Chapter 1
Brooks
“Are you listening to me?”
A sense of déjà vu washes over me. I’ve had this conversation with my wife before. She stood right here beside me in this kitchen almost a year ago and asked me that same question. Only I wasn’t listening that day. I lied and told myself I was, but something in me was fundamentally broken then. I had just been too stubborn to recognize it.
Emryn had left, and I can say with certainty now that it was the best thing she ever did for our marriage.
We started seeing a therapist and working on our marriage for our daughter, and we still do to this day.
It’s not to say that we don’t still have hard days—we do—but we know how to cope with them. And that’s made all the difference.
Setting my phone down on the counter, I look up at Emryn. Her blonde hair is up in a messy bun, but some of the layers are falling out, too short to stay pulled back. She huffs, looking up and blowing the strands out of her face. When she looks back at me, there’s a grin on my lips that I can’t entirely wipe away.
The woman is beautiful.
“Well?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips, sassy just like our daughter. “Were you listening to me?”
Pushing my chair back, I stand and reach for her hips, pulling her to me. She comes willingly, falling into my chest and melting. I can feel the heat of her through my t-shirt, making my blood heat. This woman is everything I’ve ever dreamed of and so much more.
If I had to choose a favorite place in this world, this would be it—holding my wife in my arms.
“I wasn’t listening,” I admit. “I’m sorry, but I’m listening now. What is it you want to talk about?”
Part of what we’ve learned in therapy is to self-reflect on our actions—notice when we are wrong and change it.
Emryn stares up at me with a good-natured smile on her face. “At least you admit it, I guess.”
“It was painful,” I joke, holding her tight against me when she goes to pull away. “Kidding. I’m kidding.”
Wiggling, she pulls her arms free from where I had them squashed between us and reaches up, grabbing my face on either side with her hands and pulling my head down until I’m staring her in the eyes.
“Focus, Brooks. I need you to focus.”
“Sorry,” I say, wiping the smile off my face and feigning seriousness, “I’m focused.”
She rolls her eyes but continues anyway. “Our vow renewal is in two months.”
I’ve proposed to Emryn three times in our lifetime together—once when we were six, once during college, and a third time just a couple of months ago. Each time I proposed, I gave her a strawberry RingPop to seal the deal.
She accepted each time with some stipulations of her own. This time, she wanted to renew our vows, and even though I’m not the kind of guy who loves to get dressed up in a suit and tie, I could tell how much it meant to her. So I agreed. Now, we are a few months out from the date, and the planning has gotten—a little crazy.
“It’s marked on my calendar,” I say. “I won’t forget.”
“Good because I refuse to be a jilted bride, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” She chews on her lip, suddenly looking nervous, and my stomach dips. We’ve come a long way, but that doesn’t always mean we get it right. “I—uh—I kind of need some help.”
Guilt threatens to poke at my chest. It kills me that she still struggles to ask for help after all these months—a habit I created by not recognizing how much she does for our little family in the first place—but letting the guilt take over won’t get us anywhere. So I lean my head down until we are nearly nose to nose. “What do you need me to do?”
Her lips twitch in a wary smile. “Really? You don’t mind?”
Closing the distance, I drop a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Really. Make me a list. I know I let the big things fall on your shoulders for a while, but we are a team now. Don’t ever be nervous about asking me for help. You can come to me anytime.”
When I lean back, happiness is sparkling in her eyes. “Just remember you asked for it.”
Then she’s pulling out a list from her back pocket. She pinches the top of it between her fingers and lifts it above her head as, inch by inch, the bottom half of the paper unfolds, leaving enough tasks to fill an entire year.
My mouth drops open. “That’s your list?”
She nods. “Yes.”
I meet her eyes, making sure to keep my tone light. “Are we throwing a party for the whole town?”
I’m teasing—kind of—but that comment gets me a smack to my chest with the back of her hand. “Hush. Are you still willing to help me or not?”
With the smirk on my lips that she loves so much, I take the list from her hand and put it in my pocket. Then I lean forward until our lips are a breath apart. “I’m willing to help—but I have a stipulation.”
Emryn’s too breathless to giggle when she asks, “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“Kiss me.”
She doesn’t hesitate. Closing the gap, she presses her lips to mine and wipes away my smirk.
I sigh into her, getting lost in the feeling of being home.
______________________
“How’s the wedding planning going?” I ask my brother Grayson.
He got engaged less than a month ago and included my daughter Avery in the proposal. Avery was ecstatic. She fell in love with Grayson the first time he let her color in his tattoos that run all up and down his arms. And as far as his fiance goes, she offered Avery hot chocolate the first time she met her. That was an automatic win on Avery’s part.
Grayson’s fiance, Georgia, is sweet. Life has been hard on her. Her first husband died almost two years ago, but my grumpy big brother was there to help her through her grief, and in the midst of that, they fell in love with each other.
I’m happy for them, and so is Emryn. She loves Georgia. They’ve become good friends, and now, once a month, no matter what’s going on in our lives, we get together—sometimes at Grayson’s house and sometimes at mine—but we never miss it.
“Did you know there are a hundred and twenty-six shades of pink?” Grayson asks, his eyes widening as if traumatized by the idea.
I snort, unable to contain it, and he kicks my shin. “Shut up.”
Coughing, I try to cover up my laugh, but I can’t stop it. The horror on Grayson’s face is growing by the second.
This time, he goes for my seat, kicking the legs out from under the plastic chair and sending me free-falling to the ground.
He chortles as I stare up at the sky, stunned for a moment, before kicking out, repeating the motion to his chair. Grayson tumbles to the ground, arms reaching out to catch himself, but it’s too late. He hits the ground with a thud, and I send him a bright smile.
With a glare dipping his eyebrows, he opens his mouth to scold me, but my daughter comes flouncing over, her hands on her hips like a little mother hen.
“Daddy, that was not nice. Tell Uncle Grayson you’re sorry.”
That little traitor.
“But—”
She shushes me by putting her finger to my lips. “No, buts, Daddy. Apologize.”
From the mouth of a four-year-old, everyone.
She’s been waiting for this moment, cataloging my words every time she got in trouble so she could use them against me.
I look over at Grayson, who has a huge grin, trouble etching the corner of his lips.
“Sorry,” I grumble, seeing no way out of this, but the next time Avery’s not looking, I’m slugging him in the arm.
Avery looks over at Grayson, who drops his smile, pretending to be serious just for her. “I accept your apology, Brooks. I understand you’re acting out, but maybe next time, we can talk about your feelings.”
My daughter nods, hanging on to every word Grayson says. Her back is to me now, so I roll my eyes and mouth, “You’re dead meat.”
He only smirks, unperturbed by my threat.
If you’d asked me a year ago if I thought this would be my life, I would have laughed in your face. I hated Grayson when I first learned about him, but Emryn convinced me I needed to give him a chance. I’m glad I did—even if he annoys the crap out of me sometimes.
“Uncle Grayson, I have a first aid kit in my room. I’ll go get it and see if you have any scratches.” Avery takes off at a full sprint, not waiting for Grayson to tell her he’s fine.
“You’re not getting out of that one,” I say, standing. Once I’m on my feet, I reach down to where Grayson’s lying and take his hand to pull him up. “She’s going to spend the next hour playing doctor until she gives you a clean bill of health.”
Grayson groans, his experience with kids limited to his niece. “Do you think I can make a run for it?”
I shake my head. “She’ll just chase after you.”
He picks up his chair and flops down in it, resigned to his fate. I do the same, content to watch my revenge without lifting a finger.
“So—” I say, remembering the list in my back pocket. I pull it out and hold it up. It unfolds, just like it did earlier when Emryn held it up, and Grayson’s eyes are the size of saucers when it finally unfolds to reveal the last item. “Tell me about these colors of pink because Emryn asked me to help with our vow renewal, and I have a feeling I might need to know.”
Bending at the waist, Grayson laughs so hard he can’t catch his breath. Tears stream down his face, and just when I think I might have to give him CPR or something, his laughter slows, and he wipes at his tears with the heel of his hand.
With laughter still dancing in his eyes, he says, “You know what? I think we might be able to help each other out.”
I don’t tell him that I think our teaming up only points to more ways we can screw this up. If my brother wants to be a part of my life, I’m going to let him because there was a time when I wasn’t sure if he would ever be—he was more jaded than I was. But he’s come around, and we are finally starting to be the family I dreamed about having as a kid.
“Yeah, Gray. Maybe we can. Give me your list, and we can devise a plan.”
He nods, pulling out his phone. I’d bet a hundred dollars that he’s putting a reminder in there. The man’s a little Type A.
Avery hasn’t returned yet, likely having gotten distracted somewhere along the way, but I’ve been waiting for a chance to be alone with my brother all night. There are some things we need to talk about—something I don’t want Avery to know yet—and it makes me sick to my stomach because I’m not sure Grayson knows.
Standing, I walk over to the grill, flipping the burgers I put on earlier. “Have you—um—talked to Dad—Kip—lately?”
Grayson struggles with his relationship with our dad. I did, too, for a long time because the man was a drunk half my life, but going to therapy with Emryn has taught me to forgive—especially when people show you they can change. Grayson’s trying, but he also has an aversion to people.
Secretly, I don’t think that aversion is as big as he lets on. I just think it’s how he protects himself. His life hasn’t always been the easiest, either.
My brother’s face turns to stone, making it hard to get a read on him. “Yeah.”
“Did he—” I swallow, having trouble saying the words. “Did he tell you?”
Grayson won’t meet my eye when he nods. “That he’s sick? Yeah, he told me.”
Sadness squeezes my lungs. Kip called me earlier this week with the news. They found a mass, and while they don’t know what it is, it’s still scary. He was an alcoholic most of his life. It’s done a lot of irreversible damage to his body that can’t be reversed. But I just started getting to know my dad, and thinking about him not being around steals the breath from my lungs—especially for my daughter.
That man is her whole world.
Part of being a family, though, is learning to rely on one another, so I push the hurt down enough that I can breathe and ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”
He clears his throat, swallowing hard but still not looking at me. “Do you think he will be okay?”
It’s not my grumpy older brother asking me that question. It’s a broken little boy who grew up without a dad. I know because I feel the same way.
“I don’t know, Gray. I hope so, but I think at this point, all we can do is pray.”
His gaze snaps from the ground he’d been studying up to mine. The sharpness in his stare is icy. “Don’t get me wrong, Brooks, I believe in God, but praying didn’t do much for Nate. There wasn’t a second that went by that Georgia didn’t pray for Nate to survive—me too if I’m honest—but he died anyway.”
Pain pinches behind my chest, but I don’t know what to say to that. So I keep quiet.