Chapter 6 #2
She reaches up as far as her swollen belly will allow before my brother folds and closes the distance between them. She places a chaste kiss to his lips, then pulls back slightly. “Also, I’ll be late tonight, I’m helping Allie finalize the grocery order.”
I watch Maddox mentally make a very stupid decision as she waddles off.
“I wouldn’t do it if I were you,” I warn him over my coffee.
He just shrugs. “She’ll get over it.”
“Okay, but when you find your ass cramped up on mama’s couch tonight, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Well, he didn’t end up at Mama’s.
At ten o’clock sharp, there’s a knock on my door—but not just a knock. More like a battering ram wrapped in frustration. I open it to find Maddox standing there, seething, chest rising and falling like he just went twelve rounds with Evie and lost every damn one of them.
Maddox stands there, jaw tight, fists clenched, looking like he’s one breath away from punching drywall. Doesn’t say a word. Just brushes past me, tension radiating off him like heat off pavement.
“Evening to you too,” I mutter, shutting the door behind him.
He drops into my armchair like gravity’s got a grudge, scrubbing a hand over his face. I can’t help the grin creeping up as I head to the fridge and grab two beers.
“Don’t,” he growls, already knowing it’s coming.
I hold the bottle out. He snatches it like it insulted him. “Go ahead,” he mutters. “Say it.”
I crack mine open and lean against the kitchen counter. “I fucking told you so.”
He shoots me a glare that might’ve worked on anyone else. “She locked me out.”
“Of the house?”
“No, of the life insurance policy. She changed the password to ‘FuckYouAndTheseLocks123.’”
I bark out a laugh nearly spilling my drink. “I tried to warn you.”
He doesn’t respond. Just stares down at the beer label like maybe the answers are printed under the barcode, fingers picking at the edge with restless energy.
“Maddox,” I say, quieter now. “Everyone in this family gets how scared you are. Hell, we all are. But you’re not giving your wife enough credit. That woman’s grown two babies at once, all while supporting herself and not having a damn soul to lean on.”
His jaw ticks. “I fucking know that.”
“Yeah? Then stop treating her like a God damn chandelier, and embrace the fact she’s having your baby. Stop worrying obsessively over every little detail and living as if God is ready to yank another thing away from you. Like you don’t deserve it.”
His green eyes meet mine, glassy with unshed guilt. “What if I don’t?”
“Maddy—”
“I don’t, Henry.” His voice splinters, rough and ragged. “Every time I imagine holding this baby, I want it to feel like hope. Like some kind of redemption. But it doesn’t. It feels like punishment. Like the universe is giving me one more thing to fuck up.”
He runs a hand through his hair, “I look at my wife growing this little piece of me and her and all I can think about is the day I threatened her with a fucking belt.”
“Maddox,” I say gently. “That was a long time ago, and Evie forgave you.”
“But I can’t forgive myself, Henry. She flinched,” he chokes out, eyes swimming.
“I don’t care how much time has passed. You don’t come back from that.
You don’t look a woman like Evie in the eyes after making her feel unsafe and call it love.
So tell me—how the fuck do I look at my pregnant wife and believe I deserve this baby?
How do I carry this weight without drowning in it every single day? ”
I look at him, sitting there on the brink of falling back into that dark place he has fought tooth and fucking nail to crawl out of not because he feels unworthy, but because grief and guilt love their favorite prisoner.
“Because, you big idiot, nobody deserves it more than you. Maddox, guilt’s a chain, but it isn’t an excuse to bury yourself alive. You earned that pain, yeah—but dragging it around like some damn trophy won’t fix a damn thing.”
I lean in, voice rough. “That belt shit? Yeah, it was a low fucking moment. But just that—a moment. Every day, every damn day, I watch you fight tooth and nail to be better, to own your shit.”
My eyes don’t leave his, steady and sure. “Then at the same time I watch you pour yourself into being the best damn dad to Charlie and Bash. That’s why I know you deserve this baby, and that’s how I know Livvy’s up there, looking down, proud as hell that you got to be her dad.”
“You know,” he swallows hard, voice cracking, “I used to not believe it. But Mama was right. The only thing my sweet baby ever knew was pure, unconditional love. We’re the only ones who really know how damn short her time here was.”
I blink, trying to hold back the flood, but the memory crashes in anyway—loud and raw, like a wound reopened. That God damn phone call, late at night, the kind that rips the air out of your lungs. I don’t remember the drive to get Mama; it’s all a numb haze, a blur of dark roads and dread.
Then I see it again—clear as day—my brother, broken beyond repair, sitting in the middle of the highway, clutching his daughter’s lifeless body like she’s the last thing keeping him tethered to this world.
I start to move, to rush to him, but Mama’s hand grabs my arm with a grip so tight it burns, insisting she be the one to carry this one.
When she reaches him—her boy, cradling his little girl’s body like she’s still got time left—she doesn’t speak. Doesn’t cry. Just sinks down beside him on the blood-streaked asphalt like she’s carrying all of his pain too.
Then he screams.
Not loud—worse. It’s low, guttural, the kind of sound that comes from a soul being ripped in two. I swear I felt it in my marrow. He rocked her back and forth, whispering nonsense like if he just kept talking, she’ll open her eyes. Like love could rewind the clock.
And I just stood there, frozen, useless. Watching a man unravel. Watching a father beg the universe to trade him for the one thing he couldn't protect.
Now, that same man—my brother—looks at me, eyes glassy but clearer than before. “You’re right,” he says quietly. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t need to explain. We both know what he means.
That buried ache. That unspoken question clawing at his chest for years.
He just needed to hear it—from me, from someone who saw it all—that he’s allowed to have this life.
That he deserves to love again. To hold this baby without guilt in his bones.
I take a long pull from the beer in my hand, let the burn sit on my tongue before I speak.
“You better pray you get back in Evie’s good graces soon, because you know damn well the second she so much as breathes a sigh, Merc’s gonna be at that door with his duffel bag, talkin’ about ‘just crashin’ a few nights while eye-fucking your wife over pancakes. ”
“He better fucking not.”
Merc, being the little shit he is, showed up the next night with leftovers from dinner that Evie had made.
I watched as Maddox’s face turned red with rage, and I had to yell for him not to flip my damn table or slam Merc through it.
Merc, smart enough to realize the danger, raced outside.
It didn’t stop Maddox, though—he was practically shaking with fury.
I then watched that big bastard chase Mercy all over the backyard for twenty minutes.
It was like a God damn circus, but eventually, Maddox cornered him, wrapped him in a headlock, and landed a blow to his stomach that knocked the air right out of him.
Maddox sat down beside me on the porch with a smug, satisfied grin plastered on his face as we watched Mercy struggle to catch his breath for a few seconds. Finally, the little shit joined us, gasping but too proud to admit he was beaten.
“You fucking behemoth,” Mercy pants.
“You little fucking punk.”
“At least I’m not the one sleeping on his brother’s couch because his fine ass wife is too pissed to look at him,” Merc fires back, grinning like the devil. “Swear to God, Maddox, them cutoff shorts she was wearin’? I almost asked her if she needed help flippin' pancakes.”
I shake my head, laughing low in my throat. Watching them like that—wild, stubborn, alive—reminds me why I’d die for these fuckers. God, I love my brothers.