Chapter 10 #2
The past five years had gone by in a flash but also felt like an eternity.
It was true what they said: the days were long, but the years were short.
Tabby had been colicky, and for the first nine months Deacon was convinced he’d never sleep again.
He was also certain he was failing miserably as a father.
He’d been sure Tabby needed her mom, and that since she was gone, he was a very distant consolation prize.
Kristen might not have been the love of his life, but she would have been a fucking incredible mom. That’s what she’d been born to be. To this day it killed him that she’d never gotten to see just how amazing their little girl was, that she never got to hold her, to kiss her, to love her.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Tabby peeked up over the couch, her tiny brow furrowing. “Why are you sad?”
“I’m not sad.” How did she always know, even when her back was to him? That girl did not miss anything.
His phone rang, he looked down and saw it was Poppy.
“Can I watch Enchanted?” Tabby asked.
“Sure.” Deacon was a pushover. He’d told himself he was going to be strong and tell her no if she asked for Enchanted today, but those eyes did something to him.
“Alexa, turn on TV and play Enchanted,” Tabby instructed.
The TV turned on, and he answered the phone. “Hey.”
“Hey!” Her voice was several octaves higher than it usually was. “Hi, so um, yeah, I don’t quite know how to say this. I was at AJ’s yesterday, and he was changing and, um, yeah, I saw a text you sent him.”
“Oh fuck.”
Deacon had sent AJ a text thanking him for giving him time to tell Poppy and the others on his own. He never thought about the fact that Poppy might see it. For being so smart, which, objectively, he was considered to have a very high IQ, he could also be really stupid.
“That’s a ten-dollar word, Daddy.”
“Yep, you’re right, it sure is,” Deacon agreed with his daughter.
Deacon had a really hard time not swearing, so he figured he might as well do some good with it.
He put Tabby in charge of keeping track of all the money he had to put in the “swear bank,” and then they chose a charity every month to donate the “swear bank” to.
The month after his one-night stand, the Seattle Humane Society got a very large donation.
He was dropping F bombs like they were going out of style.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Poppy. It wasn’t personal. I just needed—”
“I think I get it,” she interjected. “If I had more money than God, I would be worried about what people I let into my life.”
“I understand if you’re upset, and I’m going to tell Liam and Phoebe—”
“Oh, um, everyone knows.”
“They do?”
“Yeah, I got mad at AJ for not telling me and—”
“That was my fault. I wanted to—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she cut him off. “I came over to Liam’s, and then we called a family meeting.”
“Fuck.” Deacon ran his hands through his hair.
“Ten dollars, Daddy!”
“Yep, marked it down.” He hadn’t, but he’d remember. Or he’d just put a hundred in and call it even.
“Teresa, Pippa, Phoebe, Paulina, their husbands and kids, Bampi, and Momo all came over to Liam’s last night.”
Bampi and Momo were Michael’s parents, who were technically his grandparents. That was so strange. He’d compartmentalized his siblings in his head, even Teresa, Michael’s wife, but he’d never even really thought about his biological father’s parents even though he’d met them.
“Do they hate me?” he asked.
“What? No, oh my gosh, no! They were… shocked. But no, no one hates you.”
Deacon exhaled a sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized how much it had weighed on him these past few months that he was lying to people—people who were his family.
“I mean, you owe us all a million dollars, obviously.”
“Do you need money?” Deacon loved Poppy. He’d give her anything she needed. He’d give any of his siblings anything they needed now that he knew them. “If you do—”
“Oh my God! No! I was joking! Stop! We don’t need anything from you! Actually, that’s not true. I do need something from you, that’s why I’m calling.” She took in a shaky breath.
“What? Yes. Anything.” He felt so guilty for lying, he would do whatever she asked.
“If you’re not busy today, you and Tabby’s presence have been requested at the wedding of Yaya and Mr. Santino. No, not requested, demanded, by the bride.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If you don’t come, I’m concerned for others’ safety.”
He knew she was joking. At least he thought she was. Yaya was a bit of a wild card.
“Of course, yes. We’ll be there.”
“Oh thank God.” She sounded genuinely relieved. “Everyone will be there. I hope it won’t be too overwhelming for you and Tabby.”
“It’ll be fine.” He’d tell Tabby about the development before they left. “What time?”
“It starts in twenty minutes.”
“Oh shit.” That was cutting it real close.
“Five dollar word, Daddy!”
“Yep, on it,” he told his daughter, then asked Poppy, “And it’s at—”
“Liam and Frankie’s.”
“Okay, we’ll be there.”
“See you soon, brother,” she teased, but it actually made Deacon’s chest swell with warmth.
“See ya soon, sis. Bye.”
“Sis!” Tabby’s head popped up over the couch as he hung up the phone. “Why did you call Poppy sis?”
Did she have bat hearing or something?
“We are going to Yaya and Mr. Santino’s wedding, but we have to hurry, and I have to talk to you about something important before we go.”
“Woohoo!” Tabby started hopping up and down on the couch.
“Can we put your hair up in a bun or do braids?”
Tabby had been growing her hair out for Locks of Love for the past year and a half, and it was curly, so the nights he didn’t braid it before she went to bed, it was a pain to pick out and style if she wanted to wear it down. Curly hair was no joke.
“No.” She shook her head. “Down.”
Of course she’d want it down when they had fifteen minutes to get ready.
“Okay, we’ll talk while we do hair. Do you know what dress and shoes you want to wear because we have to leave in three sets of five?” He held up his hand, making a five.
Tabby used to have nebulization treatments that lasted five minutes, so she instinctively knew that time increment well.
If he told her fifteen minutes, she’d have no concept of how much time that took.
But for whatever reason, she knew exactly how much she could get done in sets of five minutes. It was pretty extraordinary.
Wardrobe was always the most difficult part of getting her out of the house these days. She changed her outfit a minimum of twice, and a maximum of five times just to go to the park. So clothes were always his first stop with her. Leaving OOTD till the last minute was a rookie mistake.
“I’ll go pick out my dress and shoes.” Tabby hopped off the couch and ran to the stairs. “Come on, Rocco.”
Deacon made his way upstairs behind his girl and her sidekick and quickly changed into slacks and a white shirt.
As he pulled on the button-down, he realized it was the shirt Jen had worn when he’d told her to put on a shirt and wait for him.
He knew that because it had a tiny lipstick stain on the collar.
It was barely noticeable, in fact, he hadn’t noticed it.
After Jen left that morning he’d packed the shirt separately and hung it up when he got home to Seattle, and never planned on wearing it again, because it smelled like her.
But when he was packing to move to California, his cleaner was helping him with his closet and noticed the stain.
She tried to get it out and washed it, and when she couldn’t remove the stain, she threw it away.
Later, when he asked where the shirt was that had been hanging up, she explained what had happened.
Thankfully, it was the same day, so he’d been able to retrieve it and not lose it forever.
By that time, it had lost its smell anyway, so washing it hadn’t ruined that, and her discovering the lipstick stain actually made it more special to him because a smell was temporary, but the lipstick stain was still there, it would be forever.
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath when he realized he’d just wasted he didn’t know how long staring at his reflection at a stain on his collar.
He had to get over this woman and get on with his life. It was driving him crazy. She was driving him crazy. He had to forget her. It was the same thing he’d told himself the day before, and the day before that. Maybe one day, it would work.