Page 13 of Senseless
I smiled at the familial term while I cleaned up debris from Vivian’s shots. “Normally she’d have boosters in a few years, but there’s no telling when new vaccines will be made. So you’re off the hook for a while, little miss.”
Tessa smiled as Vivian started to calm down. “How’s everything going?”
“Eh.” I shrugged and flung my hand in a noncommittal gesture, not eager to get into the fact that I hadn’t spoken to two of my husbands in a month. “How are you holding up?”
“I won’t say it’s been easy,” the young mother sighed. “But now that Andrea’s made contact, it’s a little easier.”
My eyebrows lifted into my hairline. “Oh, she has? That’s great!”
“You didn’t know?” Tessa frowned. “They translated her first message yesterday. T-Bone didn’t tell me what it said, but she seems to be okay, which is all that matters to me really.” She gave me a strange look. “I figured Reaper would have told you.”
“Oh yeah, you know.” I shoved my hands into the pockets of my white coat, trying to lean casually against the counter. “We’ve both been really busy.”
Tessa wasn’t fooled, her stare was as hard as a sledgehammer while I tried desperately to not shatter into pieces on the floor. I could fall apart again tonight in bed, with Jandro holding me. Not here at work.
“Mari, you’d tell me if something was going on, right?”
I pulled in a heavy breath. “Yeah! Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s—“ My chest shook, my resolve threatening to unravel. “It’s just things are still kinda tense since…”
“Shadow?” Tessa guessed.
“Yeah.” My chest deflated and I preferred not to elaborate. Word spread quickly after Shadow left. My guys didn’t put out to the club the details of what happened, but people speculated and put pieces together on their own. Shadow was gone without a trace, but my injuries didn’t fully heal until a week later. They saw the cuts on my nose, the bruising on my forehead and neck, and drew their own conclusions.
I would have loved nothing more than to set the record straight, but the Steel Demons were Reaper’s men, not mine. They would stand with his decision, no matter how I felt about it.
And it didn’t feel right to hash it out with Tessa, who I had encouraged to leave her own husband. As shitty a partner as Big G was, he never hurt her in the way Shadow hurt me.
Thankfully, Tessa didn’t press me to talk about it. She stood with Vivian in one arm, diaper bag in the other, as she gave me a quick hug. “You’ve been with me through so much. Remember I’m here for you too, Mrs. President.”
“Thanks.” I gave her a half-hearted smile. “I’ll walk you out. Is T-Bone picking you up?”
“I dunno. One of those crazy bastards is,” she laughed with a roll of her eyes.
It was actually Dyno, the sides of his head freshly shaved and topknot of dark hair pulled tight at his crown. He was all decked out in black leather, sitting atop a rumbling, stretched out Fat Boy in front of the hospital.
“There’s my baby!” He grinned, reaching gloved hands out toward us as we came outside. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Vivian, not Tessa.
“You’ll hold her when we get home.” Tessa smacked his hands away, but allowed him to take her diaper bag and secure it in one of the compartments.
“But Vivi told me she wants to drive.” Dyno unwound a black scarf from his neck and proceeded to wrap it around the baby’s head.
“I should’ve known you spoke Babbling Infant,” Tessa cracked, helping him secure the scarf around Vivi’s ears to muffle the noise of the bike.
It was cute and wholesome watching them, looking established in this routine like they did it all the time. I couldn’t tell right off the bat if there was anything romantic between those two or not. It was pretty clear that the three Sons of Odin were all in a relationship with each other. But there was apparently some degree of openness to it, as I found out on the ride back from Blakeworth. Grudge had helped watch over Shadow when I caught Dyno and T-Bone in bed with a service girl.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I said with a wave.
Tessa and Dyno waved back as they pulled out of the lot, Vivi strapped to her mother’s chest and looking stylish with her black head wrap.
“There you are, Mari.” Dr. Brooks came up to me just as I returned to the hospital lobby.
“What do you need, Doctor?” I was itching to get back into work mode and stop thinking about relationships, especially mine.
“Just updating you. General Bray is sending a few units north to engage with some activity from Blakeworth. We want to have some field medics within reach just in case—“
“I’ll go.”
“Uh.” The doctor blinked, taken aback. “You don’t have to, we have a team ready. The mission is expected to take a few days, maybe a week. So I figured you’d want to stay here with your family.”
