From the Embers

by Aly Martinez

  His embrace drew me even closer. “God, Bree. I love you so fucking much.”

  My heart stopped and I fisted the back of his shirt. I had no idea if that was a romantic I love you or genuine appreciation for being there in his time of need, but no matter what form it came in, it didn’t change the truth. “I love you, too.”

  His arms cinched around me.

  We stood there in the middle of a messy playroom, holding each other, supporting each other, and loving each other through everything life had thrown at us. But in those seconds, with our entire world sleeping on the couch, it felt like maybe there had been a purpose to the hell we’d had to endure to find each other.

  “Will you stay with me tonight?” I whispered. “Luna can sleep in Madison’s room. We’ll sleep in pants and set an alarm so you can get up before Asher? I just really need to be with you tonight.”

  His head popped up, his brown eyes finding mine with a blistering intensity. “There’s not a force in the world that could keep me away.”

  My cheeks got hot, and I bit my lip to hide my smile. “Then we better hurry up and get these three in bed before the universe takes that as a challenge.”

  Eason didn’t as much disagree as he sprang into action.

  EASON

  “What are you doing?” Asher asked as I exited the pantry.

  “Ummm…” My back shot straight and I quickly shut the door, leaning against it as I panicked under his scrutinizing eyes. “I, um, was just…looking for a snack.”

  “What kind of snack?”

  “What is this, a pop quiz?”

  He canted his head to the side. “Maybe. Were you kissing Mom in there again?”

  “Maybe.”

  It wasn’t my fault. Bree had come downstairs in a pair of sexy-as-fuck jeans and a tank top that hugged all her curves just the way I liked. We were heading out as soon as Evelyn arrived, but there had been less than a zero percent chance of me keeping my hands off her for that long.

  He stared at me for a long second, and it did not matter one bit that he was a kid and weighed less than fifty pounds, he could be terrifying—just like his mother. Finally, he gave me a curt nod like he was the freaking Godfather. “Can I have candy after lunch?”

  “Sure.” Anything to stop the interrogation.

  He grinned. “Is it okay if we use the cushions off the other couch for our fort?”

  I shrugged. “Works for me.”

  “Cool.” He sprinted away.

  I waited until he’d disappeared before cracking open the door to the pantry. “The coast is clear.”

  On the other side of the door, Bree unscrewed the top of a container of protein powder. “I’m not sure giving him a mouthful of cavities is the best way to handle your guilt for feeling up his mother.” She pulled out a bag of M&M’s and dumped a few in my hand.

  “I panicked, okay? He’s a nice kid. But he can be seriously scary sometimes now that he knows about us.”

  She laughed and put her secret candy stash back on the top shelf. “He’s working you, ya know? Stop being weird when he catches us. I get not wanting to shove it in his face, but candy isn’t going to change the fact that he’s eventually going to have to get used to us touching each other.”

  “Bree, he gags when we kiss.”

  “Yeah. That’s what kids do when their parents kiss. Trust me. He’s happy for us. The kitten you promised to get them this weekend doesn’t hurt, either.”

  “Okay, fine. I was just trying to avoid the awkwardness. We have enough emotional upheaval for the day without adding to the circus.”

  Her face got soft. “How ya holding up?”

  I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “I just want it to be over. One way or another.”

  “Daddy!” Luna yelled, her feet pounding the wood floor as she raced down the hall.

  Madison giggled and then shouted, “Eee-sin!”

  I dropped Bree’s hand like a hot potato and slapped on a smile, turning just in time to see them round the counter.

  “I want candy,” Luna said, patting her chest.

  Madison bounced beside her. “Me too. Me too!”

  I closed my hand around the M&M’s and tucked it behind my back. “What? Who said I have candy?”

  “Asher.” Madison pouted her lip, and Luna glanced at her before mimicking it.

  We’d done the DNA test, a simple home version where I swabbed both my mouth and Luna’s while she slept and then mailed them in. Bree had done the same with Madison. It wasn’t enough just to know if she was mine or not. We needed to know if she was Rob’s. For all I knew, Rob could have been one of many. My trust in Jessica was officially nonexistent.

  Though, while I stared at them right then, their bottom lips pushed out, the same dark curls and button nose, there was no denying that they looked like sisters. I’d resigned myself that it wasn’t an if Rob was her father situation anymore. Everything came down to how we handled it.

  The results had arrived in an email earlier that morning, but I’d yet to open it. There was something I needed to take care of first.

  “Everybody has to eat all their lunch. Then you can have candy.”

  “Yay!” they cheered, dancing and hugging.

  They were so damn adorable, and Bree and I both laughed.

  Three grilled cheeses, a head of broccoli, and a small orchard of fresh apple juice later, Evelyn had arrived and Bree and I were gone for the afternoon. It wasn’t a grand date night, and originally, I’d planned to go alone, but Bree had insisted on coming with me. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a little Italian place I’d overheard her and Jillian talking about on the phone one night. The food was good, but the mood was all wrong. As many pep talks as I’d given myself over the last week, from knowing that tonight was the night, I was anxious, and sitting still that long made me crazy.

  As soon as we arrived at the tattoo studio, my anxiety ebbed as the high of new ink sank in. Bree was cute, roaming around, inspecting all the art on the walls. I didn’t suppose little Mrs. Prim and Proper had ever been inside a studio before. And, if I was being honest, it was a turn-on to pop that cherry for her.

  Standing shirtless in front of the mirror, I turned from side to side. “What do you think?”

  She slanted her head. “It’s bigger than I was expecting.”

  I was too pumped to even make a joke about that one. “That’s kinda what I was going for. I don’t want there to be any question in her mind when she sees this that she is and will always be mine.” I met Bree’s green eyes in the mirror.

  “Then I think it’s amazing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t think you needed it for her to know any of that, but judging by that look on your face, it makes you happy. Therefore, it’s perfect.”

  While I stared down at the purple stencil on my chest, my body thrummed with pride. It felt perfect too. After days spent working with an artist at my favorite studio, we’d finalized a three-dimensional rendering of a half-moon as seen through a telescope from Earth. The outline traced the curve of my pec, and hours of shading would bring the dips and craters on the moon’s surface to life. The top and the bottom curled into the signature crescent shape, but the center faded into Luna’s name in block letters running horizontal across my heart.

  Until then, my ink had been isolated to a colorful sleeve I’d gotten in my twenties, but this one covered almost the entirety of my pectoral. And I fucking loved the idea of having my baby girl there, so close to my heart the way she always would be.

  I wanted to get it before we read the results of the DNA test. To mark my body the same way she had marked my soul the day she’d been born. I wanted her to know, genetics aside, I would always be her daddy and no fucking test could ever tell me any different.

  “All right. Let’s do it.”

  “Umm.” Bree raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “Ya know, I think I’m just going to hang in the lobby.”

  “What happened to being here for me?�
��

  “Well, I am. But maybe I can cheer for you from outside.” She crinkled her nose adorably. “Needles aren’t really my thing.”

  I’d have given her shit, but even being there was out of Bree’s comfort zone. Chuckling, I dragged her into a hug, careful not to smear the stencil on my chest. “You know this is going to take hours, right?”

  “Yep. And I’m here for every minute of it. You need coffee or a riveting chat from outside the door, I’m your girl.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She tipped her head back and puckered her lips, asking for a kiss I would never be able to deny.

  “I love you, babe.”

  Her mouth split into a beaming smile that could light even the darkest corners of any room. “Love you too, Eason.”

  I spent four hours in the chair, and by the time we were done, we had to schedule a second session to finish up the shading. But the only part I truly cared about was seeing my daughter’s name on my chest.

  As I drove us home, dread once again filled my gut. We’d agreed to read the results by the firepit after the kids had gone to bed. It was the logical choice; it was where Bree and I did our best emotional damage control. Almost like neutral ground. Though the minute we pulled into the driveway, from knowing we had to go inside and act like it was just another day and the clock wasn’t a ticking timebomb counting down to my worst nightmare, bedtime seemed too painfully far away.

  After parking in my spot in front of the pool house, I cut the engine but made no move to get out.

  As always, Bree knew exactly what I needed and quietly sat beside me, her hand locked with mine, while I organized my thoughts.

  I scrubbed my free palm on the thigh of my jeans. “I think I just want to rip off the Band-Aid. They deserve more than for me to spend one more night faking smiles with my stomach in knots. I’m just ready for this to be over. All of it. It’s been one punch to the gut after another for too long now. I’m done. I want our problems to be which kitten to bring home and whether Asher makes the pee-wee soccer team this year. Fuck, Bree. I’m terrified that, if we keep screaming into the past, the future is going to become nothing but an echo.”

  “I know,” she said, releasing my hand but only long enough to wrap hers around the back of my neck. Leaning over the center console, she brought her forehead to mine. “This is it. After this, they have no more control over us. We read these results and then it’s just me and you and those kids making a life together from here on out.” Suddenly releasing me, she sat back in her seat, lifted the corner of her shirt, and inched the waistband of her jeans down to reveal a piece of clear plastic taped on all four corners.

  It was small, but never in my entire life had anything felt bigger.

  In black typewriter font was a tattoo of three simple letters divided by two tiny hearts.

  A M L

  Asher. Madison.

  And Luna.

  “Bree,” I rasped, raw emotion filling my throat. I reached out to trace the corners, careful not to touch her angry, red flesh. “You got a tattoo?”

  “We’re a family, Eason. Regardless of what the email says. Your tattoo is important to you because Luna will always know you love her. Mine is important to me because you will never have to question how I truly feel. Those kids are my life. All three of them.”

  My chest got painfully tight as I dragged her into a hug. She’d said that it didn’t matter if Luna was Rob’s multiple times, and I’d believed her.

  But this was more.

  This was different.

  This was indelible proof on her body for all the days to come.

  And this meant more to me than she ever could have imagined.

  “I love you so much.”

  “It’s you and me, Eason. Let’s rip off the Band-Aid, go in there, play with our kids, give them the absolute best life possible, and never look back.” She leaned away, righting herself in her seat, and extended her hand in my direction. “Give me your phone.”

  With my heart in my throat, I held her gaze and passed it over.

  This was going to hurt.

  This was going to absolutely slay me.

  But with Bree and her hand in mine, I didn’t feel like I was suffocating under the weight of those results.

  “You ready?” she asked, using her free hand to navigate to my email on my phone.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  With an odd sense of calm washing over me, I dipped my head, staring at my lap, my girl’s face smiling on the backs of my lids. She was happy. She was healthy. She was just inside that house, waiting for her daddy to come home. Nothing else mattered.

  “Eason!” Bree gasped.

  I gave her hand a squeeze.

  Here it comes. Just hold on, Eason. It’s almost over.

  For a long second, she was eerily quiet. I couldn’t even be sure she was breathing. The only sound in that SUV was my heart pounding in my chest.

  Deep breath in. It doesn’t matter. It changes nothing. Jagged exhale out.

  “Oh my God!” she all but yelled, her voice echoing off the windows. And then Bree said the two words that somehow healed every wound I had and would ever experience. “She’s yours.”

  My head snapped up so fast it was a wonder I didn’t break my neck. “What?”

  She let out a loud laugh, the most beautiful tears of joy filling her eyes. “She’s yours. Luna’s yours. Look.” She shoved the phone in my face, and sure as hell, to a 99.999997 percent probability, I was Luna’s father.

  In utter disbelief, I snatched the phone away and scrolled down, searching for her results in comparison to Madison. Maybe there had been a mistake. If I dropped my guard and let myself believe this even for a minute and it was wrong, I wouldn’t survive that crash back to reality.

  The probability of Luna and Madison sharing parents was a heart-stopping, euphoric, big, fat, fucking gorgeous zero percent.

  “Oh, fuck,” I rumbled, the relief so staggering my whole body trembled. “She’s my baby. She’s mine. It’s over and she’s mine.”

  I flicked my gaze to Bree. She had a hand over her mouth, tears streaming from her eyes, but I didn’t need to see her lips to know her smile was epic.

  And sure, I knew, whether or not she’d ever admit it, Bree had a lot of emotional turbulence riding on those results as well. But the all-consuming happiness radiating from her stunning face was for me, and if I hadn’t already been head-over-heels lost in that woman, that would have been the moment I knew there was no turning back.

  Bree and I sat outside in the car for a while.

  Laughing. Hugging. Kissing.

  Just generally basking in an unfamiliar feeling of good news.

  And when we were finally done, we got out and gave Rob and Jessica the biggest fuck-you we had to offer.

  We walked inside to our family.

  BREE

  For the next six weeks, life was good. No. Strike that. Life was incredibly good.

  With the IRS Audit in the rearview mirror, things slowed down at Prism. I hired a new support team to allow me more flexibility and blissfully went back to working nine-to-five as often as I could. Eason was still gigging a lot, but with summer coming to an end, his shows were almost completely limited to the weekends.

  We’d finally taken the kids to the shelter to get a cat. Picking one out was easy. There was a little black-and-white kitten who adopted us the minute we walked through the door. He played with Asher, chasing him around like a dog, and then hung like a rag doll as Luna and Madison carted him around the shelter visiting room. And yeah, okay, fine, I didn’t necessarily want a cat, but as Eason filled out the paperwork, the kitten we’d not-so-cleverly named Oreo curled into my lap for a nap. It was love at first purr.

  The following weekend, he’d disappeared to the tattoo studio. When he didn’t come home for five hours, I had a sneaking suspicion he was getting more done than just a touch-up on Luna’s moon. Sure enough, that night as we got ready for bed,
he revealed a brightly colored orb covering his right pec. Asher and Madison’s names curled from the rays of the sun in brilliant red and orange hues. I may have cried. Laughing, but still crying. I couldn’t help myself, it was gorgeous—just like the man himself.

  Being surrounded by so much happiness was a nice change of pace for us. Eason and I went back to family dinners, tag-teaming bedtime routines, and then quiet nights around the firepit. Though, this time, Eason wasn’t on the opposite end of the couch. Or if he was, my head was usually in his lap, his fingers tangled in my hair as he smiled down at me.

  Being in love with Eason Maxwell was the easiest thing I’d ever done. I’d spent so many years trying to build the perfect life with the perfect husband, the perfect kids, and the perfect company. But mastering the perception of perfect isn’t the same as finding genuine happiness.

  I’d thought I was happy with Rob. I’d thought I’d found my person, my soul mate, the one. What I’d found was a con man, a manipulator, and a liar. But even if you took all of that out of the equation, knowing what I now knew about how it felt to have a man truly support me—a man who always kept his family at the center of his thoughts and intentions, his dreams so big that they inspired everyone who met him—I’d still choose Eason. Every day of the week.

  As cliché as it sounded, Eason made me a better person. At the core, I was still Bree—stubborn and reserved with a spontaneity level of negative four thousand. Eason got me though. He was my total opposite—fun, lighthearted, and laid-back. But he didn’t judge me or try to change me. He accepted me for who I was, no matter how difficult that might have been at times. He laughed when I got uptight. Held me when I became overwhelmed. Made love to me like I’d been made just for him.

  And as the weeks passed, a glorious calm settled over our lives and I began to believe maybe Eason had been made for me too.

  “Mmm,” he hummed, wiping a drip of ketchup off the corner of his mouth. “That’s…delicious,” he lied, nodding his head at each of the kids.