Chapter 47
Willow
As soon as the door clicked shut, I whirled on my brother.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, holding a dish towel filled with ice to his hand. “He had it coming.”
I could have strangled him, for his smug tone and for hitting Deacon and treating me like I was a child. He had an effective cold stare, but I had the same damn one, and I leveled it on him until he looked away, muttering, “He did.”
I planned to strangle him as I stalked forward, but first I threw my arms around his neck.
“I might knee you in the balls in a minute, but I am so relieved you’re home,” I said, clutching him to me.
“You’re home and you’re alive and you’re safe.
” I buried my face in his shoulder and felt his arms, the ones I’d found safety in since I was a kid, wrap around me.
“I’m all right, Willy,” he said, pulling me closer, the edge in his voice disappearing.
The roller coaster of worry and fear I’d felt on this deployment came back to me all at once, and we stood embracing in the kitchen, for I don’t know how long. “I thought you were dead,” I said, against him, the tears I thought I’d tucked away flowing freely. “I thought you wouldn’t come home.”
“I did, though.” He rubbed circles at the top of my back. “I’m fine.”
I finally loosened my hold on him and stepped away, nearly tripping on Gus, who hadn’t left his side.
“Until you knee me in the balls, but I’m going to ask you not to do that because it’s already hard enough for me to walk.” He motioned to the boot on his left leg and gave me a tiny grin.
“You had no right to hit him,” I repeated. “Are you a fucking Neanderthal?”
Cruz looked slightly chastened and picked up the dish towel again. “Since when do you drop f-bombs?”
“I’ve done a lot of growing these last few months. I promise not to knee you…for now. Come in the living room and let’s talk.”
“I’m sorry you had to see me hit him,” he said, falling onto the couch. Gus leaped up and dropped his head on his lap, earning me a raised eyebrow from my brother, who never let the dog on the couch.
I shrugged. “He does that now.”
Wisely picking his battles, Cruz scratched the dog behind the ears.
“And ‘sorry you saw me do it’ isn’t an apology. You could have really hurt him, Cruz.”
“Rakes isn’t made of glass.” He scratched behind his neck. “He’s not good for you, Willy.”
“You’ve never seen us together!” I flushed. “Well, except for upstairs,” I added. “How can you even say he’s not good for me? You know better than anyone he’s a good man.”
“Because I heard what you said about putting school on hold. He’s not good for you if he’s another guy you put your plans on hold for. If he’s a guy who stands by while you do that.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to deny it, but I remembered saying I could wait on vet school until we figured things out together.
“I’m so pissed at him for touching you when I told him to keep his distance, but I’m more angry at you.”
“At me?” This turn of events had thrown me enough that I needed to sit back in the chair to hear his explanation. “Why?”
“Because you spent this whole time here trying to move on from Spencer and be your own person. To distance yourself from everything you saw in that stupid drowning meme.” His voice was back to normal and not the cold, sharp tone he’d used with Deacon.
“And at the first chance you got, you offered to give up your goals and independence for a guy.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s not what I want for you. ”
“I…” I hadn’t even seen myself doing it.
I’d offered it up because being with Deacon felt like the most important thing I could do, but in retrospect, it felt so wrong.
I thought about the application for school waiting for me to submit it.
Suddenly, I knew I was going to include that last paragraph.
Maybe with a few more lines I would add. “I don’t want that, either.”
“And Deacon’s like me, Willy. We’re not good for other people. We’re too focused on the mission, on what’s next, and we can’t give someone else what they need. That’s why Antonio left me.” His gaze flicked down to his hands at the mention of G. He almost never used his first name with me.
I sat up straighter, needing to come to his defense. “Deacon’s not like that with me.”
“Was he going to let you give up vet school for him?” Cruz matched my stance and recrossed his arms over his chest.
“I…don’t know,” I said, rising to my feet and grabbing the dripping dish towel from him to make him a fresh ice pack. “You cockblocked us before he could answer.”
Cruz laughed, the first genuine laugh I’d heard from him. The sound made me smile. “Please don’t say ‘cock’ after I had to see my best friend’s already tonight.”
I handed him the ice pack. “At least you still called him your best friend.”
Cruz pressed the ice pack to his hand. “I told him not to touch you because I didn’t want you to get hurt. Rakes will hurt you. He’ll leave.”
“He loves me,” I admitted, and in that moment, I realized I could never forget how the words sounded coming from Deacon’s lips. His declaration of love was etched in my mind. “He knew you’d be furious, and that it might end your friendship, but he loves me. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
His eyes widened. “He told you that?”
I nodded. “I made this list of things I wanted to re-do, firsts I had with Spencer, and he helped me.”
“Just a blanket statement. I don’t want to hear about Deacon’s re-doing anything with you.”
I took the spot on the other side of Gus and threw a pillow at my injured brother.
“Not sexual, well, not all sexual,” I added sheepishly.
“He helped me realize my life wasn’t over after Spencer and I broke up.
Helped me see more in the mirror than that stupid meme.
Helped me see I was still somebody, even when I was alone. ”
“Willy,” he said, leaning forward over the dog, “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Well, I did.” I brushed my hands down the front of my robe.
“While you were away, I learned to ride a bike, and I went camping, and I kissed a boy who kissed me back, and none of it was tainted by memories of Spencer and who I was when we were dating. For a long time, I felt like all I’d ever be was the person he dumped, the one who was drowning.
Now, it’s like I can see myself as so much more than that.
I’m worth so much more than the role I play in a relationship. ”
Cruz looked between me and his dog with a contemplative expression. “Mom gave up on everything because it was tainted by the memory of Dad,” he added. “Did you think that would happen to you, too?”
“I did at first.” My heart ached hearing him talk about her, about normal everyday things about her, because we never did that. “But I went through a few of the boxes. Did you know she planned to go skydiving and travel to Japan? I found the ticket, and I think she was seeing someone.”
He grinned, and I saw the brother I’d known my whole life, the one behind the guarded facade he put on for others. “Yeah?”
“Who knew, right?” I wiped my tears on the sleeve of my robe, unsure what words to put to what I was feeling because it was sadness and relief and a little bit of joy.
“She was planning adventures. I thought she’d been drowning the whole time, but it turns out that she wasn’t.
She had found her strength.” Cruz held out his free arm, and I shifted to squeeze in next to my brother. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Do you love him back?”
I nodded. “I didn’t get to tell him yet. You busted in like a G.I. Joe on crutches and broke up our party, and maybe his nose.”
“That party involved my baby sister fucking my best friend in my house. Don’t get too high and mighty.”
“Fair enough.” I smiled against his chest. “I wanted to tell him I loved him at the park…my final re-do,” I said. “With Spencer, I said it the first time at the park, and I want this time to be with him.”
Cruz rested his chin on my head and wrapped his arm around me. “I just want to keep you safe.”
“I know.” I patted his chest and sat up so I could meet his gaze.
“But I’m an adult. And it turns out, a pretty capable one.
” I looked at Gus and waved my hand in the way we’d practiced.
“Sparkle princess spin,” I said, and his ears perked up.
He jumped off the couch, spun twice, and then sat at Cruz’s feet, resting his head on my brother’s knee to receive more pets.
“Sparkle princess? He’s a German shepherd.”
I reached across and stroked behind Gus’s ears. “The prettiest German shepherd there is,” I cooed, earning a brief bit of attention from Gus before he refocused on Cruz. “He’s very well-trained. Get used to saying it if you want him off the couch.”
“Sparkle princess spin,” he repeated, disbelief in his voice. “I was gone for three months, and you turned my dog into a princess and my best friend into a lovesick fool.”
“I never said he was lovesick,” I corrected.
“He’d never betray me,” Cruz said. “Not in a hundred years, so if he did this…he’s more than just into you. He’s all in.”
I nodded because I knew it was true.
“So, I guess I have to forgive him?”
“It’s that or get kneed in the balls,” I said with a shrug before wrapping him in another giant hug.