Forever Promised (24 page)

As Deacon left the house, Drew was hovering over Benny, giving her some more ice to hold on her cheek, and the sun was hanging over the horizon like a giant maw, threatening to devour Deacon’s days whole.

Deacon drove straight into the gaping golden cavern, because that was where Crick was.

L
ATER
that night, after Parry was asleep and dinner cleaned up, he sat on the couch with one leg along the back and one leg touching the ground. Crick leaned back against his chest in the space between, watching television, and Deacon read from an e-reader he held in the hand resting along the back of the couch. His other hand settled on Crick’s shoulder. Crick was watching
American Horror Story
, which actually freaked Deacon the hell out, so he was relieved to immerse himself in the musings of the late great Christopher Hitchens.

Suddenly Crick paused the television in the middle of some girl crawling on the ceiling with her head on backward, and sat up from his position of being sprawled all over Deacon. Sometimes he sat in the corner and knit, the stitches painful and flawed, but tonight his hand was cramping, and Deacon was secretly a little grateful. He liked snuggling in all its forms, but he was reluctant to impose on Crick’s time. The knitting was physical therapy—they both knew it.

But right now, Crick turned awkwardly in his arms, and Deacon pulled back and smiled a little, because they were face-to-face and close enough to strain his vision.

“Something on your mind, Carrick?”

“You ever wish I was a girl?”

Deacon blinked. “For fuck’s sake no?”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I here?”

Crick made a little grunt of frustration and tried to squirm away. Deacon didn’t let him. Crick’s shoulders were still wide and muscled, and the way they felt under Deacon’s hands went straight to his heart. He could probably touch Crick forever—his bare skin, the warmth pulsing underneath it, the life quivering in every sinew.

After a few moments of squirming, Crick settled down and allowed himself to be petted.

“I’m being serious,” he muttered.

Deacon laced his fingers behind Crick’s neck and leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Would it be easier if I’d loved someone with a uterus? Sure. But Benny has a uterus, and she’s still got your parents—that didn’t solve a damn thing. Amy’s got a uterus, and I let her go. I loved you more.” Deacon smiled fully, thinking about the baby, how maybe it would have the shape of Crick’s eyes, since that was both Crick’s thing and Benny’s. Maybe it would have Benny’s stubborn chin, or that arch that both of them had to their noses. But it wouldn’t have Crick’s brown eyes, and that might be unfortunate, but it wasn’t a tragedy. “I love you more,” he said, his voice soft.

Crick smiled and pushed himself against the couch with his toes so he could lift up and kiss Deacon on the mouth. Deacon opened and let Crick in, and the moment was sacred, hushed, and holy.

For that moment, it was hope.

Benny
:
About Women

C
RICK
actually went in with her, as well as Drew, which might have
sounded
nice when he first offered, but it had the potential to be a colossal pain in the ass.

Seriously, bring your stupid brother to your artificial insemination—how fucking weird was that, right?

Except Crick was… well, he started out by bringing a quilt of Parry Angel’s they had left at The Pulpit. When Benny raised her eyebrows at him, Crick shrugged.

“They’re going to cover you up with something. I thought it would be more comfortable than the whole paper thing. I mean, this thing’ll wash, and, you know, it won’t be….”

“Cold,” she said, understanding, and Crick shrugged.

“Yeah. Speaking of cold and private, any news?”

Drew grunted in general disgust, and Benny looked at him wryly before turning her attention to the road. Drew could drive, but it wasn’t easy or comfortable with his prosthetic leg. Crick could drive too, but his injured hand made it hard as well. Apparently she was driving herself to her own medical procedure, which was sort of funny when you thought about it. She’d have to talk to Deacon about getting the car adapted with one of those accelerators they put on the steering wheel, at least before the baby was ready to be born.

“Benny?”

She stopped her mind meandering and answered Crick’s question. “Melanie called me this morning. He’s probably got a week to live, maybe two. His liver’s been going downhill for years now, and it’s just up and quit on him.”

“Fuuuuuck….” The word wasn’t being wasted on sentiment, Benny was well aware.

“I vote we do jack and shit,” Benny said calmly about the man who fathered her. Well, “fathered” was too strong a word.

“Benny, don’t do that for me,” Crick said reluctantly, and her heart started to swell a little as he spoke, because he was being unselfish and noble, and that was something Crick hadn’t always been good at.

“I’m not. He wasn’t great to me either, remember?”

“Yeah, but there were moments, you know?”

Yeah, she knew. She remembered Bob telling her she was smart once, when she’d been being mean to Missy, or even when she’d gotten into trouble for mouthing off to the teacher. She’d learned, though. She’d made her first-grade teacher cry once with her mouth, and it had occurred to her that Bob’s idea of a good girl might not really be good. She’d tried to stick with the idea of a good girl that didn’t make anyone cry, and that worked better.

“Yeah, but not enough,” Benny said with decision. “It’s easy to be good to a baby that you don’t have to take care of. Say it’s cute, give it beer, you’re father of the fucking year. No.” She shook her head and tried to put her thoughts into words. What she had to say was not flattering to her Zen inner life—but it was the truth.

“Crick, about all I can feel about this is relief. He will
never
show up again to scare my daughter. I could give a fuck whether or not he approves of Drew or Deacon or you—but this way, I don’t have to hear it or see it or fight it. It will simply be taken out of the world.”

Drew’s warm hand on her knee was a comfort, but even more surprising was Crick’s hand on her shoulder.

“Do you want to tell him that while he’s still alive?” Crick asked, and for a moment, she thought about it. How relieving would that be, to just… just….

Just spew word vomit at a dying asshole?

“Closure,” she said, thinking about it. “Maybe. Can we talk about something else?”

Crick made a pained sound, and Benny grimaced.

“No, we’re not going to talk about Missy either,” she said seriously. “I want to talk about something fun and happy that reminds me that not everything in our lives is fucked up. Got any suggestions?”

Suddenly Crick started to giggle, like, uncontrollably giggle.

“Did Deacon tell you about coaching Parry’s soccer team and the two boys and the shorts?”

Sometimes her stupid brother really
was
a godsend. By the time Benny pulled up in front of the clinic, she and Drew were laughing so hard they could barely breathe, and Crick was cracking up through the rest of the story.

“So Collin told me that he tried to get serious, right, and he was recovering, and then Deacon walked up to him and said, ‘wiener!’ and he was just fucking
done
!”

“Omigod!” Benny gasped, putting the brake on and leaning on Drew. She loved watching him laugh. “That’s precious. That is just fucking precious!” Then she started to laugh in a whole other way.

“What?” Crick asked, sliding out of the back of the car.

“I know what I’m gonna curse you with,” she said, feeling happy and free and excited about the future—even the next nine months of misery, just to give the fruits of her labor (literally!) to her stupid brother.

“Curse me? What the hell are you going to curse me for?”

“Because. It’s a mother’s prerogative. I’m going to wish a
boy
on you, big brother. I could wish a sweet, tractable little girl, but nope, when this baby takes, I’m going to hope with all my heart it’s a
boy.
” She let out a chuckle that even
she
had to admit was evil, and she caught Drew and Crick’s alarmed glances as they trekked through the parking lot in the fierce heat.

“I don’t know, Bernice,” Drew said, working to draw even with her. “That laugh right there did
not
speak well of your gender.”

Benny twinkled up at him. “Oh, honey, it doesn’t need to. For the next nine months, I’m the thing that spawns. My gender is well protected.”

Drew pulled her into the shade and looked suddenly, unaccountably sober. “Go check us in, willya, Crick?” he asked, and Crick nodded and walked in without arguing or anything. It really was like they were adults, wasn’t it?

“What’s the matter?” Oh, please, let Drew not be having second thoughts about this. Not now. Not when this really
might
not be the last time they had to come in and implant. Not now when they’d almost started what might be a long, painful thing.

“I just want you to know,” he said, fidgeting for a moment. He sighed and reached into his pocket. “Look. You’re more than an oven. And I know that you know that. You know that Deacon and Crick love you for more than what you’re about to do. But I don’t know if you realize that even while you’re cooking this baby up,
I
will still love you for you. The baby will be part of you, yes, and it won’t be mine, and I’ll admit that’ll be a little hard. But I will still be loving
you
for you. Does that make sense?”

She smiled at him, just grinned, because that was how much she loved him. “Yeah,” she said softly. “That’s about the most perfect thing you could say.”

Drew looked uncomfortable. “God. Wow. Proposing to you is going to suck if I’ve got to top
that!
”

She rolled her eyes. “Really? You think you have the option of proposing to me now? We’re getting married in a
year
, Drew. If you’re going to pop the question, you need to do it before I get the timeline going for how I’m going to fit into the dress.”

She turned around and sauntered into the building, and Drew spun on his prosthetic leg and thumped after her. “We’re getting married in a year? And you didn’t even wait for me to propose?”

“Crick didn’t propose to Deacon,” she said logically. “Remember? We just sprung the wedding on Deacon and made him say something sweet. I’m taking it easy on you. I’m giving you a year to think it over.”

Drew’s smile about blinded her, and he seized her hand and kissed her, right there in front of the receptionist’s counter. “I’m gonna have something that makes you speechless,” he said seriously, and she winked.

“You’d better. If you’ve got a year’s head start, I expect some goddamned poetry!”

He laughed and kissed her again, and she made sure the receptionist knew they were there.

L
ATER
, during the procedure itself, she lay back and let herself be probed and inseminated by the cold tool thing they used (there was a name for it, but the whole thing was sort of unpleasant and invasive, even if it was damned quick). She reflected for a minute that even the impersonal procedure couldn’t take away some of the mystery of what they were doing.

“How does the swimmer know?” she asked. “And which egg did it
choose to go for? I mean, is it a big popularity contest or a swimmer race or—
”

“Benny?” Crick said, his voice strangely hushed as he looked at the little camera they were using to guide the syringe.

“Yeah?”

“They’re going to make you pregnant with Deacon’s baby. This is a big fucking deal. Can we all have a little bit of quiet and say a quick prayer this will work?”

And just that quickly, she had her answer to all of her stupid questions.

“Sure,” she said, waiting while the thing inside her jerked. “It’s a mystery. It’s like all babies. It’s a mystery, and all we can do is pray.”

She closed her eyes then and ignored the fact that this wasn’t making love with Drew, whom she adored, and this wasn’t conceiving a child in the traditional mommy/daddy/baby makes three sense.

It all came down to the same thing.

It was a mystery. It was a random chance meeting of one particular sperm from a crowd and one particular egg from whichever ones popped out of the party room to look for adventure. It was hope that things would develop to the point where there was a real human being in there, and not just a collection of cells, and some more hope that the whole thing would coalesce and cook until done, and pop out pissed off and viable and ready to keep growing.

So it might not have been a traditional baby, but there was a breathless hush when the procedure happened.

There was a little respect for the mystery.

S
HE
wasn’t stupid. She waited until the pee-stick test read positive for a week before she called the doctor and had it confirmed.