her about laser treatment,” she advised. “She might recommend surgery as a first step, but lasers are used a lot for scar treatment these days.”

I nodded and let the topic drop as we pulled into the restaurant. The rest of the girls were already there waiting for us and I found myself being helped out of the jeep and into the restaurant, much to Hanna’s amusement.

We were seated right away and I knew what I intended to order before we sat down. I let the others pore over the menu and when it was time we all ordered. Instead of ordering individual plates, we ordered family servings of everything for the table.

We talked pleasantly until the food arrived and I found I was already missing Emma and Hanna. I knew they’d be back in a couple of weeks, but I still wished they could be here for the holidays.

“Hanna, when do you have to head out to Stamford?” I asked.

“Tuesday after work,” she said. “I won’t be back until the 19th though, so you’d better have made some progress or I’ll kick your ass when I get back.”

I chuckled. “Yes, Ma’am,” I promised, thinking that I’d like to surprise her a little.

We chatted through the meal and generally enjoyed each others company. We didn’t talk of anything deep or consequential, just chatted and ate and fell deeper in love with each other.

When we were done, Emma wanted to go see the new Star Wars movie. We’d missed the premier due to exams, so all five of us piled into the cars and watched the strategic reset from the awful prequel trilogy. I loved it. At no point could the word “innovative” be attached to it, but it was Episode Seven. Instead, it was a tribute to its own heritage, bringing back characters that the fans had been clamoring to see again, introducing new ones and giving audiences a “new hope” that we’d all seen the last of anything named “Jar-Jar”.

“That was awesome!” I grinned when we were out of the theater.

Hanna shrugged. “It was basically the same as the first one,” she pointed out.

“That’s the point though,” I said. “They REALLY wanted to return to their roots with this one. It was filled with as many practical effects as they could manage. They built the full Millennium Falcon at Pinewood Studios so they have the whole thing available for anything they needed to shoot for this one or the rest of the movies. The updated Stormtroopers looked better than I could have imagined. It all looked good and it felt way better than the last three.”

“Bit of a Star Wars fan?” Emma teased.

I shrugged. “I like movies,” I said simply. “Not just Star Wars, but the original trilogy is a legitimate masterpiece. The prequels not so much.”

“So you put this one in the same category as the original three?” Hanna asked, glancing at the poster more thoughtfully.

“I dunno,” I admitted. “It depends a lot on how the next couple of movies go. Empire is generally acclaimed as the best in the series, so it’s hard to judge, based on this one. I’ll wait ‘til I see more and judge. This gave me a great deal of hope that the series can be saved though.”

She shrugged. “Well, I guess we’ve got a couple of years to decide about it,” she said dismissively before we agreed and separated to the cars for the drive home.

Back at the house, Mom and Lilly sat with us to watch us exchange gifts. I passed Emma, Hanna and Gina the gifts I’d gotten them and watched while they opened them. Gina squealed, delighted to have her own skates again. Emma’s reaction was a little more subdued, but I understood why.

“I intend to teach you how to skate once I’m back on my own feet,” I told her, making her grin. “Seems only fair since you’re gonna teach me to surf this summer.”

That brightened her mood considerably and she came and kissed me after Gina had thrown her arms around my neck and kissed me deeply.

Next, we watched Hanna open her gift and she looked at it for a long moment and then at me. I’d gotten her a new collar in silver that looked very ornamental with small gemstones in it for decoration.

“This is too much,” she said, shocked.

“It’s not that crazy,” I said. “The gems are only classed as semi-precious. I figured you might want something a little more discrete to wear. This is just as much a collar as the one you have on, but most people won’t realize it unless they look closely.”

We took off her collar and put the new one on, locking it in place with a turn of the key.

“And you keep the key?” she asked. I nodded. “Unless you decide to leave us. Then I give you the key and it becomes just a pretty piece of jewelry for you,” I told her softly.

She nodded and fingered the new collar, but still looked like she wasn’t sure about how extravagant it was.

Finally, I had one more gift to give out. I held it out to Hanna, but when she took it, I held on for a second. “This one is for Christmas day,” I told her. “Pack it in with what you’re taking with you. If you’ve told your family about us, open it in front of them. Otherwise, keep it and open it later on when you’re alone.”

“They know about you,” she said and took the small box suspiciously. “You promised you wouldn’t go overboard,” she reminded me, echoing Emma.

“It wasn’t super-extravagant,” I promised. “I thought of it the other day and decided to get it. Gina and Tricia will be here on Christmas day so they’ll get theirs then. One for each of you.”

Gina and Tricia looked curious about it, but less suspicious than Hanna and Emma were.

That was the end of my gifts to them. Now it was their turn to shower me with gifts. I sat and let them pass me gifts one at a time. They were all marked “From: The Girls” and there were an alarming number of them.

There was a pair of new Ray Bans, Blu-ray collections of the James Bond movies, Star Wars and several other typically guy shows and movies. There was a smart watch that I loved, a dress watch that looked pretty fancy for special occasions, a bottle of cologne that the girls swore was divine, a Collector’s Edition of the new Fallout game which took place in Boston, a few other games and a T-Shirt that had the classic Captain America shield on the front.

I was delighted by all the gifts and hugged and kissed each of them. I didn’t ask who had picked out what. I knew that Emma was well off, that Gina wasn’t and that Tricia’s funds were severely limited too. I thanked them as a group because the gifts were given as a group.

“We’re not done yet,” Hanna told me and got me to my feet. All the girls got their coats and I was suddenly confused.

“Where are we going?” I asked, uncertain what was up.

“Not far,” Emma assured me and handed my jacket to me. Mom and Lilly joined us and I started to get really nervous when Hanna pulled out a blindfold and slipped it over my eyes. “No peeking,” Emma chuckled.

They guided me outside, warning me of steps and then led me out to the driveway and it seemed like we were going to the back yard, though I wasn’t sure. I heard a door open and was led inside before I was told to take the blindfold off.

I pushed it up onto my forehead and looked around. We were in the garage, but they’d hung up a heavy bag and set up a rack of free weights and a couple of multi-purpose machines.

“Oh, wow!” I said, stunned. “Guys, this must have cost a fortune!”

“Not really,” Hanna told me. “I made the purchase through work,” she said. “We all chipped in on it, but the fitness center gets a ridiculous discount on gear and it’s higher quality stuff than you see for sale most of the time. It’s meant to stand up to a lot of punishment.”

The girls showed me all the gear and I couldn’t wait to be in better shape to use it. After that, we went inside and spent the evening chatting and watching Christmas movies on TV before we all went to bed.

Gina was a little bashful, but I kissed her gently and told her that she could stay dressed if she wanted. “Don’t feel like you need to go farther than you’re comfortable with. If you’d rather put on a nightshirt, that’s totally fine.”

She nodded, but contented herself with stripping down to a T-shirt and panties, leaving her long legs deliciously bare. Out of respect for her, we all did the same. I didn’t bother with a shirt though, just a pair of shorts. I got deep kisses from all four girls and then we crawled into bed, Tricia and Gina curled up with me since neither of them would be staying tomorrow night. We went to sleep telling each other words of love. It felt perfect.

Gina had to go home early the next day, but she promised that she’d call later. She was out the door right after breakfast with kisses for all of us and then we were four. I’d wanted to drop in on my Kung Fu class to wish Sifu happy holidays and then we were going out to drop off the gift I had for Mark and Char. Hanna stayed for the class and then had to go do some things at work so she begged off on the trip out to see them.

“This week is a little messed up due to the shut down,” she explained. “We’ve got to clear out the old stock in the coolers and get rid of most of it. The staff takes home a lot of it, but there’s some things that are just nasty when they get down to the best-before date.”

“I understand,” I told her. “You’re going home Tuesday. There isn’t a lot of time to get everything done. Will you be back tonight?” I asked.

She nodded and looked grateful. “Yeah. I should be done by late afternoon. I’ll bring dinner. I’m also bringing a friend. I talked to your mother and she said it was okay. Her name’s Dawn. You’ll love her.”

I looked intrigued. “Someone you work with?” I asked.

“No. She’s ... sort of my roommate. I’ll explain tonight, I promise.”

I looked at Emma, but she was as baffled as I was. Hanna dropped us off and promised they’d be around later.

“Dawn?” I asked Emma when Hanna had driven off.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she told me. “This is the first time I’ve heard her mention a friend to us, let alone bring one with her.”