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LOGAN
It’s takenus most of the day to organize contingency plans based on our best guesses of where Austin might attack next. Maddoc and Dante both agree with my assessment that McKenna will start whittling away at our territory at its most vulnerable points, the edges, and we’ve done our best to make sure our people who live and work in those areas have a place to bail to if things get hairy.
No, not “if.”
When.
I tamp down my rage over McKenna’s aggression, because it’s not productive here. The mood in the house is tense enough already, and the lack of solid information—the lack of control over what’s happening with our organization—has me feeling like ants are crawling under my skin.
It’s a feeling I’m familiar with, but surprisingly, I don’t feel the need to resort to any of my usual coping mechanisms. I’m self-aware enough to realize it’s because of Riley, I just don’t have the words to explain to myself or to her why exactly that is.
The sex has helped stabilize my mood, of course. Endorphins have predictable results. But it’s more than that, and the “more”—this connection she and I share, the outlet she gives me for feelings that would otherwise fester inside me until they explode—is something that makes me…
Not uncomfortable.
I don’t want to be rid of the feeling.
But I’m not entirely comfortable with it, either.
I push those thoughts aside since I’m not sure what to do with them, and don’t even realize I’m searching the house for her until I finally come across her curled up on the couch in the living room and realize that I have no other reason for being here except for my desire to be close to her.
She looks up as I enter the room and smiles at me, and that thing I’m uncomfortable with flares to life in my chest.
I definitely don’t want to be rid of it. I might even crave it.
“Hey, Logan,” she says, one hand resting on her stomach and the other wrapped around a mug with steam coming out of it. “Did you guys get things set up at the perimeter?”
“We did.” I frown, taking note of the way her knuckles are white around the mug, and the faint tightening of the skin around her lips and eyes. “Are you all right?”
She blinks up at me, those small signs of distress disappearing for a moment as a fuller smile graces her decadent mouth. “Yes, of course,” she says quickly, then backpedals a little with, “I mean, I’m worried of course. We all are, right? God, I hate that Austin is able to fuck with us like this.”
I nod absently, but then shake my head. She’s not lying. But she’s also not telling the whole truth.
“Something else is affecting you,” I state, at a loss for the right words to define how her distress is affecting me.
I need to know what’s causing it, though.
I need to understand the scope of the problem so that I can find a solution.
This time, when Riley smiles up at me, that feeling in my chest becomes almost painfully warm. I don’t even realize how close I’ve drifted toward her until she reaches out and slips her hand into mine. I look down at our joined hands, then back into her eyes. She squeezes, and I’m surprised to find I don’t mind the uninvited touch at all.
I maybe even… enjoy it.
“You’re so observant,” she says with a soft little laugh, releasing my hand to rest hers over her stomach again. “It’s really nothing to be worried about, though. I promise. I just started my period, and the stress of everything is making the cramps kinda brutal right now. It will pass, though. It’s just, you know, woman things.”
I frown. No, I don’t know about woman things. I know they exist, of course. But I’ve never been faced with them, and feel a frisson of anger at myself for being caught off guard by something I should have realized would become a part of our lives now that Riley is.
None of that anger is for her though, so I suppress it and give her a brief nod in acknowledgment, then head back upstairs so I can correct my oversight about this issue.
It takes more time than I anticipated given the ratio of anecdotal nonsense versus definitive research I find online, but eventually—and after contacting one of our runners to deliver certain items from the drug store—I’m prepared.
This time, I find her in her room, still curled around what I assume is another cup of tea, but this time on her bed.
She looks up in surprise when I walk in. “Logan?”
I set the supplies I brought with me down on her nightstand and remove the mug of tea from her hand, placing it next to the items I’ve gathered.
“Take your shirt off, please.” I hesitate for a moment, then add, “And your pants too.”
