Chapter 30
F iddling with the trinket in my purse, I smiled to myself.
I couldn't say I'd ever been this happy with Rek in my life. With any man in any real, I openly care for you and want to be yours, relationship for that matter.
That smile fell whenever I thought of things, other things and beings besides me and Rek and how well our "dating" was going.
We were officially out as a couple, the equivalent of almost married, if anyone cared to hear it. Engaged Plus, I jokingly called it. Everyone knew we were mates. Nobody was really all that surprised. I avoided words like ‘mate' or ‘husband' because I knew it irritated and incited issues with a certain male who insists Rek will hurt me.
Everything was so upside down with the rest of my rag-tag crew I felt dropped on my head. I wasn't sure it ever would be okay between the rest of us at this rate.
Odix hated Rek's guts and felt like I chose Rek over him. Our last argument had led to us avoiding each other completely.
Gopher was in retreat mode. I wanted to ask him just what exactly he was doing rushing home yet felt like it was really none of my business, not at this point.
Celuk was a background player, popping up to play a part with minimal interaction. He was quietly stealth-stalking me, I felt.
On the one hand I was mad at kookypants, the other, I missed him terribly, and yet I was not about to rock the boat with Rek anymore than everybody else already was. Rek was getting hell from others. I knew he was. I wasn't sure who this "they" was but he'd get his feathers properly ruffled while out, come home, kiss me, announce he needed to be mad, then he'd slink off for a self soothing sulk.
I missed all of my guys just horribly and felt as grumpy as Rek on a bad day whenever I thought of any of them anymore. The whole thing was a clusterfuck. It all felt so fucking broken.
Rek was in a particularly grumpy mood this afternoon. He kept muttering something about kooky assholes, making me wonder what on earth he'd done that could have set Celuk off, to announce he was mad and going to be mad, kissed my lips off, then left.
Maybe this would cheer him up, I thought, fingering the trinket hidden in my purse. I'd held it all this time, hidden in the lining of my purse. Now was the time.
Sitting on a blanket in the grass, the weather much milder today than the last few weeks, it was lovely.
Mina and the rest of the ladies were all gathered and prepping our freshly picked veggies together. It was one of Daisy's better ideas. Kids ran around us, screaming, crying, laughing, playing chase and throwing mud at each other until an adult stepped in, getting all that energy out in general chaotic merriment.
Mal, Rosa, and I sat together on a shared blanket, Rosa's brood running dizzying circles around us, Kehko leading the chase.
Mal looked about to pop. Any day now, she'd been saying for a while now.
Baby fever was in full swing. It was like the second Rek had stopped pestering me to let him put a baby in me, as he so eloquently put it, that itch had slowly started to build. It was at a fever pitch at this point.
I had to wonder if this was a weird coping mechanism, a way to take control over my out of control life somehow or something, which made no fucking sense. Kids were chaos. Good chaos and everything in between.
"Where's Red?" Mina asked, glancing around as she started in on her second basket of greens.
"Warrior training," Daisy chirped. "She goes with Hozar." With a giggle, she confided, "It's like date night for them."
"Foreplay," Mal whispered under her breath, well aware there were small ears around us.
Spying a familiar figure coming towards us, I fully expected her to address her daughters-inlaw as she approached. Coming to a stop to stand right before me, she motioned to a spot right beside me. "May I join you?"
"Of course!" Mina chimed in, then Rosa with a, "You know you're always welcome!"
Dorothy waited until I smiled and nodded to have a seat.
"So glad you could make it!" Daisy enthused, then had to pop up not two seconds later to chase after two of her eldest as they smacked at each other with sticks and chased each other around. "No! No-no! What did Papa and Mama say about hitting!" she caterwauled after them.
Smothering my laughter, I stared after them.
"A handful and then some." Dorothy chuckled.
"She's got her work cut out for her," I agreed.
Kehko started squealing and pointing at something on the ground, holding her brothers back from it. Rosa popped up to go see what all the fuss was about.
Mal made a face and rubbed at her belly uncomfortably.
"Hey, are you alright? Do you need me to get Booger or Grumpelstiltksin?" I asked.
Mal laughed at my silly nickname for Khri, but then grimaced harder.
"I think we better get you on up to the house, hmm?" Dorothy stood quickly and we helped Mal to her feet.
"I'm okay, really," she insisted, but Dorothy wasn't about to be swayed.
"Where are Khri and Boog?" I sputtered, grabbing up Mal's things to trail after Dorothy and Mal.
"Boog's out foraging with Gopher and Khri is with the others at Mina's. It's not so far from here and I insisted he go. He can be stubborn." Mal's rueful smile said she mighta been the stubborn one on this one.
"I'm not ready," Mal grumbled as she stopped for a moment.
"False labor pains." I smiled through my worry.
"It'll be alright," Dorothy soothed. I was ninety percent sure she was talking to just Mal.
In the back of my mind, my brain chirped, Gopher's out foraging with Boog and I had no clue?! But, really, how and why would I know? I'm not privy to Goph's comings and goings. If I cared so damn much, why wasn't I mated to him already, hmm?!
"A little help!" Dorothy called out, and sure enough several males came rushing up.
Mal found herself scooped up and carted off to Dorothy's lickety split.
"I'm sorry," Dorothy spoke softly as we trailed behind Righty, Daisy's mate who'd come to our aid.
"Don't worry about it," I replied automatically, because right now didn't feel like the time.
"No," she said firmly. "I owe you an apology. I'm so used to the way things are done over here, I didn't stop to consider it from all angles. Can't say I'd be pleased, were I in your shoes, come to find out the folks I've trusted weren't being entirely truthful with me, reasons and whatnot and excuses be damned." She looked genuinely upset on my behalf.
I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say a damned thing.
"I miss you being around," she added.
"I miss being around you, too," I said simply.
"Celuk's been sulking. He barely says two words anymore," she started to say, but I wasn't ready to listen to her plead his case, not yet, not right now.
"I should probably go get Khri," I cut in curtly.
"Of course." Her head dipped in a nod.
"I- I think I'm fine! Really!" Mal insisted. "Maybe it's just gas!"
Righty and Dorothy chuckled at that.
"Well- It could be," Mal mumbled uncertainly.
Already hustling in the opposite direction to collect Khri, I snorted out a laugh. It very well may be gas but I wasn't going to not grab Khri and come to find out it wasn't.
Mina's place was crazy nice. It wasn't a McMansion like Celuk's, but it put the fan in fancy.
Following the sound of metal clanking, grunts, growls, and groans, that familiar whiz of arrows whipping to thunk into things, the group gathered wasn't all that hard to find.
Breathless, holding my side from the stupid stitch I had in it, I tumbled onto a scene out of some furry version of gladiator training.
Bum-bum snarled as he smacked axes with Veck. It was biggun versus biggun as they sparred.
Celuk, Khri, Kirch, and Rek stood a few feet apart from each other, forming a loose circle as they snarled their chosen victors on.
Booger was on the opposite end of the arena, as it were, Gopher and Odix chatting him up with thick sacks over their backs. Odix's gaze was glued to Rek, sky blue eyes blazing.
"Hey!" I called out, waving an arm out to wave over Booger as I walked towards Khri. "Glad I caught you both here," I got out between sharp gulps of air. "Mal needs you. False labor, farts, real labor, she's got shit going on," I told Khri, speaking loud enough Booger might overhear.
Khri snapped something sharply at Booger in their native tongue that had them both taking off like a shot.
"At Dorothy's!" I called after them.
"Jojo," Kirch greeted, tilting his head as he watched Rek break from the loose circle and hurry over to me.
"Mina's bitch," I tossed back with an evil grin, knowing he'd snort through his bared teeth at me at that with no real heat behind the teeth baring.
"What happen? Where you breaths?" Rek grumbled down at me as I bent over at the waist, hands on my knees, and huffed and puffed breathlessly. "Run by self, my Joansie?" Rek was barking at me, even as he scooped me up and carried me over to a wide bench seat near the back door. Plopping us down onto it, he fussed over me and cuddled me into him.
"I'm fine," I insisted. "Just need a minute."
My hands slid over his, fingers entwining as he cupped my face and forced me to meet his gaze, examining me for signs I was worse off than I let on.
"Promedthis?" he grumbled.
"I prom-this," I teased, ignoring all the eyes I felt on us as he leaned in, brushed his nose along mine, then dove in for a kiss that left me as breathless as when I'd come stumbling over here.
"Smart ass," he mumbled against my lips, reluctant to break our liplock, even if only to let me up for air.
"Mine," I mock rumble-purred back.
Rek pulled back with a laugh, a megawatt grin on his face.
Odix's growl in the distance was loud, even all the way across the wide space they'd made for sparring.
Red let out a whistle and a cat call that had me snorting.
This wasn't the time or place for lovey dovey stuff.
My happy bubble popped. It took my smile along with it. "I should go," I murmured, wriggling my person out of his hold.
Rek grumble-muttered under his breath but complied.
Holding onto his pinky finger, I gave it a little shake to drag his attention away from Odix as they glared at each other. Gopher was looking a bit frowny faced too.
I had to remind myself that it was none of my damn business, much as I liked that peek that they still cared. I'm crazy like that.
"Walk me back?" I tried to smile but I wasn't feeling it.
Kirch, leaning in to whatever Celuk was quietly saying to him, jerked upright and piped up, "Jojo stay."
"Stay?" A spluttering laugh left me. "And what, learn to do warrior stuff?" And break a nail? AGAIN? I don't think so.
Rek, standing next to me, grinned down at me at the idea. "No want stay?" he taunted.
Poking him in the side, I lifted his captured finger, taking his hand and arm with it and slung it over my shoulder, to escort him back to the spot he'd been as I leaned into him. "I could kick your ass with my eyes closed, Fuzzenstein."
Kirch barked out a laugh at my bravado.
Releasing my male, I danced backwards. "If Mal really is in labor, I want to be there for her, Boog, and the baby."
"What ‘bout Khri?" Celuk piped up, a twinkle in his eyes that told me he was heckling me.
"What about Khri?" My shoulder lifted in a half shrug.
The small, teasing lilt of Celuk's mouth spread into a wide smile. "No one go for leetle Khri-topher?"
"Leetle Khri-topher is a big butthead now. Just like his uncle." Sticking my tongue out at him, I then turned with an expert hair flip. "You're so worried about him, you go and see to him."
"‘Kay."
Before I knew what was what, Celuk was right up on me, curling me into his side, his hand automatically going to the small of my back like it was the most natural thing in the world, to gently place pressure on the spot, urging me on.
Rek barked something at him in Lo denaii that had Kirch and Veck dying laughing. Veck's sparring match with Bum-bum had come to a complete halt.
"Wait just a minute here! I didn't mean- That isn't-" I sputtered as the pushy pants beside me led me down the path leading back to Dorothy's.
"Come. We go," Celuk bossed. "For leetle Khri, you Mal, Boog, and babies."
"When did you get to be such a dictator?" I grumbled at him.
"Since Jo say leetle Khri need him's Uncle Celuk," he grunted out while I tried to ignore the feel of the warmth of his hand at my back and the way he made me feel.
"I didn't agree to this," I argued.
Leaning in near my ear, he rumbled out in a silky soft whisper, "Jo slow down, have to walk with you Kooky, Rek, Gopher, and Jo's Odix. That what Jo wants?"
The look on his face said he knew I didn't.
"You're not my Kooky," I muttered petulantly, with a sniff.
"No?" The hand at the small of my back slid to my hip and would have tightened if I didn't quickly slip free first with a glare aimed in his direction.
"What other yarns you got to spin for me?" I sniped waspishly.
Face perfectly impassive, he let out a soft grunt, nothing more, as he pulled his hand back for it to fall to his side as we walked. I didn't miss the way he kept flexing his fingers, like he was fighting the urge to either grab me up and shut me up about that nonsense, or straight up strangle me.
Odix's loud grumbles pricked my ears, alerting me I needed to pick up the pace.
For someone who didn't like the current status of my sitch, I sure was being a big ol' chicken shit about confronting it all head on.
Avoidance for two hundred, please and thank you!