22. Deacon
Iwake up the next morning, expecting to find Brynlee next to me. But when I reach for her, the bed is empty—again. One of these goddamn days, this woman is going to still be in bed in the morning. After a quick shower—that’s more than necessary since I smell like sex... really fucking good sex ... and I have a nine-year-old, who’s also somewhere in this house—I go on a hunt for the ladies in my life.
They’re easy enough to find. I just have to follow the sound of giggling and the smell of coffee and bacon. Brynlee’s plating up scrambled eggs and bacon, while Kennedy sits on the floor with Winnie between her legs, playing tug of war with a squeaky, purple polka-dotted dinosaur.
“Morning girls.” I walk up behind Brynn and press a kiss to her head.
“Good morning, Coach.” She runs her thumb over my lips and smiles a sweet kind of smile, and I’m reminded of what she said last night about peace. “There’s bacon and eggs on the counter, and coffee is in the pot. Kit Kat, make sure you wash your hands before you eat.”
Kennedy pops right up and goes over to the sink. “Okay, Brynnie. Do you want orange juice, Dad?”
I clear my throat and look between the two of them and wonder what kind of alternate universe I woke up in. “Kit Kat?”
Brynn and Kennedy give each other some kind of an inside look, and swear to God, I may pinpoint that as the moment I fell in love with my wife. Although it’s probably more like the moment I realized it. Pretty sure I fell weeks ago.
“So,” Brynn starts. “Your daughter asked what she should call me.”
“Yeah, Dad.” Kennedy hops up on a counter stool with the ketchup in her hand and adds some eggs to her plate. “I heard you call her Brynn and Brynlee last night. So I asked what I should call her.”
“Then we talked about nicknames and how my friends and family like to call me Brynnie,” Brynn fills in, as if they’re finishing each other’s thoughts. What the fuck? How long was I sleeping?
“So I decided I wanted to call her Brynnie. And she asked if I had a nickname.”
Brynn hands Kennedy a glass of orange juice and me a cup of coffee. “My friends are really big on nicknames, so Kennedy and I came up with Kit Kat. I mean, you named her Kennedy Kane, so Kit Kat seems perfect.”
Kennedy nods her head, like this all makes perfect sense, and I’m left wondering what the hell changed while I was sleeping. But my kid and my wife are both smiling... hell, even the dog is smiling, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut and be grateful. I drop a kiss on Kennedy’s head and grab a plate.
“All right, then. I guess that makes sense.” I look over at Brynlee when Kennedy’s not paying attention and silently mouth, Thank you.
She steals a piece of bacon from my plate, then rests her hip on the counter next to me. “Listen, I need to go check on Gracie. She and Ares are going through a thing, and I’ve been kind of rough on her.”
“Why have you been rough?” I ask, knowing it’s not like Brynn to be rough on anyone.
“Because I’m worried about her. She refuses to put her long-term health first, and every now and then, everyone needs a little tough love.”
I lift a brow and whisper. “Tough love, huh?”
Her blush is instant, but so is her smile. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Yeah . . . but you love it,” I tease.
“Maybe I do,” she agrees with an incredibly sexy gleam in her green eyes before she grabs Winnie’s leash. “I’m going to take her for a walk.”
I watch her go, then focus on Kennedy. “So Kit Kat, huh?”
She nods.
“Like the candy?” I ask, and she nods again.
She’s going to love this nickname, and some guy is gonna want to eat her candy one day, and I’m going to have to kill him. I can see it already.
“Listen, kid. I’ve got an idea. If Brynlee has to leave soon, how about you and I run to a store before I bring you back to your mom’s? I could use your help picking out a gift. Sound good to you?”
“Is the gift for Brynnie?” Kennedy asks, intrigued.
“Yes, it is. And I’m going to need it to be a surprise, so you can’t tell her. Okay?”
“Okay.” She hops off the stool and puts her plate in the sink. “I’m going to go get dressed.” She darts upstairs, and a plan starts to come together.
Brynn leaves soon after, and Kennedy and I wait to run our errand until after she’s gone. By the time I drop her off at her mom’s that afternoon, we’ve had a really great day together.
It’s been one of the best days I can remember having in a long damn time.
The kind of day that makes you feel good about life.
I’m driving through town when my phone rings with an incoming call from Brynn.
“Hey, red. What’s up?”
“Deacon . . .” she sobs.
“Brynlee—where are you? Are you okay? What’s wrong, baby?” My heart races as I turn the car around, desperate to get to her.
“I’m okay.” Her breath catches in her throat. “I’m at my condo.” Another sob. “Can you come here, please?”
“I’ll be right there, baby. Don’t hang up. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She sobs again, and I can’t understand what she’s saying, so I press the damn gas pedal to the floor to get to her as fast as I can. “You’re scaring me, Brynn. Talk to me. I’m almost there.”
“It’s Ares...” She hiccups, and my rage suddenly has a target.
“I’ll fucking kill him if he hurt you.”
“No...” she cries harder. “Just come here, please. I need you.”
She ends the call, and I hold my breath until I get to her building and race up to her place. “Brynn...” I pound on her door. “Open the door, Brynlee.”
A door down the hall opens, and a woman looks out at me just before Brynn answers.
And holy shit, when she does, I’m not prepared for the complete devastation on her beautiful face.
“Baby.” I step inside and cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me. “What happened?”
She pulls back, broken and sobbing, her arms wrapped around herself, barely holding it together.
“Brynn, you’ve got to tell me something. Help me here. I don’t know what happened. I don’t—” My words die on my tongue when she shakes her head and looks away, leaving me helpless and guessing.
“Cross and Ares’s dad...” Her breath catches, and another tear falls. “He’s dead. He just died. Ares was just there last week, and he was fine, and now he’s dead.” Her tears fall faster as her shoulders shake with each new sob. “Grace and Nix flew up to Maine to be with them.”
Her knees give out, and I catch her before she falls and carry her to the couch.
I sit down with her on my lap and hold my wife as she breaks in front of my eyes.
“Were you close with him?” I ask, not having any idea how to help. She’s talked about Cross and Ares and the Sinclair twins before, but never about the Wilders’ dad.
She shakes her head no and cries harder. “I only met him once. It’s just... life is so short. And we really don’t have any control over how it ends or when it ends.” Her breaths come out short. Panicked.
Fuck. I know what’s coming next.
Her face pales. “I can’t breathe?—”
“You’re having a panic attack, baby,” I tell her calmly and wrap my arms around her, then press her against me in a deep pressure hold. The added weight has helped Kennedy before.
“Breathe with me, Brynn. Can you match your breaths to mine, baby? In for three.” I do it with her. “Hold for two.” We wait two beats. “Then exhale.”
We repeat this over a few times until eventually, she calms down enough to focus on my face, and the new tears that spring free morph into a different kind of pain. “I don’t want to die, Deacon.”
I press my lips to her forehead and hold them there. “You’re not dying for a long time. You’re going to live a long, happy life. And I’m going to be right there, making sure you’re smiling every day.”
“You don’t understand... “ she tells me through quivering lips. “My biological grandparents reached out to my dad at the beginning of the summer. We don’t have any relationship with them. Never have. So it was weird when he told us they called. Then his face...” She closes her eyes as if reliving a memory. “I’ll never forget that face as long as I live. They’d called to tell him my biological mom had died.” The sob that rips from her body barely sounds human.
“I’m so sorry, Brynn. I can’t even imagine how hard that was to hear.” I hold her so damn close, wishing I could take this pain away from her.
“That’s the thing. At first, I felt awful because I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t know her. She was never a part of my life. She literally dumped me on my dad as a baby and never looked back unless it was for money. I wasn’t heartbroken when I heard.” She closes her eyes, and a thick tear catches in her lashes. “I was numb.”
When she finally opens them, her tear-filled green eyes focus on me for the first time since I walked in, and I see my girl behind the devastation.
“I swear I’ve tried to tell you this so many times already, Deacon. But every time I’ve tried, I froze. Once I say it, I can’t un-say the words, and I’ve spent months not saying the words.”
“I’m not following you, Brynn . . .”
Fear is a funny thing. You think you know fear the first time you’re in a car accident. Or the first time you break a bone.
Then you have a kid, and fear takes on a whole new meaning. The way you fear you won’t be enough to keep them safe.
But the fear I feel now is entirely different. It’s the kind of fear you can’t possibly comprehend until the woman you love is talking about dying. Unable to breathe. Unable to calm down.
The kind of fear that precedes the worst kind of news.
The kind that changes everything.
“Brynlee...” No other words come as I hold onto her like she’s my lifeline.
She holds my cheek in her hand and closes her eyes. “My mom died of Huntington’s disease, Deacon.”
“What?” I ask, sure I just heard her wrong as my brain drags up everything I’ve ever heard about Huntington’s. And none of it’s good. “What?”
“Huntington’s disease. It’s a death sentence. There’s no cure. A person diagnosed today can live as little as ten years from their diagnosis.” Big, fat tears stream down her face. “And it’s genetic. If your parent has it, there’s a fifty/fifty chance you’ll inherit it from them.”
The axe falls hard and swift.
I just found her.
I’ve barely gotten to love her.
I can’t lose her.
“Brynlee... No. We’ll hire the best doctors in the world. I haven’t spent a penny of my money. I’ve saved it all. We’ll go wherever we have to. They’re always doing experimental things in Switzerland. We’ll go there. We don’t have to accept this. There’s got to be something we can do.”
Her lips tremble as her thumb runs over my cheek, catching the tear I hadn’t realized had fallen. “I wanted to tell you so many times?—”
“Why didn’t you? Did you think I wouldn’t be here? Did you think I would run?” I ask, so fucking hurt.
“Deacon... we didn’t get married because we were madly in love.” She shakes her head, like that makes any difference.
“I just found you. I’m not going to lose you,” I tell her, absolutely refusing to accept there’s nothing we can do. “There’s always something that can be done. We just have to find it.”
“I don’t know if I carry the gene, Deacon. I haven’t been tested yet. I’m scared. I’m not sure I want to know. If it’s positive, will I live every day, wondering if this is the day the symptoms start? Will I always wonder if today’s the day my countdown starts? I could live another twenty years before the first symptom hits, but if I carry the gene, I won’t have kids. I can’t. Not if I’d be doing this to them too. I’ve researched it, Deacon. It’s not an easy life, and it’s an awful death.”
“Jesus, Brynn. Is it better to live life not knowing? Not being able to do everything we can to prevent or slow the disease down before you get any symptoms? Isn’t it better to be prepared than to live not knowing whether you carry the damn gene?” The words come out harsh, but I’m so fucking angry right now. At her. At the world.
“You said there’s a fifty/fifty chance. What if you don’t have it? What if you’re fine and you spend your life wondering what if when you could have spent your life living?”
“I’m so scared, Deacon...” she whispers as her chest shakes with every shattered breath.
“Let me be your strength, Brynn. I’ll give you mine when you don’t have any left. We can get through this. But you’ve got to let me in.” I tuck her against my chest and listen to her cries.
“What if it comes back positive... What then?” she asks weakly.
“What if it comes back negative...” I counter. “What then?”
“Brynlee,” a man’s voice hollers through the other side of her door, followed by a bang before the door slams open against the wall. “Brynlee—” The guy barges in, calling out for her but then focusing on me. “Who the fuck are you?” This asshole asks, not reading the situation at all, and it looks like I have a target for all this anger.
I put her on the couch behind me and get between her and him. “I’m her fucking husband. Who the fuck are you?”
“Her what?” The guy yells back, taking a step toward us with his fists balled at his sides.
He’s a few inches shorter than me, but he’s built like a fighter.
“What the fuck, Killian?” Brynn stands up and moves in front of me, trying to wipe her face.
“Killian?” I ask, looking from her to him, unsure what she’s saying because my brain is still stuck on the fact that my wife could be dying.
“Yes,” she pushes me back. “Killian. My brother.” She looks behind the door that just put a hole in her wall. “Also the man who’s going to fix that wall tomorrow.”
“Brynnie, what the hell? Caitlin called and said some guy was screaming from the other side of your door. What the hell is going on in here? Did he hurt you?” he asks her, then turns his pissed-off glare on me. “What did you do to my sister?”
I move her behind me again.
MMA fighter or not, I will fucking kill him if he hurts her.
“Oh my God. Put your dicks away, both of you. He didn’t hurt me, you bonehead,” she yells at him, then turns to me. “And you. I guess we’re going public now?”
“That’s what you’re worried about ... right now?” I ask. “With everything going on, you still care about that?”
“Did you say her husband?” Killian asks, and Brynlee groans.
“Killer, if you say a single word to Mom and Dad, I swear to God, I’ll screw with your equipment when you least expect it.” And the way she says that sounds more than a little fucked up.
“What the hell is going on here?” he asks, and I turn to look at Brynn.
Her red eyes are swollen, puffy, and utterly exhausted. Tear streaks stain her cheeks, and I realize she’s suddenly more worried about her parents finding out about us than she is about dying.
“You know what...” I tell her more calmly than I thought I was capable of. “When you figure that out, how about you come talk to me? Because a second ago, I was scared the woman I love was going to be taken from me. But apparently, you’re more worried about your parents finding out you’re married than you are about the fact that you let me and Kennedy both fall in love with you when you knew there was a chance you could be taken from us.”
Oh yeah. The anger has kicked the fear’s ass, because anger... anger I know.
Anger I can deal with. I can harness it.
Losing my wife... That I can’t handle right now.
“How about you let me know when you figure out what really matters?” I kiss the top of her head and walk through the door, yanking it shut behind me.