Page 86 of Fireworks & Forehead Kisses

“What’s his name?” Billy and Jimmy spoke at the same time.

“How big is he?” Reagan questioned.

“She’s good. Tired, but good. Mason William James. Eight pounds, six ounces,” Ashley fired off the responses.

As she did, I noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She was tired, and it was my fault. I hadn’t let her get much sleep last night. She’d fallen asleep around four this morning after we’d made love once more in the shower and another time in bed. I just couldn’t get enough of that woman. Around her, I was insatiable.

We’d been at the hospital for over twelve hours. I doubted that she’d had anything to eat. Each time she came out to give everyone updates, I asked her if I could get her anything, but she refused. She only seemed concerned that I was still there and encouraged me to go home.

Part of me knew that I should. This wasn’t my place. But for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to. Real or not, she was my wife. If she was here, this was where I wanted to be.

“Can I see the baby, Lee Lee?!” Luna jumped up and clapped her hands.

“Yes, you can.” Ashley held out her hand, and Luna grabbed it. “And if two of you want to come back, she’s in the recovery room, so she can have visitors.”

There was a brief discussion before it was decided Billy and Jimmy would be the first group to go see their nephew. Before they all headed back, Ashley told me once again, “You can go. You don’t need to stay.”

I just grinned at her, letting her know that I wasn’t going anywhere. She rolled her eyes and smiled with a sigh. When she walked out, I collected all the crayons and started putting them back into their box. Once I’d cleaned up our arts and crafts, I sanitized my hands and sat, waiting for Ashley to return.

While I did, I replayed the past forty-eight hours. So much had happened. When I landed in Atlanta and then flew to Firefly, I’d prepared myself to demote Ashley. To go head-to-head with Gran over it. Then, in the span of an hour, everything in my life changed. I learned about the will—that I could notonly lose everything I’d ever worked for, everything I’d dedicated my life to, but it would go to my brother, who would destroy it. I hadn’t absorbed that shock when I came face to face with the woman who had haunted me for six months. I was still processing that when I opened my mouth and proposed to her, something I would never normally do, which was only one more thing I had to try and process. Then, in the span of thirty-six hours, I was getting married. And now, I was at the hospital, in a waiting room, where I’d been all day because my wife was helping her sister give birth.

It was like aBlack Mirrorepisode of my life.

After about thirty minutes, Ashley reappeared with Luna, Billy, and Jimmy. The next group was dispatched, and she walked over to me. “I’m going to take Luna home with me.”

“Great.” I stood.

“I can Uber. You don’t have to drive all the way back to Firefly.”

I just stared at her, not saying a word. I’m not sure when exactly our relationship had switched to the silent communication stage, but we were there now.

“Or not.” She sighed with a small shake of her head. “Come on, Lu Lu. Let’s go.”

On the way out to the parking lot, Luna talked a mile a minute about her new baby brother Mason and all the things she was going to teach him. After grabbing Luna’s booster seat from Hank’s truck, we were on the road back to Firefly. During the thirty-minute drive, I’m sure Luna must have taken a breath, but I didn’t hear it. She’d been pretty talkative all day, but now that she’d seen her brother, she had even more to say.

“Do you have a brother, Uncle Declan?”

Ashley’s head spun toward me. I could feel her stare boring into the side of my face. I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out she wasn’t happy about her niece calling me uncle. Iglanced over at her and tried to communicate that earlier, when we were getting snacks from the vending machines, she asked me if I was her uncle; I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to lie to her. I was.

I’m not sure if I was able to convey that entire narrative through my what-was-I-supposed-to-do expression and slight shrug, but whatever she deduced through our nonverbal cues satisfied her enough that she let me off the hook with an it’s-okay half-grin.

I glanced in the rearview mirror at Luna, who was in her booster behind me. “I do.”

“Did you teach him things?”

“I did.”

“What did you teach him?”

“I taught him how to ride a bike, and I taught him how to swim.”

“Was he your best friend?”

My eyes cut over to Ashley. I didn’t want to lie to Luna, but I also didn’t want to tell her the truth. Derek had always been an entitled little shit. From the time I could remember, he threw fits and tantrums if he didn’t get his way. He got expelled from six boarding schools, which was quite a feat with the money that my grandparents paid to put him in them. He never followed any rules. Whenever we played games, he cheated. He stole everything from baseball cards, hats, money, shoes, clothes, anything and everything he could. He started drinking when he was twelve and smoking weed a year later. He was on to pills and powders by age seventeen. His addiction didn’t make any of his already loose morals, selfish behaviors, and entitled beliefs any better; it only amplified them.

Even with all that, I still tried to be a good brother to him, but he never took my actions the way they were intended. He alwayssaw them through the lens of his motives, so he accused me of ulterior motives or trying to be his father.

Picking up on my hesitation to elaborate, Ashley took the conversational baton that I’d silently passed to her.

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