The Friend I Needed

Sixteen.

Sixteen.

It was past twelve in the night and the thunderstorm only became worse. They had recovered signal for a few moments and Nathan didn’t waste any time to call her quickly.

Thankfully, most parts of the city had recovered from the blackout so they were, in a way, out of major danger. Sadly, her street was one of the unlucky ones that was kept in the dark.

Oddie cuddled Gabriel close to her chest, a blanket covering them both. She rested her cheek on his head taking a deep breath, she turned a bit to see Liam and Tommy cuddling with Luca, the three of them sharing a thick blanket.

She smiled hugging the little boy closer, it had been a few hours since the last call she received from Nathan. To say she was worried was an understatement; she was terrified, not only for him but for themselves as well.

They had trees in the backyard and on the front, any wild lighting who dare touch one of them and she’d see the anger of flames. Not a very nice picture.

Even though she tried not to think of the worst possible situations, she couldn’t help but do so. She stared at the door and suddenly the image of a young Oliver popped out of the frame with a worried expression.

“Oddie? Hey, I was looking for you everywhere. What’s wrong, baby?” He walked into the room finding his little twin sister crying silently in the corner, hugging her knees tightly to her chest and hiding her face on top of them.

“O-Ollie?” The child’s small face went up at the sound of him approaching, angry tears running down her face constantly, at the sight of him, she went on her knees and hugged him. “The thunder… it’s too loud.”

“That’s why you have to cry louder, so I can find you and save you.” He smiled at the small girl cuddling in his chest, gently caressing her hair he bent down a little to kiss her forehead. “It’s just some little rain, and the thunder is not that bad. It’ll pass soon.”

“I’m scared… the lights went out.” She cried harder, only stopping when he laughed.

“They’ll come back on shortly, I promise. Besides, the thunder is not that bad. Remember that story mom used to tell us?”

“Which one?”

“The one about the giants.” At the mention of the creatures, Oddie’s face lit up as a small smile started to appear on her lips, making her brother smile back.

“There are giants in the sky.”

“And they laugh and dance above cotton clouds.”

“Nurturing the land with their joyful rain, and bringing music with their thundering steps.” They sat together in the corner of the room retelling the same old story over and over again, waiting for the storm to pass, Oliver sat with his sister until she cried no more.

Tears started to scape Odette’s eyes, she didn’t notice until she felt the wetness touch her collarbone. Sniffing a little bit, she cleaned her cheeks with her sleeves trying to calm herself.

Closing her eyes, she took a long deep breath, not wanting to wake up everyone, she started to recite the fragment of the fairy tale she held close to her heart, hugging Gabriel closer as Oliver more than once did with her.

“There are giants in the sky. And they laugh and dance above cotton clouds. Nurturing the land with their joyful rain, and…” Closing her eyes again, she tried to swallow a small whimper before finishing the fragment. “And bringing music with their thundering steps.”

She kept on repeating it until she felt a hand on her head, caressing her hair gently, tangling finger in her loose strands. Opening her eyes, she felt her heart stop, for a very small moment she thought Oliver was there smiling just for her, letting her know everything was ok.

“The lights came back on, the street is lit.” Gabriel’s voice brought her out of her trance, it was almost terrifying how similar he was to his father.

“That’s good.” She was about to clean her face when his little hands took on the task, brushing away every single tear on her face.

“Why were you crying?”

“I… I’m not a big fan of loud thunder.”

“I see.” He sat on her lap resting his head on her shoulder with a deep sigh. “I haven’t heard that story in a while.”

“Yeah, I forgot about it.” She stared at the far window, the sun had started to raise and the rain became a soft paddle.

“I want to hear the full story. You always repeat the same part, but never finish it.”

“I don’t even start it, that’s just the middle.” They cuddled closer to each other enjoying the warmth of their bodies. “I’ll look for the book and we can read it together.”

“Alright.” After a few minutes of silence, they felt the older guys wake up and get up. Oddie lifted her face a little to see Liam crouch down before her with a gentle expression covering his old features.

“Good morning, baby.” He caressed her cheek lovingly, earning a smile.

“Good morning, daddy.”

“The thunder is gone. The giants stopped dancing.” His voice was so calm, he knew she was afraid of thunder, he had seen her with Oliver that dark night when they were younger.

When he had entered the room back then, he had seen both twins cuddled to each other in a tight embrace. His son was a wonderful boy always taking care of his sister, always staying by her side, he was proud.

And right now, seeing Gabriel on her lap was like going back in time to see his beautiful children, protecting and loving each other. That little boy was the spitting image of his father.

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore, my little girl.” She rested her face on his palm closing her eyes.

“I know.” Looking back at him, she sniffed one more time. “He doesn’t let me feel fear.”

“Of course.” Liam was well aware that she was talking about her brother. Looking down at the now sleeping boy he kissed his head lovingly. “He was here.”

…

Ding dong~

“Coming!” Tommy called out rushing towards the front door. Taking the key from the crystal bowl he unlocked the door rubbing the sleep from his eyes and trying to hide a yawn. “Yes? Oh, Mr. Grenier, right?”

“Ah, yes.” Sebastian stood on the front porch with a sheepish smile staring weirdly at the young man clad in pajamas and fashioning a nest over his head. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, sir.”

“Did I come in a bad moment?”

“Not really. I mean, everyone is asleep right now.” Tommy tried to hide another yawn behind his hand, they had passed a terrible night that all he wanted was to go back and sleep with the rest. “It’s a little too early to come over don’t you think, sir?”

“Yes and I apologize for that.” He took a folder from his suitcase and handed it to Tommy along with a usb drive and a disk. “The company won’t open today due to the blackout we suffered last night. It appears the backup energy box at the building burnt a little so, it’ll take a few days to recover what was lost.”

“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. I think Oddie told me something about it.” He took the documents before staring back at the young ceo. “You must really care for your employees if you come at 7:30am to their houses to drop important documents.”

“Yeah… this is different. I only came for Ode… Ms. Beaulieu.”

“Sure.” Tommy lifted an eyebrow confused but asked no more. “If that’s everything, I don’t mean to be rude but we had a rough night.”

“It’s alright, the rest will be sent by e-mail to her. But these were really important.” Sebastian was about to say something else when certain truck parking in front of the garage, caught his attention. Even more when the young man standing on the door smiled widely.

“Nathan! Good morning.” Said firefighter walked towards the door when he got off the truck, holding an umbrella over his head and his duffle bag on his free hand.

“Good morning, Tommy.”

When he stood under the porch he closed the soaking wet parasol shaking it a little to drop as much water as possible. He was about to enter until he noticed the annoyed expression the second man standing beside him had on his face.

“Uh, morning?”

“Good morning, Mr. Roux.” Sebastian’s voice changed considerably, the nice businessman was far gone. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“I can say the same thing. I thought the company was going to be closed, was there an emergency with some project for you to be here this early?” Nathan spoke quite chill, not really trying to intimidate or anything like Sebastian was doing by changing his tone.

“Had to deliver some documents to Ms. Beaulieu. What about you? I don’t think there’s a fire here for you to work on.” The firefighter caught his innuendo rather fast, Oddie’s boss was jealous of his presence there.

“You have no idea.”

Was his only answer before softly knocking foreheads with Tommy and walking through the door. But right when he was about to be fully in, Sebastian took a hold of his wrist, having Nathan turn slightly back to see him with a frown.

“May I help you, sir?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sebastian’s frown deepened at the other’s actions.

“I’m going inside the house? It’s cold outside.”

“And that’s enough reason to enter someone else’s house?”

“I’m pretty sure if I was to ask Oddie for permission to enter her house, she’d hit me with something hard enough to leave a mark.” Nathan sighed rubbing his eyes, he had a terrible night at work and was in desperate need of a long ass nap. “What the hell is your problem?”

“My problem is you trying to pry into an innocent girl’s life.” At this, Nathan frowned.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Why are you trying so hard to force yourself into her life?”

“Are you listening to yourself? You’re making me sound like some sort of perv who’s coming to take the purity out of an innocent girl’s life. For goodness sake, I’m not gonna do anything to harm her, and I’m well aware that she’s no longer a girl, she’s a woman.”

Nathan dropped his duffle bag on the floor next to Tommy’s feet and walked out to stand closer to Sebastian, feeling rage take over his body, but trying to stay as calm as possible.

“And as far as I’m concerned, the one prying into her life is you, Mr. CEO.”

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me, if you aren’t prying and trying desperately to get into her life, then what are you doing here?”

“I’m here to deliver some documents to her.”

“Is that so? Then I suppose you’ve done the same so far with the rest of her team, right? Because, and I’m just speculating, this is something that lower ranks do. Or maybe things changed and now the company’s president is the one delivering documents to employees houses at seven in the morning?”

Sebastian had no words to defend himself and he hated the idea of Nathan being right. He didn’t have to do this delivery job as he could’ve asked someone of lower rank or an assistant to do so.

He also knew that without Odette’s full permission, no one other than certain people could enter her house without her being the one to open the door. And this angered and hurt him the most, he wanted to be special for her, special enough to have this confidence.

“I’m not some kind of perverted bastard, if that’s what you’re thinking, man.”

Nathan spoke once more walking back towards the door, picking up his duffle bag before looking back at the blonde with a serious yet upset face, he was not about to let some rich man making him look bad.

“I’m here because of her, I wouldn’t try anything if she didn’t lead me into her life. Now if you’re done insulting me and delivering what you needed, then I suggest you leave. She’s not working today right? Have a good day, Mr. Grenier.”

Sebastian watched him go inside and looked back at Tommy, who merely stared at them both in silence. Analyzing the situation at hand, he looked from the retreating form of Nate back towards the blonde boss, his expression softened at the annoyed, angry, sad and many more emotions that covered his face.

“I don’t understand.” The blonde spoke, having the full attention of the heterochromatic man. “Am I doing something wrong?”

It was pretty obvious he wasn’t exactly talking to Tommy, that he could tell, but what he could see was the pain in his now softer voice. He liked Oddie. That was a fact.

“There are ways to get closer to the ones we like or find interesting.” The young man’s voice caught his attention, looking down at him slightly, he was a little shorter than him. “But I wonder, do you like her or do you find her interesting? There’s a difference.”

“I don’t…”

“You like what you know, you find interesting what you don’t. When we know something and explore more about it we start to fall for it, we want to feel more and know more, we want to have that new feeling and cherish it close to our hearts, we feel addicted. But when you only find something interesting, you get to know just what you see from the outside and maybe a few inside aspects, it’s nice maybe even pretty, but that’s just it because at some point something with a few different aspects might come and you’ll find that more interesting. The magic is gone.”

Never had the blonde heard such wise words before, but he couldn’t deny there was truth behind all that babbling Tommy had said.

He stayed quiet just staring at him, what could he say? He didn’t know the answer to that. Hell, how could he answer questions he never really thought about before?

“Think about it before you try to reach out for her, sir. Have a good morning.”

“You too.”

When the door closed, Sebastian walked back towards his car and sat inside in absolute silence. It took him a few moments to drive away, he was too deep in thought.

A few minutes later he finally left home, he really needed to have a heart to heart with himself.

…

Nathan took a quick shower upstairs, wearing some black sweatpants and a light gray t-shirt before going to Oddie’s room. He was told by Tommy that Liam had left to his house, maybe Oddie and Gabriel wouldn’t go to work and school because of the blackout, but Liam’s work was different.

He saw Tommy enter Gabriel’s room, he followed only to see him get in bed and cuddle with the young boy, covering themselves with the blue covers. Smiling he closed the door slightly, before going to Oddie.

Opening her door, he saw her laying on her side, all curled up with her white blankets and covers, pillows all around. Smiling he closed the door behind him and climbed into bed, as softly as he could he got under the covers and hugged her from behind, making himself the perfect spoon.

“You’re late.” Her sleepy voice caught his attention, she cuddled back feeling his warm chest touch her back. A deep sigh came from her and a small smile appeared on her lips. “I tried waiting for you.”

“I’m sorry, doll. I got caught up with work.” Nathan smelled her hair, getting drunk on her scent and sighing deeply. He liked having her in his embrace. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are. Are you working later today?”

“No, I had a long night shift, so I have the rest of the day free.”

“Great.”

“Got something planned?”

“I discovered something interesting last night, about Henry.”

“You did?” He mumbled hiding his face on her hair, feeling sleep take over his body. “Is it good?”

“You’ll love it.”

“Is he gonna love it?”

“He will. Eventually.” She smiled wider when she felt the rumble from his chest, his chuckle was somewhat soothing.

“You’re evil, doll.”

“And yet you like me.” He hugged her closer, feeling her soft hands hug his arms over her tummy.

“Yeah, I do.” Kissing the back of her head, both sighed getting into a more comfortable position. “I very much do.”

…

“Why am I seeing work s**t on my table right now?” Oddie frowned at the papers that sat in front of her, she had barely woken up and sat down to enjoy a very late breakfast with the boys only to find her work waiting for her.

Tommy stared at her wide eyed not knowing if she was mad at him for putting the documents there or for answering the door to begin with. Maybe he should’ve pretended no one was home and wait for the blonde boss to leave.

“She’s not mad at you, Tom. Stop overthinking, your head will explode.” Nathan’s voice allowed him to breath once more. He sat a cup of coffee in front of her and took the documents away from her reach, she was about to complain but he placed a piece of bread on her mouth before she could speak. “At least have some breakfast before you start swimming with work.”

She huffed saying completely incoherent words that neither of the men tried to figure out, they just sat on the table besides Gabriel and ate their food in pleasant silence. Until she ate the bread and frowned at Nathan, who pretty much ignored her glare with a simple chill expression as he drank his coffee.

“I’m not sure if I should even think of asking this, but whatever. Are you trying to achieve something by looking at me like that?” He simply asked eating some more food, Tommy and Gabriel played a little with their food trying to stay away from their conversation.

“You just shoved a bread stick on my mouth to shut me up.” She stated as a matter of fact, crossing her arms under her chest. Her glare never leaving her face. “That’s rude.”

“Oh, sorry. Would you perhaps want me to shove any other kind of stick on your mouth?” He smirked at her panicked face and Tommy’s immediate reaction to cover Gabe’s ears, the little boy just giving them completely confused.

“Nathan! Don’t say things like that with Gabriel here.” She tried to scold but her blush was far too bright to hide from the young boy.

“Should I say them when we’re alone?” Now he was messing with her.

“Yes… I mean, no! What the hell are you doing?” She covered her flushed face with both hands, elbows resting on either side of her plate. She couldn’t handle such a dirty flirt.

“I think it’s called flirting and you usually do it with the person you like.” He kept on filling his mouth with the last bits of food before pushing his plate away and bringing his mug closer to his face winking her way playfully. “I gotta say, red looks good on you.”

“I don’t like you right now.” She glared once more from behind her fingers, barely letting him see her annoyed eyes.

“Besides, you can’t tell me anything right now about that hidden innuendo I just used.” Nathan shrugged nonchalantly letting Tommy know that he was free to let the younger one hear whatever they were talking about. “You cursed in front of Gabriel and I said nothing.”

“What? I never curse in front of him.”

“Oh, but you just did, honey.” He finished his drink and picked up his dished taking them to the sink to clean it all up. “As far as I’m concerned, s**t is a bad word.”

After setting the wet dishes on the rack, he dried his hands with a towel before walking towards her, towering over her small frame and leaning closer to her flaming face. A teasing smirk decorating his lips, he lifted his hand to put a hair behind her ear.

“And the way you just used it, didn’t really helped at all.” He kissed her cheek before standing up again looking at a happy Gabriel, that kid enjoyed food so much. “Come on, little one. Time for your shower.”

“You’ll keep your promise then?!” Gabriel stood from his chair jumping like bunny all the way towards the tall firefighter. “You’ll take a bath with me?”

“Yeah, I will. I promised, didn’t I?” His smile widens at the delight coming out of the little blue eyes that stared back at him. “But clean up after yourself. Meanwhile I’ll run the bath, alright?”

“Sure thing!”

Gabriel picked up his plate and mug from the table careful not to break anything and walked over the sink to wash them. Tommy still sat on the table with Oddie staring at them both with smiled over their faces, the little boy looked happier when Nathan was around, maybe he reminded him of his own father whom he missed very much.

The firefighter kissed Oddie’s forehead softly resting a hand on the back of her head, both closing their eyes at the gesture, she sure missed little things like this; the kind that left you breathless and with a thousand butterflies going wild in your tummy.

“I’ll be upstairs with him if you need anything, ok?” He whispered still close to her.

“Sure, have fun guys. Tommy has things to do with me now that he’s temporarily working as my assistant.” She winked at the heterochromatic man who winked back happily.

“You got it, boss.” Both knocking fists to one another, earning a loud chuckle from the taller man.

“I’m done, Captain Bear!” Gabriel ran towards Nathan’s extended arms, hugging his neck as he held the boy close to his chest.

“You done so fast? Damn, you outrun Cinderella in a second.”

“I’m the fastest kid at school and at home, all thanks to Oddie.” Both stared down at the, yet again, blushing woman.

“I believe that. Well, if you guys excuse us.” He grabbed his cellphone before walking towards the kitchen door to head upstairs. “We have a mission that requires us to play with bubbles and yellow ducklings.”

“A very important mission!” Gabriel exclaimed overjoyed, the three adults chuckling at his excitement.

“Have fun.” Tommy spoke as he got up to clean after himself and Oddie.

Oddie watched as Nathan took her little boy away, both looking so happy with each other joking around, tickling one another and laughing over the simplest thing. Nathan would be the perfect uncle for that boy, and she could only imagine how good of a dad he could be.

“You’re overthinking.” Tommy’s voice brought her back to reality, looking at him confused. “I can’t blame you tough, you got it though here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just can say, Ollie will love him.”

“Who?”

“Nathan. I think they’re gonna get along just fine. I can even bet, if they had gone to the same school, they’d be the best of friends.” Tommy hugged her from behind, setting his arms around her shoulders resting his chin besides her.

“You think this can work? I mean, Nathan and I.” Red tint covering her cheeks once more, looking down at her hands shyly. “Do you think, it’s worth a try? That maybe, this time I can get it right?”

“You want an honest answer?”

“Please.”

“I do.” He tightens his hold on her, feeling her hands on top of his arms. “I truly do, and I’m happy that at least one of us single dorks are getting true love for once.”

She chuckled leaning her head back on his shoulders, both closing their eyes taking deep breaths. Oddie had been best friends with Nick and Sally for so long that when Tommy came into her life she felt a strong connection with the man.

Almost daring to say that Tommy was the greatest most amazing friend she could’ve ever found. Yeah, she loved Nick a whole lot, but the relationship she built up with Tommy was beyond comprehension, way too pure and even more after both have shared so much.

Her dad was right, she had an amazing family and the greatest friends.