She turned to go back inside the house and just as the door was closing, Cillian leaned his chair back and said, “Okay, baby, you’re right, I’ll go get clipped that way there’snoaccidents.” And the door shut.
Cillian set his chair back down on all four legs and sipped his beer. Deacon was shocked at the offer. He couldn’t believe his friend cried uncle that easily.
Not even five seconds later, the door opened. “I don’t think we need to do anything that drastic, Cil. Everything with you is always all or nothing. Why are you so dramatic? Can’t we just enjoy our babies and live our life and see what happens?”
“Sure, baby, sorry. You’re right. You’re always right.”
The door shut again, and the smile that spread on Cillian’s face was that of a cat that ate the canary.
“Wow.” Deacon shook his head and grinned at his friend’s obvious manipulation.
Cillian raised his beer in toast to the screen and winked cockily at his friend. “That’s master-level marriage, right there.”
“Or it’s a wife who hasn’t slept in five years and ishormonal. Leanne, with sleep, who’s post-partum, would have seen right through that.”
“True,” Cillian easily conceded.
Cillian knew he was punching above his weight class, big time. His wife was a far superior being to him. He’d married up in every way, and he was proud of it.
“Okay, enough about me and my perfect wife and near basketball team of kids, what’s up with you? How’s Ladybug’s arm?”
“It’s driving her nuts, and she still has four weeks with the cast, but it is what it is. It’s itchy and she can’t sleep comfortably with it. She accidentally hit Rocco in the head, and that was a whole thing, she thought he hated her. But she’s doing good in school, making friends, and she really loves it here.”
“And how are things with your new siblings?”
Deacon hadn’t shared his findings about hisnewestsiblings, his mom, or the fact that he’d reconnected with Jenna. Not that Cillian would even remember who she was. He’d seen her for a total of thirty seconds, if that. He usually didn’t share things with anyone until he had everything sorted out. He still hadn’t met his new brothers, and he had no clue what was going on with Jenna.
“Things are going good.” Deacon leaned back against the couch. “I really like Phoebe, Pippa, and Paulina, and their husbands are great guys, they’re all good people, but I’m actually starting to feel like Liam and Poppy are, you know, family, and that’s not something I thought would happen… maybe ever.”
“Really?” Cillian looked understandably surprised. He knew better than most that Deacon didn’t really let people in.
“Yeah, Liam has been so great with Tabby with her heart and her breaking her arm. And I don’t know if it’s thebastard thing that’s like the bond for us, Poppy named our group chat the Jon Snows.”
“You have agroup chat?”
Deacon nodded, trying to decide if now was the right time to tell Cillian everything, he didn’t have everything figured out, but at this point he didn’t see any reason not to fill him in as things unfolded in real time. There was something about having Poppy, Liam, and now, his mom, who he strangely somehow felt more connected to than he ever had to the mother who raised him. Which might have been because he’d always had nannies and tutors and rarely spent time with the people who were supposed to have “raised him.”
His parents had given him so much shit when he hadn’t hired any help after Tabby was born, especially after he lost Kristen. But he hadn’t wanted anyone else to raise his daughter.
He had help. He’s not sure he could have done it alone, at least not well. Cillian’s parents came to stay with him for six weeks. Cillian’s mom, Susie, taught him everything he needed to know. Cillian and Leanne both were pretty much camped out at his house for the first six months of her life before their first baby was born.
After that, he was on his own, and he figured it out. They figured it out, him and Tabby together, just like countless single moms and dads did. The difference was he never had to worry about money, and if he had wanted help, he could have gotten it, which had been a major point of contention with his parents.
They went nearly a year without speaking to him or seeing their grandchild because of it. Appearances mattered to them, mainly his father, and it was beneath their station for Deacon to be doing everything on his own. The hypocrisy of his father lying to him and then havingthe nerve to stand as judge and jury over him, especially when the whole time he had Mikayla working for him. It infuriated him when he thought about it.
Deacon cleared his throat and set his phone down so it was propped up on his coffee mug, then leaned forward on the couch and rested his forearms on his thighs. “Do you remember I told you Poppy’s husband found out my connection to her and Liam?”
“That’s Niko Costas’ twin brother, right?”
Cillian was a huge baseball fan, and he’d always liked Niko as a player, he’d wanted the Red Sox to draft him and had been bummed when he’d gone to the Waves, but he’d still followed him his entire career.
“Yeah," Deacon confirmed. “AJ had a friend of his who is in cyber security do a background check on me and he found out that my mother didn’t die in childbirth, she’s alive.”
Cillian didn’t say anything, in fact, he stayed silent and still for so long Deacon thought the phone froze.
“Cil?”
“Yeah, sorry, that’s just… are you sure?”
