26
Deacon
“Definitely our spawn.”
Priest snorted under his breath before the words had fully left me.
Nothing about this was funny. Jade still had tears drying on her cheeks, Lila looked held together by temper and pure refusal to fall apart, and my jaw throbbed where Matty had caught me. The whole damn parking lot felt scorched.
Still, Jade tipped her chin a little higher at the word our, and something in my chest pulled tight. She didn’t look thrilled about any of this, but she didn’t look like she hated belonging to me either.
Reality crowded back in around that thought. Boxes still filled the truck. Evan had one arm around Jade’s shoulders while Blue stood nearby with the baby, Priest beside her. Ink watched everything with that sharp, unreadable expression of his, seeing too much and offering none of it.
Lila swiped loose hair from her cheek and looked toward the apartment. She wanted this conversation upstairs, away from everyone and whatever remained of her father’s pizza on the asphalt. I wanted the same thing badly enough to taste it.
Priest caught on before she had to ask. “You know what,” he said, already shifting into that practical tone that meant the decision had been made.
“Let Ink, Deacon, and me finish carrying the last little bit of these boxes up to your apartment. That way you girls can go up and get yourselves sorted out before having to deal with having a conversation you weren’t prepared to have today. ”
He checked the pizza Richard had dropped, grease already soaking through the cardboard. “These pizzas are toast,” he said. “We’ll order some new ones to be delivered to ya.” His mouth twitched when he looked at me. “And Lila, you’re gonna probably want to get some ice ready for Deacon’s jaw.”
Lila’s glare snapped to him. “Priest.”
I gave him one of my own. “Asshole.” Then I looked at her. “I’m good, Princess. Your brother still hits like a girl.”
Her expression sharpened. “None of this is funny, Jackson.”
No, it wasn’t. Humor was just the only part of me that still knew what to do.
Ink turned to the prospects. “You two start helping him.”
Patch and Switch moved toward the truck, but Ink’s attention shifted to Evan before either of them had lifted a box. “I’m going to help Deacon and Lila real quick and then I’ll be over to finish up with you. Patch and Switch will help you for now.”
The change in Evan was immediate. His smile came up too bright, all polish over a bruise. “I had it covered with the moving company.”
Ink stepped closer. “You didn’t need a moving company. All you had to do was ask.”
Evan backed up a step, and even I could hear what lived inside his answer. “Right,” he said. “Ask.”
Ink frowned. “What’s up with you? You aren’t your usual self.”
That one landed wrong.
“My usual self?” Evan laughed, but there wasn’t a damn thing amused in it.
“Oh, honey. My usual self is a privilege. A curated experience. Full sparkle, premium chaos, and more personality than most people are equipped to survive. And since you made it pretty clear you neither want nor can handle all this usual self, I thought I’d save us both the trouble. ”
He turned and headed toward his own truck, leaving Ink staring after him.
I looked at the kid. “Got yourself into some trouble with that one, did you?”
“Stuff it,” he muttered. “It’s nothing. We’re just friends. He’s the girls’ friend, which makes him the club’s friend. That makes him someone we take care of. I’m just trying to take care of him.”
I knew denial when I heard it. Hell, I had made a career out of my own. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Kid, you can only keep lying to yourself for so long. And it only keeps hurtin’ you. Well, you and the one you care about.”
He pulled away fast. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
He could keep saying it, but I knew what denial looked like from the inside. “Sure you do. You’re just bein’ a dumbass about it right now.”
Then I looked back at Lila and Jade, and the thought hit with enough force that I couldn’t blunt it: my girls. Lila had been woven into me since we were kids. Jade had existed in my world for less than an hour, and already every instinct I had was reaching for her.
“Come on,” I said, taking the nearest box. “Let’s get this done. I got a daughter to meet.”
The stairs punished every injury I was pretending not to have. My ribs pulled, my shoulder complained, and my jaw kept time with my pulse. None of it mattered enough to stop me. I would have hauled the whole damn truck upstairs if that was what stood between me and the conversation waiting there.
The last box landed inside an apartment that looked half built and half buried. Evan had disappeared toward his own place while the prospects helped with his move. Priest paused at the door before leaving and gave me the kind of look that said he knew exactly how badly I could screw this up.
“Don’t be a dumbass,” he said.
A laugh pushed through before I could stop it. Less than an hour ago, I’d stood in the parking lot telling Ink almost the same damn thing. Apparently stupidity traveled in circles around this club. “That your official guidance?”
Priest’s mouth twitched. “That’s all you’re gettin’.”
Then he left, and the silence changed with the door closed. No club. No audience. Just Lila, Jade, and me facing the part none of us had been ready for this morning. Maybe none of us ever could have been.
I took the armchair across from the couch. Lila sat with Jade tucked against her side, one arm around her shoulders in a hold that looked as automatic as breathing. Jade leaned into her without taking her eyes off me.
Those green eyes hurt worse up close.
“Well,” I said, forcing my voice steady, “first things first. I’d like to know my daughter’s name, please. And her birthday.”
Lila’s arm tightened slightly around her before she answered. “Her name is Jade Jaclyn Morgan,” she said quietly. “And her birthday is April twenty-second.”
The middle name caught me first. “Jaclyn?”
Then the rest followed. “Morgan,” I repeated. “Not Hayes?”
Pain moved across Lila’s face before she shook her head.
“I wanted her to have a little piece of you, so yes, Jaclyn,” she said.
“But I couldn’t give her your last name, Jackson.
You were gone. I couldn’t tell my parents and Matty she was yours.
What was I supposed to say? That you got me pregnant and ran off?
” Her voice tightened around the old hurt.
“You heard what my dad said down there. You saw how he took it just now. Imagine what it would have been like for seventeen years.”
There wasn’t a defense in me strong enough to stand against that. Whatever reasons I had for leaving, she had lived with the consequences while I was gone. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I get it. I understand.”
I scrubbed a hand over my mouth, wishing I could reach backward through time and find something that didn’t exist. “I’m sorry, Lili. So damn sorry. I missed so damn much.”
Jade’s voice pulled my attention back where it belonged. “Where have you been all this time?”
I looked at her, really looked. Not at the resemblance. Not at the years I had lost. At my daughter, asking where her father had been.
“I was in the military,” I said. “Special Forces. Deployed a lot. Special missions.”
Lila made a sharp sound. “You could have died,” she said, staring at me. “And I never would have known?”
The hurt in her voice went deeper than anger. I had left her with silence, but I hadn’t left her out of everything. “You would’ve known, Lili,” I said. “You were my beneficiary. You were the one they would’ve come and told, and you would’ve gotten the money if somethin’ had happened to me.”
She shot to her feet. “You think that makes it okay?” Her anger rose faster than I could explain. “You think that makes it better?”
Then she stomped her foot.
Actually stomped it.
A laugh broke out of me before common sense could stop it.
Her eyes flashed. “What the hell do you think you’re laughing at, Jackson Hayes?”
For one ridiculous second, she was seventeen again, furious and beautiful and mine in every way that had mattered back then. “You still stomp your foot, Princess?”
Jade covered her mouth, but the laugh escaped anyway. “Actually, I have never seen her stomp her foot. You must bring it out of her.”
Lila whipped toward her. “Don’t you dare team up with him. You are mine. I have taken care of you all these years, so you are on my side. Always.”
The familiarity of it loosened something inside me. “Now, Lilabug, that’s just bein’ childish.”
Her glare promised death.
I lifted my hands before she could find something to throw.
“I wasn’t sayin’ making you my beneficiary made it okay,” I said.
“I was just sayin’ you would’ve known. And that I’m damn glad I chose you, because it would’ve taken care of you and our daughter if somethin’ had happened to me.
So the money was goin’ to the right place, darlin’. ”
Some of the fight left her shoulders. Not forgiveness. Just recognition that I meant it.
I looked between them and found myself empty of anything useful enough for the moment. “I...” I rubbed my jaw once, then let my hand fall. “Hell, I don’t know what to say. Lookin’ at you out there...” My gaze settled on Jade. “It was like the earth droppin’ out from under me.”
Concern tightened her face, and I corrected myself before she could misunderstand. “In a good way.”
The faintest smile touched her mouth.
“I saw you,” I went on. “Saw your eyes. Saw your mama’s eyes.
Then I saw how much you looked like me, and I just knew.
Without a doubt, I knew you were ours. And everything suddenly felt...
” Words failed where instinct hadn’t. “Not easy. But right. Like somethin’ I didn’t even know was missing had just slammed back into place. ”
A tear slipped down Jade’s cheek. She wiped it away quickly, almost irritated by it.
“If you loved my momma,” she asked, holding my gaze, “and you’re happy about me, why’d you leave her?”
There it was. The one answer I couldn’t give her.
I looked at Lila before returning to Jade. “Sweet girl, I know you want answers. But that’s a conversation I can only have with your momma.”
Lila’s jaw clenched.
“And even then,” I said, meeting her eyes, “as much as she’s gonna hate me for it, I can only tell her so much.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lila snapped.
The truth I could offer was still a fraction of the whole. “It means, Lilabug, I can’t tell you everything.” Old guilt sat bitter on my tongue. “There are things I can’t tell you. I hate that I can’t tell you, but I just fuckin’ can’t. And that is why I had to go.”
Jade stood, reading the room faster than either of us gave her credit for. “I think this is the part where I go ahead and let you two talk,” she said. Then she looked at me, the edge in her expression softening. “Maybe we can talk again tomorrow?”
The question landed harder than Matty’s fist.
“You’d want that?” I asked before I could hide how much I needed the answer.
She looked almost confused that I had to ask. “Of course I’d want that. I’ve wanted to know who my dad is my whole life.”
My throat closed around everything I wanted to promise her. I looked at Lila instead. Jade had been hers for sixteen years before I even knew what I had missed, and I wasn’t about to claim rights Lila hadn’t given me.
“As long as it’s okay with your momma,” I said.
Lila answered without hesitation. “I’d never take opportunities for you to see your daughter from you, Jackson,” she said quietly. “Or for Jade to see her dad.”
Gratitude and grief hit too close together to separate. I managed one nod.
Jade came around the coffee table slowly, stopping in front of me.
“Can I have a hug?”
Jesus. My chest locked around the simple question. “Of course,” I said, and my voice gave away everything else.
She stepped into my arms.
I held her carefully at first because I knew nothing yet about the little things a father should know. Whether she liked being squeezed tight. Whether she hated fussing. Whether comfort made her stay or pull away. Then her arms came around my shoulders and held on.
That was all it took. Sixteen years still sat between us, packed into everything I didn’t know, but I could do more than count what I had missed.
I could learn her now: her laugh, what pissed her off, what she dreamed about, what she wanted after high school.
Every ordinary piece of her life she was willing to give me from this point forward.
I had no intention of wasting any of it.
When Jade pulled back, I kept my hands on her shoulders long enough to look at her. Lila’s green eyes stared back from my kid’s face, and the fierce little tilt of her chin was pure trouble.
The most precious thing in the world stood in front of me. Well. Next to her mother. Always next to her mother.
And from the look Lila was giving me across the room, meeting my daughter had been the easy part.