17. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Leo
A shrill scream wakes me up.
Whipping my head around to check the baby monitor on the bedside table, I breathe a sigh of relief when the live footage of Salem shows her sleeping soundly in her crib.
The scream sounds again—longer this time and laced with panic.
Brynn.
Her fear is unmistakable, and it fills me with a bolt of urgency that drives me through to her bedroom before the fog of sleep has even cleared from my eyes.
I don’t know what I was expecting to find when I busted my way in here, but it sure as fuck wasn’t her writhing around on the bed, her legs kicking at some invisible force as tears stream down her face.
She’s still sleeping, yet she’s fighting with a power I’ve only seen in a boxing ring.
I don’t think.
I just act on instinct.
Rushing to the bed, I climb in beside her and pull her shaking, sobbing body into my lap, where I hold her to my chest the way I do with Salem when she’s frightened.
But the feel of my arms around her only makes her fight harder. She strikes out, clipping me across the jaw with a punch so strong it surprises me, yet I don’t release her.
I keep my hold on her, despite how misguided the decision may be. Because seeing her so vulnerable, so terrified and helpless, is affecting me in ways I never thought she’d be able to.
The woman may drive me to the very brink of insanity, but right now…she’s breaking my fucking heart.
"Shh, you're okay, darling,” I whisper, stroking the softness of her hair.
Her eyelids fly open, her gaze startled and agitated, mine soft and concerned. Whipping her head from side to side, she assesses the room for—I assume—signs of danger. Finding none, her body relaxes into my arms.
"Christ," she murmurs, wiping her bleary eyes with two fists.
"You okay?" I ask, all too aware of my hands on her body now that the drama of the moment has dwindled.
"Yeah." She sounds confused and rubs her eyes again. "I, um…I was in a beauty pageant with Celine Dion. We were the final two, but I beat her when I sang 'My Heart Will Go On,' which is weird, right? Because that's her song. But I guess the judges thought my rendition was better, because they gave me the crown, but poor Celine was so distraught at the loss that she stabbed me to near-death with a parsnip."
I laugh.
I really try not to, because she looks so serious as she tells me this, so traumatized from the nightmare, but the sound bubbles out anyway, escaping into the short distance between us and landing like an atomic bomb.
Her face takes on a thunderous expression, brows pulling low across her eyes that are firing daggers at me so clearly I can see them in the dark. "Why are you laughing?"
"Sorry." I force my features to match her solemness. "You're right. It's not funny.”
"No, it's not." She nods. "It was terrifying."
"I imagine it was."
Examining me for a sign that I'm being insincere, her gaze tracks a searing pathway over my face before running down the length of my arm to my hand that is cupping her waist.
"I'm in your lap." It isn't phrased as a question, more an observation. An astute one, I'll give her that. Though, I'd argue she's stating the obvious.
I clear my throat then gruff out my reply. "It appears that way."
She blinks. "Why?"
Well, now that I know her nightmare was about Celine Dion weaponizing root vegetables, I'm not so sure.
"Um, you were screaming?" I don't know why I ask it as a question, but I'm all of a sudden self-conscious, and my palms are sweating, and I'm developing a minor headache, and she is still sitting in my lap. "I didn't know what else to do."
"My brother will have your balls if he finds out."
The mention of Alex's absurd level of protectiveness over her has me rolling my eyes. "Your brother needs therapy."
She snorts a laugh. "Try telling him that."
"Okay," I say because I can't think of anything else. I can't think of anything, really, not when I'm trying so hard to ignore how perfect her body feels in my arms, how large my hand feels around her waist, how soft and warm her skin is against mine.
Her gaze dips to my chest, her forehead creasing. "You're not wearing a shirt."
"What?" My eyes dart downward, discovering that she is, in fact, correct. My almost-nakedness hadn't occurred to me until this very moment. "Oh."
Brynn swallows, fixing her gaze to somewhere over my shoulder. "You should probably put me down now."
"Okay." I nod, scooping her up before settling her back on the bed beside me. "Do you want me to go?"
She nods, not meeting my eye.
Her discomfort radiates like a thick smoke, billowing between us and sinking my heart into my stomach.
"I'm sorry," I croak, my voice rough and choked with guilt. "Did I make it weird?"
Her lips twitch with amusement. "No." She shakes her head. "I want you to leave so I don't make it weird."
I frown in confusion. "What?"
Still not looking at me, she waves a hand in my general direction. "You're not wearing a shirt," she repeats.
Oh... Oh!
Pursing my lips together, so as not to reveal just how chuffed I am with that, I inch my shirtless self toward the door with rejuvenated confidence. Flashing her a look over my shoulder that I may or may not have used previously to pick up women in bars, I shoot her a wink.
"Good night, Brynn."
"Good night, Leo."
And am I imagining it, or does her voice really come out all breathy and flustered? And what does it say about me that I hope it's the latter?
"Dude, what the fuck happened to your face?" Alex stares down at my jaw as we shower in the locker room after practice.
Coach Carter made us both run an extra drill after everyone else had left for purposely tripping each other up while we were running sprints, so we're the only guys in here. Why Alex then deemed it necessary to take the shower directly next to mine is beyond me.
Stepping into my personal space, as if he isn't completely naked with his dick swinging proudly between his legs, he peers closer at the bruise pluming purple on my skin.
"Can you back the fuck up, man?" I frown, pushing him away with a hand to his chest. "I'm not Roman. I don't wanna get all up and personal with your junk."
"It was a threesome one time." He pouts but takes a step back. "Okay, maybe a few more times after that, but we stuck firmly to our zones."
I shake my head, exasperated.
Why this man is my best friend, I'll never know.
"So, what happened?" he asks again, though thankfully maintains a respectful distance this time. "It looks sore."
"Your sister happened."
He nods knowingly. "Did you finally piss her off so bad she hit you?"
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Bloody hell, no."
"Then what?"
"She had a nightmare and struck me while I was trying to calm her down."
"Oh." Surprisingly, his easy smile remains on his face. "Yeah, she gets those sometimes. She usually takes meds to stop them, but they make her super drowsy during the day, so she's probably laying off them while she's looking after Say."
"You're smiling," I say. Apparently, Brynn's tendency to state the obvious is contagious. "You're usually so protective over her, but you're not worried about this?"
"Nah, it's not that." He turns off the shower and grabs his towel from the rack on the wall. I follow his lead. "But you should ask her what she's dreaming about, because that shit is wild."
"Yeah," I say through a grin. "She told me. Celine Dion went on a murderous rampage with a parsnip."
"She hasn't had that one in a while. Though, usually, it's Mariah Carey trying to kill her." He snorts, and God forgive me, but I laugh too.
It doesn't last long, though. Despite how ridiculous her nightmares may be, I can't help but feel a twinge of concern for her. In hindsight, they're funny—hilarious, actually—but I saw how terrified she was while it was happening, and that's not nice for anyone to experience, especially not regularly.
And the fact that she has stopped taking her medication because she has started looking after Salem isn’t sitting well with me either.
"Why does she have them?" I ask.
Alex shrugs. "She has an overactive imagination."
"But like, why? Because it doesn't make sense to me that a woman who acts like a unicorn on E would have chronic night terrors."
He rubs the back of his neck thoughtfully then rounds me with a look that is so earnest I can't help but match it with one of my own. “I’ve always kinda thought that since she is sunshine throughout the day, the rain has to fall at night.”
“Wow, man.” I laugh to ease the tension in my chest. “That’s some poetic shit. You been smoking the funny stuff?”
“Not during the soccer season. I’m trying to make the World Cup team,” he says while aggressively drying his dick with a towel. “But I’ve been listening to a mindfulness podcast recently, and I’m learning a lot.”
“Clearly.”
I turn my back on him, leaving him to continue scrubbing at his groin, but I can't stop thinking about how the Brynn I know doesn't match up to the Brynn whose sleep is so fraught with fear. She's confident almost to the point of being obnoxious, blasé, and air-headed. And sure, a person with all those traits can also have nightmares. It's just that I’ve never taken a moment to think that she might have more layers to her than the ones I can see. Though, arguably, having a dream about out-singing the queen of power ballads at her own song fits everything I've always thought of Brynn and is, actually, borderline narcissistic.
But I digress.
My point is, I may not know everything there is to know about Brynn Wolfe.
Because even without the nightmares, the version of her I've seen with my daughter contradicts every assumption of her that I've made. She's been attentive, warm, and gentle. She's so good with Salem, in fact, that I struggle to believe she doesn't have more previous childcare experience than just volunteering at a kindergarten one time in school.
And it leads me to the highly irritating realization that I may have been wrong about her.
It isn't often I admit that I could be wrong about something. But I'm starting to think that this time, I may not have much of a choice.