CHAPTER 31 DANNY
Christmas Eve morning is upon us, and I realize far too late I didn’t buy my wife a gift.
I’m guessing she hasn’t had time to get me one, either—and that’s fine. I don’t need anything except her.
Besides, the blow job she rewarded me with last night after I made her come on the counter was a pretty damn good gift, if I’m being honest.
We slept in mostly because we could, but that means we’re wasting the day away. By the time we wake up, we only have a mere five hours until the stylists descend and start preparing her for tonight’s event.
It’s really only this morning that I realize she walked out on her wedding to one man and will be showing up at her first event afterward on the arm of another.
Publicly, I will look like the other man in this scenario. I will represent everything I hate when I think about my dad and how he took my childhood away from me, how at the young age of merely seven, my innocence was shattered.
And now I will appear to be doing the same thing.
I’m not…but it won’t look that way.
Maybe we didn’t think this through.
I don’t care about my own reputation. I know what’s real and what’s going on here, and so do my mom and Anna, and that’s all that matters.
But I care about her. I care about her brand. I care what her fans think. They may not support us if they support Brooks, and that’s not something the two of us have ever really addressed.
She’s nervous. She reviews her playlist. She sings Christmas songs, and I hum along in my off-key voice as she asks my opinions about things I know literally nothing about.
She’s ready, and I think the nerves have far less to do with her performance than with seeing her father and her would-be husband tonight.
I do what I can to calm her nerves, but I get it. I’m nervous, too.
It doesn’t feel like Christmas. We’ve done nothing to really prepare for the holiday ahead.
I don’t have a tree up in my house in Vegas.
Hell, I’ve been on the run for the last nine days.
I haven’t even bought Christmas gifts for my mom or my sister.
We should’ve celebrated the holiday when we were all together in Mission Beach.
Instead, we were celebrating our wedding.
What a fucking whirlwind the last few weeks have been. It seems like Thanksgiving kicked off this tornado we were powerless to stop.
And now here we are, barreling toward the epic culmination of it all.
“Are you okay?” I ask softly as she finishes practicing a song and starts pacing.
“Not really.”
“What will help?”
“Just getting it over with.”
“It’ll all be over in less than twelve hours,” I say.
“Yeah, and then what? I hate the unknown. I hate the wondering. I hate the fear. I hate that all I want is to take control of my own life.” She collapses on the couch beside me.
“You’ve gone a long way in making that happen, Lex.” I hold up my ring finger where the silver glints in the light, and the redness from the tattoo I got just last night is starting to fade. “We have gone a long way. And I’m right here with you, holding your hand as we navigate this next part.”
“I just keep thinking about my last Christmas with my mom. I was nine and didn’t know what was coming just a few months later.
I remember I was mad because I wanted these dumb dolls that really, looking back, were kind of slutty for a nine-year-old girl, and there weren’t any under the tree.
There were dozens of other gifts, and I should’ve been beyond happy, but I didn’t get the one I wanted.
I threw a big fit and ruined the entire morning, and it felt like it’s what kicked off my dad coming down harder on me.
I spent the entire day in my room without my presents until we had to leave to go to my aunt’s house.
This was back when we still lived in Nevada.
And I cried and cried because it was the first time I felt like my dad was really mean to me.
But looking back, he wasn’t mean at all.
He was teaching me that I can’t throw a fit to get my way.
And now I’m worried what lessons he’s going to try to pull from all this.
” She shrugs a little at the end. “Am I just a nine-year-old throwing a fit?”
“Babe, those are two completely different situations. This isn’t a nine-year-old throwing a fit. This is your adult life. This is your happiness,” I point out.
“Yeah, but back then, I thought it was my life and my happiness, too. And now I look back and see how right he was. Will I look back at this in twenty years and see how right he was?” she asks.
“Jesus Christ, no.” It physically hurts my heart that she thinks that.
“I wish I could give you the perspective you need to see that. He’s controlling every aspect of who you are, including thoughts like these.
You’re smart, and you’re talented, and you’re incredibly capable, but he’s trained you to rely only on him.
You can rely on yourself, too, Lex. And me.
Always me. But as much as I want you to do that, I also want you to see how very much you can stand on your own two feet.
You may attribute a lot of your success to him, and maybe he was able to tug on the strings in the background to give you advantages others wouldn’t have had, but ultimately, it’s you who is your brand.
It’s your voice, your acting abilities, and your talents that have gotten you where you are, not his.
It’s you that I love, that your fans love, that has reached the astronomical levels of success you have. ”
I stand, and I pull her up with me.
She tosses her arms around me and holds me tight. “Thank you,” she whispers into my chest. “I love you so much, Danny.”
“I love you, too, baby. No matter what.” I press a kiss to the top of her head, and she looks up at me with tears in her eyes.
“No matter what,” she says resolutely.
We order brunch up to the room since we’re in that strange time between breakfast and lunch. We shower together without getting frisky, and we get dressed and ready for the day. I shave again, though the shadow will be back when we arrive this evening.
We go through the motions carrying us toward this evening, the anticipation of what awaits us never really very far but still something we keep a tight lid on until we no longer can.