32. Brakkus
Brakkus
Three weeks later, Otto sat in his high chair at the end of the kitchen island, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth as Hannah cut strawberries beside him. I filled my coffee cup at the counter.
“Slow down,” Hannah said. “No one is going to steal your breakfast.”
Otto grinned at her, showing wet little tusks, then smacked both palms against his tray.
Eggs scattered across the island floor.
“Go!” he shouted.
I grabbed a paper towel.
Hannah looked at the floor. “I think he meant down.”
“Looks like it.”
I crouched beside the high chair and wiped up the eggs while Otto kicked his heels against the footrest. His bare foot caught me on the shoulder. He laughed and did it again.
“Careful,” I told him.
“Da.”
“That’s me.”
He pointed toward the cup on the island. “Go.”
I rose, took the cup, and put it into his waiting hands. “Milk.”
He drank noisily, watching me over the rim.
There was banana smeared across one cheek and a piece of egg stuck in his black curls. His eyes were clear. His skin had its healthy color back, and the thinness that had settled into his face while Hannah was gone had disappeared. His arms and legs had grown solid again.
He had slept through the night for almost two weeks. He ate until we had to stop him from stuffing both hands into his mouth. He chased balls across the living room and shouted at his toys. My son was back.
Otto lowered his cup and banged it against the tray.
“More,” he demanded.
Hannah slid several strawberry pieces in front of him. “You already have more.”
He grabbed two at once.
Juice ran down his wrist as he shoved one into his mouth. Hannah caught his hand before he could wipe the other across his hair and cleaned his fingers with a washcloth. Otto complained through a mouthful of fruit.
“You’re fine,” she told him.
I returned to the counter and picked up my coffee. Hannah moved around the island to rinse the washcloth, passing close enough for her hip to brush mine.
Later that morning, I sat on the living room sofa with my laptop open across my thighs, reviewing the latest quarterly projections.
Otto played on the rug near the glass doors overlooking the patio.
He pushed a toy truck between the wooden blocks scattered around him, making a low growling sound under his breath.
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Lola said from the kitchen. She crossed through the living room into the foyer.
Trey was due at ten with the Northstar contract. Northstar was one of the largest streaming companies in the country, and they wanted to produce a documentary about my childhood in Breakstone, my years in M.A.U.L., and the companies I had built.
“Go,” Otto said, pushing his truck into a tower that went tumbling to the floor.
“That truck has caused enough damage.”
He shoved it into the wreckage again.
Lola opened the front door. Her voice carried briefly from the foyer before Trey entered the living room with a thick folder under one arm.
“Morning,” he said.
I closed my laptop and set it on the coffee table. Trey took the armchair across from me and placed the folder between us.
“Northstar sent the full documentary contract last night,” he said. “They want an answer by Friday.”
“That usually means they buried something ugly in it.”
“They buried several things.” He opened the folder and pulled out a marked copy. Yellow tabs covered the edges. “The money is good. They’ll pay an appearance fee, license the Brute name and Brute Squad trademarks separately, and give us approval over any documentary merchandise.”
“Fine. What do they want in exchange?”
“Access.”
I leaned back against the sofa. “To what?”
Trey turned several pages and tapped a paragraph. “Breakstone, the original gym, the corporate offices, old M.A.U.L. footage, current business meetings, interviews with family and former fighters. They also want permission to film here.”
“No.”
“I assumed that would be your answer.”
“They can film the outside of the house from the drive. They don’t come inside.”
Otto drove his truck over one of my shoes. Trey glanced down at him.
“The producers want a home-life component,” he said. “They think the documentary needs to show the man behind the Brute.”
“The man behind the Brute lives here with his family. They aren’t content.”
Trey crossed out a section with several hard strokes of his pen.
“What control do I have over the final version?”
“Almost none.”
“No. I need protection against them turning Breakstone into a poverty tour or making M.A.U.L. look like a human circus that tricked monsters into fighting.”
Trey nodded. “We can demand consultation rights and approval over anything presented as fact. We can also require them to identify dramatizations and prohibit altered footage.”
Northstar could put the Brute back on screens across the world. The company would get publicity, the gyms would gain members, and every product line we owned would benefit. But I wouldn’t let them paint me or my life the way the Vossics had attempted to at the Old Quarter hearing.
“I want the story told accurately,” I said.
I looked at the pages covered in his notes. Trey had already found every problem that mattered.
“Take point on the negotiations,” I said. “Legal can handle the language, but you deal with Northstar.”
Trey closed the folder. “I’ll send them the revisions today.”
That evening, I took Otto to the gym and Hannah came with us.
Fading orange sunlight stretched across the gym’s black rubber floor and flashed along the chrome weight racks.
The heavy bags hung still beneath the beams, and the mirrored wall caught all three of us as we came in.
Otto let go of my hand and toddled toward the padded mats beside the weight bench.
“Not so fast,” Hannah said.
He looked back at her, grinned, and kept going. I caught him around the waist before he reached the dumbbell rack and lifted him onto my shoulders. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and laughed.
“Easy,” I said, settling my hands around his ankles.
“Go,” he demanded.
I carried him across the gym. When we reached the mirrored wall, I opened my mouth wide around my tusks and wrinkled my brow. Otto stared at our reflection. Then he shrieked. He scrunched his nose, bared his little tusks, and made a growling sound from deep in his throat.
Behind us, Hannah laughed. I looked at her in the mirror. She was leaning against the weight bench with her arms folded, trying to stifle another laugh. I made the face worse. That broke her. She bent forward laughing while Otto bounced on my shoulders and pulled my hair.
“Again,” Hannah said.
I widened my eyes, pushed my lower jaw out, and growled at the mirror.
Otto answered with a high, breathless roar.
His whole body shook with laughter. A few weeks ago, he had felt too light in my arms. Now his legs were solid against my chest, his hands strong in my hair, and his voice loud enough to fill the room.
He leaned toward Hannah.
“Hatta.”
“I’ve got you.”
She stepped closer, and I lowered him into her arms. He wrapped himself around her and immediately pointed toward the door.
“Eat.”
Hannah kissed his cheek. “Let’s go.”
After dinner, Hannah and I gave Otto a quick bath. He splashed both of us, fought his pajamas, and fell asleep before I finished rubbing the tusk ointment along his gums.
At the nursery door, Hannah caught the front of my damp shirt and kissed me. Then she took the baby monitor toward the living room while I continued down the hall to my bedroom.
Inside, I pulled off the shirt still damp from Otto’s bath and dropped it into the hamper. The room was dark except for the lamp beside the bed. I stood there with Hannah’s kiss still on my mouth.
For three weeks, she had slept down the hall while I wanted her in my bed. She stayed because she chose to stay. She kissed me because she wanted to, not because the bond or the council told her she belonged to me.
I crossed to the dresser and opened the top drawer. The black ring box sat beside a collection of watches where I had left it weeks ago. I took it to the bed and sat down. The hinge gave a quiet click when I opened it.
The diamond caught the lamplight. Large, clear, and excessive. I’d bought it before fear convinced me that silence was safer than telling Hannah what I wanted. Before I’d stood in the doorway and watched her car disappear down the road.
She’d seen me fail, apologize, and change.
She’d seen Otto recover. She knew what life with me looked like when it was loud, difficult, and ordinary.
I wasn’t going to ask her to be my wife because I feared losing her.
I would ask because I loved her, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I closed the box.
Tomorrow night, I would ask her to be mine.