Winning Brynn (Seattle Strikers)

82. Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-three

Leo

The sound of the door opening has me jolting in place on the couch in the living room. Salem looks up at me quizzically before using the coffee table to pull herself up to standing. She stretches her arm out in an attempt to grab the TV remote I put there a moment ago, grousing when she can’t reach it.

“You have toys, baby girl,” I tell her. “You don’t need the remote.”

“ Mote. Mote. ”

“No. No mote.”

She frowns, hitting me with a look so sassy that I’m convinced she inherited it from Brynn, before plopping back down on her butt and picking up a rattle instead.

Shadows move down the hallway, dancing on the walls in time to the rhythmic sound of multiple footsteps. Brynn appears first, her cheeks pink from the cold and her hair wind-swept. Hours have passed since she left, despite telling me she was hoping not to be gone too long, though I feel nothing but happiness to have her back now as her lips stretch into a wild smile, the dappled purple light from the sunset caressing her face the way I want to.

Behind her, and dragging his feet, Alex moves cautiously through the archway. His jaw is set, though his eyes are lacking the same burning fury I saw in them the last time we were together. It has me blowing out a sigh of relief, knowing I’m unlikely to receive another hit to the jaw this evening.

“Hi.” I aim to sound casual, but my voice cracks at the edges.

Brynn shoots me a reassuring smile, moving through the room to drop a kiss to my mouth, right here in front of her brother. I look at her wildly, silently asking what the fuck she’s doing, but she just chuckles and turns her attention to Salem.

“Muh, muh!” my daughter squeals and throws her arms up to Brynn, who scoops her up and flops onto the couch beside me, Salem sitting giddily on her lap.

“How’s my little ladybug? I missed you this afternoon.”

Salem giggles and drops her head onto Brynn’s chest with a happy, serene smile.

Alex watches their interaction with rapt interest, taking an armchair across from us. “Hey, man,” he croaks, and it’s comforting to know that he’s as nervous about this conversation as I am.

Clasping my hands together, my knee jiggles as silence stretches between us. There are so many things to say, but no one seems to know how to start.

“Well, this is awkward,” Brynn offers unhelpfully, though her tone is teasing. She’s in far higher spirits than she was when she left me in the bathroom earlier, so I can only assume she worked her shit out with her brother.

The realization gives me a glimmer of hope that I might be able to do the same.

“I’m sorry,” Alex and I blurt at the same time. His lips twitch with amusement, but he waves with his hand, motioning for me to go first.

I heave a deep sigh and begin. “I’m sorry for hurting you. You’re my best friend, and you’ve been there for me through so much. It’s killing me to know how upset you are with me, and I get it. I did the one thing you asked me not to do, and then I hid it from you. I can’t apologize for falling in love with Brynn, because I will never think of her as a mistake. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, minus Salem, and I can’t be sorry for that. But I am sorry, so fucking desperately sorry, for not telling you sooner. I was a coward. I was so terrified of losing you that I pushed it off until it was too late, and I regret that more than you know. I’m just—”

“That’s enough,” Alex cuts me off. My heart thunders with anxiety, but I nod mutedly and wait. “You should have told me,” he says simply.

“Yeah.”

“But I shouldn’t have forbidden you from touching her. It wasn’t my place to do that. It’s none of my business, and maybe if I hadn’t been such a crazy, overprotective asshole, you’d have felt safer to tell me. I have to acknowledge my part in that.”

My eyes widen in surprise. I’m so shocked, actually, that I wouldn’t be able to say anything in response even if I tried.

Thankfully, he continues, “And fuck, man, but the last thing I should have done was hit you. That was way over the line. It doesn’t matter that I’d just found out that, months ago, I’d heard you fucking my little sister—as fucking atrocious as that fact is. But I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m so sorry.”

“Wait, what?” Brynn gapes. “What do you mean you heard us?” When Alex says nothing, her gaze flies to me. “Leo?”

Oh Jesus.

“Um, the first time we were…”—I think through my words carefully—“ together, Alex came by to pick up something. I obviously didn’t answer because, you know, we were busy…” Alex dry heaves. “And he, well…he heard some noises and assumed I was with another woman. That day in the locker room, he hit me because he worked out that it hadn’t been another woman, but had, in fact, been you.”

Her face drains of color. “You heard us?” she asks her brother.

Alex nods grimly. “Unfortunately.”

“Oh god. Oh god. That's awful. ”

“I think it ruined my life. There’s no coming back from that.”

She nods in understanding. “I kinda understand why you hit him now.”

“Hey!” I say, affronted.

She flicks me an apologetic look and shrugs. “Sorry.”

“Anyway.” Alex clears his throat. “My point is, we both fucked up. You shouldn’t have hidden your relationship from me, but I shouldn’t have made you feel like you had to. And I don’t want to throw our friendship away over it, not when you clearly make my sister so nauseatingly happy. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to see the difference in her, actually. So, really, I should be saying thank you.”

I wave him off, coughing around the emotion clogging my throat. “Unnecessary.”

My best friend leans forward in his chair. “So, are we okay?”

I stand and walk around the coffee table until I’m in front of him. Holding my hand out, I wait until he rises to take it. “We’ll always be okay.”

“Kiss! Kiss!” Brynn laughs from the couch, my daughter giggling along with her.

I roll my eyes but use my hold on Alex’s hand to pull him in for a hug. Not just a quick shoulder pat, bro-hug, either, but a real one.

He pulls away to look me straight in the eye. “Truth is, I couldn’t have picked a better man for my sister.”

I force a swallow to stop myself from crying. Jesus. What the fuck is wrong with me? Falling in love has turned me into a sap. “Thanks, man,” I croak, moving in for yet another hug.

When we finally break apart, he grins conspiratorially with a shimmer in his eye. “Does that mean I get to ask you what your intentions are with my sister now?”

I look over to the woman of my dreams. The setting sun beyond the windows dapples her in multicolored light, catching in her hair. She looks so happy sitting there with my daughter in her lap, so at home in the apartment that has now become hers.

I picture us years from now, making dinner in the kitchen as Salem sits in a chair at the island to tell us about her day. Beside her, I imagine another little girl, one with dark hair and stormy eyes.

“Well,” I tell him, not looking away from Brynn, “I haven’t had this conversation with your sister yet, but I’m planning to marry her at some point.”

Brynn balks. Alex, though, looks like the cat who got the cream. He claps me on the shoulder, bouncing up and down on his feet. “So, we’ll be brothers?”

“Yeah, man. We’ll be brothers.”

Today of all days, when I’m preparing to tell Brynn a secret I’ve been keeping from her for months now, I was not expecting my sixteen-month-old daughter to take her first steps.

Alas, on Sunday morning, a few days after getting my best friend back, I find myself crouched on the rug next to Brynn as Salem tries to hobble from one foot to the other.

Brynn has her arms outstretched, draped in one of my old white shirts that she slept in last night. Her hair is bundled in a mess on top of her head, disheveled and unkempt, yet she’s never looked more beautiful.

She doesn’t take any notice of the fact that I’m staring at her. Her attention is fixed solely on my baby girl.

“Come on, baby, you can do it.” She wiggles her fingers at Salem with a wide, reassuring grin. “Just a few steps, ladybug. That’s it.”

Salem stumbles, plopping back onto her butt. But my daughter is nothing if not determined. Pulling herself up again, she wobbles on unsteady feet.

“Come on, baby girl. Walk to your muh-muh, ” I say.

Brynn flicks me a curious glance over my shoulder, but I just shrug. It’s her own fault that she hasn’t worked out what Salem has been calling her this whole time, but she’ll figure it out—sooner rather than later, hopefully, considering the surprise I’ve got in store for her today.

With a deep breath, Salem releases her grip on the coffee table. Time slows as she lifts a chubby little leg, the other trembling slightly with the effort of holding all her weight. Silence hangs in the air as we watch her, our breaths caught, our hearts beating frantically, yet somehow in sync.

Her foot touches the ground in front of her.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

But she doesn’t just stop with one step. With reignited confidence, Salem goes for another, giggling to herself as she does. Then she takes another until she’s cleared the space and is falling into Brynn’s arms in an eruption of overjoyed squeals.

It’s as if she’s been walking this entire time, hiding her ability from everyone.

“You did it!” Brynn yells, pride blazing through her like a shooting star. “You did it, ladybug! You did it!”

With tears in my eyes, I swipe up my daughter with one arm and wind the other around Brynn’s neck, pulling them both into my chest.

“It took you a little while, but you were just building the suspense, huh, baby girl?” I laugh, pressing my kiss to her head then leaning over her to brush my lips over Brynn’s.

Salem looks up at Brynn, her eyes shining with adoration. “ Muh-muh .”

Brynn cocks her head to the side, staring back with a matching expression. “Are you going to tell me what that means now?”

Laughing, I shake my head. “How have you not figured it out yet?”

“What?” She gapes at me. “You know what it means, and you haven’t told me? It’s been driving me crazy. She says it all the time.”

“Of course she does.”

She frowns, two adorable lines creasing between her brows. “I don’t understand.”

“She’s been telling you what you mean to her for months now,” I say.

“ Muh-muh,” Salem says again, lifting a tiny hand to stroke Brynn’s face.

“Are you listening?”

But Brynn doesn’t answer me. Her eyes are locked on my daughter, brimming with fresh tears that she doesn’t even try to hold back.

Salem tilts her head in concern. “Mama sad?”

“No, baby.” Brynn sniffs, smiling through her tears. And I think, finally, she understands. “I’m not sad. Mama is very, very happy.”

Miss Jessica: On our way up now.

Ah, shit. They’re early.

After Salem’s first steps earlier, followed by Brynn’s long-awaited epiphany, I haven’t had a chance to brief Brynn on what is about to happen.

There’s a small part of me that is worried I’ve overstepped. But then I think back to the day she took me to the children’s home, and I watched her with Ivy for the first time. How bonded they are to one another, how much they obviously adore each other.

I knew, even then, that I was going to keep Brynn forever. Maybe that’s why I did what I did long before we’d become an official couple. When you know, you know, right? So, I bit the bullet and put plans into motion to give Brynn what she wants more than anything.

The process of adoption is more complicated than I’d anticipated, especially when one half of a couple is doing it behind the other’s back, but it has helped that Miss Jessica is already well acquainted with Brynn, that she wants the end result just as much as we do, as does the child named on the documents we will hopefully be signing today.

Ivy’s bedroom isn’t ready yet. Brynn will want to spearhead that, and I didn’t want to take the opportunity of designing her daughter’s room away from her. Besides, Ivy won’t be able to come home to us for a little while yet. There’ll be court hearings first, where a judge reviews the case before a decision is ultimately made, but Miss Jessica is more than confident it will go in our favor.

Soon—very soon—our family will be complete.

That is, unless Brynn wants to try for a biological child, but she’s never shown interest in doing things that way before. Regardless, I’ll give her as many children as she wants. Hell, I’ll give her as many animals as she wants too. Annoying as it is to admit, Gordon Ramsay, the three-legged cat, has grown on me.

“Brynn.”

She turns to me behind the kitchen island, popping a blueberry into her mouth. “Hmm?” she mumbles as she chews.

“I have a surprise for you.”

Her eyes brighten with excitement as she bounces in place. “Is it a puppy?”

“No.” I roll my eyes just as someone knocks on the door. “It’s better than a puppy.”

“What could be better than a puppy?” she laughs as she walks out of the kitchen.

I follow closely behind her, Salem on my hip as my heart beats rapidly, and my palms sweat with nerves. God, I hope she’s happy. All I want is for her to be happy. There is no one in this world who deserves it more than she does.

Her steps falter in the hallway as if she can sense who’s waiting for her behind the door. “What’s going on?” she whispers.

“I love you,” I tell her in response. “I love you more than I ever knew possible. I hope that this shows you just how true that is.”

“Leo, I—”

But I shake my head. I know she loves me too. She doesn’t need to tell me. Not right now, when there’s someone waiting for her to answer the door who loves her almost as much as I do. “Open the door, baby.”

Her hand trembles on the handle, but she does what I say.

Her breath catches. A sob chokes in her throat. “What are you guys doing here?”

Miss Jessica steps through the door with a brown envelope and a wide smile. “I’ve got something for you to sign.”

A small head pops out from behind her. With dark hair falling around her shoulders like midnight drapes and eyes like the most striking thunderstorm, Ivy launches herself into Brynn’s arms.

“Hi, Mommy.”