Page 190 of Deacon

I even learned how to make his cherished comfort food. Since he grew up on Kenyan dishes, I begged Yumi to teach me how the make chapatis and pilau.

The first night I tried the meals at home by myself, I killed it with the spiced rice, but my chapatis left a lot to be desired.

‘This supposed to double as a brick?’ Deacon rasped one evening, holding up my first chapati attempt with a faint grin.

‘Eat it and shut up,’ I laughed, swatting his shoulder. ‘I’m trying here.’

He bit into it and chewed. ‘It’s got potential. Needs more butter, but I love where your head’s at.’

After dinner, he pulled me onto the couch and spent 20 minutes working the knots out of my shoulders from stretching out all that dough.

Afterward, he brought me to bliss, panting beneath him on the sofa cushions, hoping my moans didn’t filter upstairs where Raff was sleeping soundly.

He was always my cheerleader, as I was his.

I started tucking handwritten love notes everywhere: inside his tour luggage, under his saxophone reed box, in his jacket pockets, and even in his leather boots.

Just quick, messy scribbles reminding him how much he meant to me and how awesome he was as a husband and dad.

‘Found the one in my gig bag,’ he told me over FaceTime from a hotel room in Berlin, holding up a piece of paper with my writing on it.

‘You’re the absolute king of this house and my entire heart. Destroy that crowd tonight, baby.’ You’re killing me, you know that?’

He said it while clapping an overdramatic hand over his heart.

‘Did it work?’ I asked. ‘Was your ego stroked enough?’

‘Yeah,’ he confessed, his voice dropping into that quiet, husky tone. ‘It did. With you, I feel like royalty, malkia.’

My note-writing inspired him.

He pitched a track to the band and called it Love Notes, building the song’s concept around sending your loved one off with scribbled reminders of your shared passion.

Above everything, he poured his whole soul into me, into Raff, and into keeping the memory of our baby, Estella, close to us.

We made love every chance we got, and we soon got our just reward.

Four months and five days after we got married, my body started feeling off.

One morning at breakfast, a wave of dizziness hit me.

Then came a wild, sudden, absurd craving for cold pickles.

I inhaled and froze, remembering the last time this happened.

I flew upstairs and took three tests in our ensuite bathroom while Deacon whipped up a protein shake downstairs for his upcoming workout session.

When two pink lines appeared on every strip, my hands began to shake.

I made it out onto the landing and called out.

‘Deacon, my love, can you come up here for a second?’

He took the stairs two at a time and stepped into the washroom, his emerald-and-gold eyes narrowed on me.

‘What’s up, beautiful?’

I held out the latest test without a word.