Page 16 of Mafia's Broken Omega

"Have someone pick those up for Avery as well and deliver them to his office," Cord said.

"Of course." Rosco tapped away on the screen as if these demands were perfectly normal.

"I have to get to work. If you need anything, come to see me or Rosco, okay? Once your things start arriving, we'll let you know."

Rosco left the room, giving Cord and me some privacy.

"I might just...sleep."

Cord smiled. "That's fine, sweetheart. Anything you want is yours. If you need help getting your office set up later or you need more space, just let me know and I'll be there."

"Thanks," I said. The word didn't seem sufficient enough for what he was doing for me.

Once he left to go work, I finished my breakfast and climbed back into the bed and buried myself in Cord's scent. Later I would have a hell of a to-do list waiting for me, but for now, I was resting.

I needed to stay off Pinterest for my safety and sanity. I held scissors in one hand and a glue gun in the other, without any of the motor skills required to wrangle them into submission. Yet, I couldn’t resist cutting, gluing, and swearing, as if my life depended on it. T-shirts were simple compared to this crazy thing I was trying to create.

In true procrastinator fashion, I had found a project I started a long time ago while unpacking my things, and instead of continuing to unpack, I got to work on the project instead.

“Dammit.” A piece of bright blue felt stuck to my finger and then quickly became mangled when I tried to dislodge it. The mess on Cord’s coffee table in some random room in this massive house looked more like the aftermath of a crafting explosion than a mobile for the baby. Hopefully he didn’t mind me turning whatever this room was into my personal craft corner. The room he was calling "my office" was larger than my actual apartment.

I yanked at a ribbon, but it kept turning in the wrong direction. “You’re not getting the best of me!” I told the stupid pile, even though I wasn’t entirely convinced it was true.

I decided to just stop worrying about being perfect and attacked it with more enthusiasm than precision, wielding the glue gun with all the finesse of a preschooler. Between the uneven ribbons, the awkward beads, and a healthy dose of frustration, I had little expectation that it would be usable.

“Cord!” I shouted in defeat as the felt made another escape attempt, taking half the project with it. It definitely didn’t look like a mobile. It looked like a tangled mess of chaos and stubborn attempts at cuteness. “This isn’t working!” His office was directly across the hall, which meant he was within yelling distance.

His familiar laugh filtered in from the doorway. “Need help, sweetheart?”

I blew out a frustrated breath and tossed a bead at him. “I thought you were supposed to protect me from harm. This is a crafting warzone.” I gestured to the glitter-bomb that was going to be haunting us for months to come. “Fix this, please.”

Cord squatted in front of me and surveyed the disaster. He was still grinning like he was watching the world’s most inept magic show. “So, uh, what exactly is happening here?”

“Adorable freaking memories.” I held up my phone and showed him what it was supposed to look like. In the early hours of the morning while I scrolled endlessly through Pinterest, I’d saved several cutesy projects that everyone made look so easy. Reality was a different story. “Can’t you tell?” I couldn’t help smiling as I compared the two.

“Wow.” His eyes went wide when he looked at the inspiration mobile and my…mess. “Uh…nailed it?”

I barked out a laugh, thinking about the TV show we’d watched about terrible baking projects months ago when life had been simpler. “Which is why you need to help.”

He held up one of the loose ribbons and scrunched his nose, still smiling. “I’m not much of a crafter.”

“Figures.” I shook my head. “You can run some scary crime family, but you draw the line at ribbons?”

He smacked a kiss to the top of my head. “You’re the artsy one.”

“Yeah, well, clearly we’re both wrong about that.”

“You’re a whizz with your fabric markers. I looked at your store online, and your designs are remarkable.”

I bit my lip. Random praise from strangers I could take, but from Cord? It meant so much more.

“But I wanted to make this mobile thing for the crib so our child will look at it every day.”

“I’ll see what I can do, okay? But no promises.” Cord scooted to the floor beside me. “What do I do, boss?”

I grinned at the sound of that. “Cut that string and tie the knots at the top, so they’re actually tight.”

He furrowed his brow but went for it. “Square knot?”

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