BEAU
"I don't know what else to say. I mean, nothing has ever made me feel this..." My attention shifts from the laptop screen, the pale face of Dr. Williams staring at me through the screen, glasses on the tip of his nose, to the closed door of our office space.
Maggie's cry pierces the air in her nursery across the hall. Not a moment later, Parker's voice carries up the stairs.
"No, I'll get her. You should go to bed, get some beauty sleep." A pause. "You have a big day tomorrow."
Heavy footsteps, heavier than Emma's light skip, ascend the stairs and I hear Maggie's door creak open, Parker murmuring to her already.
Then Emma's steps, light and springy, but slower and tired, until she closes the door to our bedroom.
"Happy?" Dex supplies the word for me and brings me back to my session.
"Right, yeah." I blink at the screen, the reflection of my teeth indicating a smile I hadn't realized had formed. "So fucking stupidly happy. Can you believe it? Me, the same guy who ran from home and lived on the streets of LA, chugging whiskey like water, is getting married tomorrow? I have a kid, Dex. A real life one year old." I shake my head in disbelief. "And she's fucking awesome."
And she really is. Sometimes I forget she's just a little baby, I get carried away with conversations she doesn't understand or ask her opinion on lyrics she doesn't care about.
We're just ... on the same wavelength. I swear she looks at me and it's like we're thinking the same thing. Whether it's fed up with Parker, amused by Zeus chasing his own tail, adoring her momma... we're in tune. I play my guitar and the way she stares at me, it's like she's understanding in a way I don't think babies do.
Then her little body bounces to the beat and it's all I can do not to stop playing, scoop her up, and hide her away so she can stay just like this forever.
"So..." Dex speaks in that voice that always tells me our session is coming to an end. "Let's recap, shall we?"
I nod and he continues.
"Zoey is in a facility receiving treatment and the stalking has not resumed, you haven't heard from your father in months, Emma is perfectly safe and your baby, born perfectly healthy and happy is growing into a content toddler, your career has taken off, albeit in a direction you never thought you'd go, you've reconnected with your biological brother and your nephew, and it seems, in Parker, you got the brother you always wanted from the beginning."
He taps his pen to his notepad as he raises his brows, a grin on his lips.
"Tell me. Am I missing anything?"
"Nope." I smile hugely, like a goddamn fool in love, like a mad man, and shake my head. "Fucking crazy, isn't it?"
He lets me sit for a moment, the silence bringing back so many feelings from over the years: anger, betrayal, guilt, shame, but also bliss, acceptance, and love, and again, I can only shake my head.
Tomorrow, I marry the girl of my dreams.
Tonight, our child sleeps soundly in her crib, waiting for us to spoil her rotten in the morning.
How the actual hell did I, Beau Lewis and major asshole, get this goddamn lucky?
"I don't think it's so crazy." Dex challenges, watching me intently.
After a moment of quiet, I cock my head to the side. "I'm listening."
"We come back to this every time, Beau." He leans forward, closer to the screen. "Your family's failure to accept and love you was not a reflection of what you deserved. You deserve this happiness."
My brows furrow, my lips pull into a frown. "Yeah, but I've fucked up so many times-"
"You've made mistakes, yes." He eyes me seriously. "But you've learned from them. You've been forgiven. You'll make more, so will Emma." A casual shrug of his shoulders. "That's marriage and parenthood, my friend."
I chuckle, the time I insisted we rush Mags to the ER when she only had a cold or when Emma forgot the diaper bag and of course, Maggie had a huge blowout (an unfortunate term I wish I wasn't now intimately familiar with) in the middle of the grocery store, coming to my mind.
"But..." Dexter reclaims my focus. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy all the fantastic things going on now. You've made tremendous growth, Beau. Enjoy it. Celebrate it."
I swallow, the words tumbling over themselves in my head. Dex's eyes flash somewhere off-screen and he grins again.
"Beginning with your wedding tomorrow, huh? Go on, get some sleep."
I sigh contentedly, the fantasy of Emma in a white dress, coming towards me and only me, overtaking any and every thought.
Before I log off, I offer Dex a wave. "See you the same time next week."
Feeling sort of Maggie deprived after just over an hour, I cross the hall as quietly as I can, noting the soft glow of light from under our bedroom door. I press my ear against it, hearing the faint hum of the TV, the rustle of sheets as Emma tosses and turns.
My hand finds the knob and I almost go in, to see her, cherish her, love her, devour her.
"That's bad luck, man." Parker's voice makes me jump and my hand falls to my side.
"Yeah, I know." I sigh, nodding towards Maggie's door. "Is she down?"
Parker nods, a proud grin on his face. "Out like a light."
"Oh." I wonder if he notices my shoulders slump with disappointment.
"Night, Beau. I'll make sure you're up tomorrow." Parker clasps my shoulder tightly as he makes his way to his room, his slippered feet scuffling along the hard wood.
"Ha-ha." I scoff, gently pushing open the nursery door anyways.
Entering the dim room as quietly as I can, I tuck myself onto the floor, rolling onto my side and sticking a hand through the bars of Maggie's crib.
As soon as I touch her soft skin, her palm clasps around my finger tightly.
My whole body relaxes and my eyelids grow heavy.
With her hand in mine, I am complete.
***
I grimace, rolling my shoulder back and forth in my stiff, midnight black tux. A deep ache spreads through the joint, making the stupid thing even more uncomfortable.
Beside me in the mirror, Parker smirks.
"Why would you sleep on the floor?" He throws a chocolate covered almond in his mouth. "What did you expect?"
I catch myself before I tell him he'll be lucky to understand some day.
"I can go get some Tylenol." Beck quips, his hand knotting anxiously in his blond hair. He shifts uncomfortably in the desk chair of the office, pulling at his bowtie again and again. "Yeah, I'll go get it now. Kitchen, right?"
"Right." I mutter, content to let him do whatever makes him stop being so awkward.
He's at the door when he turns, looking between the three of us and Jack, clinging to his hip.
"Can you watch Jack?"
"Of course." Zach stands from the floor, looking fresh off the red carpet he so frequently walks lately with the help of my songwriting.
"Are you sure?" Beck's eyes flit anxiously around the room and I glance at the floor, uneasy guilt building within me.
Not for the first time. I remind myself how I didn't have a choice, that the current situation is what's best for everyone.
"I think we can handle it." Parker scoffs, barely holding back an eye roll as he tries to pin Zeus to the floor.
Clumsily and almost in a daze, Beck leaves and both Zach and Parker turn to me, brows raised. Parker looks even more smug than before.
"What is his deal?"
I silence him with a knowing look and he gives up, returning to his task of getting a bow tie on Zeus's collar. As expected, it's not going well.
Zach places Jack on the bed, next to the white pillow he'll carry to the altar.
"You sure you trust a baby with those rings anyway?" Parker eyes the pillow suspiciously, Zeus's bow tie now fastened, even if a little crooked.
He stomps wildly trying to remove it.
"I don't have much choice. Gemma already told Beck Jack was the ring-bearer." I watch Parker closely in the mirror, grinning to myself as his cheeks redden at Gemma's name.
What an unfortunate little crush he's developed on Emma's best friend. Her married best friend.
"Anything else I can do?" Zach mutters, handing me a water bottle and brushing a dog hair from my shoulder.
"Nope." I sigh, struggling to take a calming breath and focus on the task at hand. Getting fucking married. "All that's left to do is wait."
If it's hot or cold outside, I don't notice. I don't take in the flowers or the decorations Em and her bridesmaids spent countless hours deciding upon. I don't notice the faces of anyone in the wooden chairs as I walk down the aisle, a long, white path through the yard to a custom-made altar.
I don't look at the officiant or my groomsmen as I take my place, my hands tightly clasped in front of me so that they don't shake. At least not visibly.
My gaze remains fixed on the silk curtains Gemma draped at the other end, the ones I just passed through, the ones Emma will walk through any minute now.
Music plays, I notice that, a traditional wedding procession by our live band, and my stomach stirs. My palms grow slick with sweat and I swallow hard.
First out is Gemma, then Val and Kim, followed by Nadine. Along with her, Nadine holds the hands of my nephew and my daughter on either side.
An almost painful smile splits my face in half as Mags reaches her tiny hand into a wicker basket and tosses rose petals to the floor at her feet. On the other side of Nadine, Jack clutches the ring pillow to his chest.
I silently thank Parker for insisting we keep them in the box, not loose, on the cushion.
My heart swells. The music reaches a dramatic climax and I feel it - the feeling of change, the culmination of every moment in my life coming to this exact point.
Everything makes sense.
I'm meant to be here, waiting for Emma. I hold my breath, not daring to even blink. I don't want to miss it.
I'd wait forever if I had to. Probably even longer still.
My heart races faster and faster as the seconds tick by.
The curtain splits and everything in the world comes crashing to a stop when I finally see her.
some mushy Beau pov because we allllll needed it
lovelies, how we holdin up?
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