Page 50 of Avenged

I shook my head, and I was caught in his gaze, the amber eyes burning into me as if he could read all the thoughts I was having that I could no longer throw away.

“Is it…” He couldn’t finish it. I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down with his own emotions.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Thank God.”

He watched me tear at the paper I still hadn’t stopped shredding. He wrapped my hands in his like he had before when I’d been twirling my ring incessantly.

“Talk to me. What’s going on?”

My hands itched to get back to tearing the tissue. “It’s just so much more than I expected. So permanent... I may not be able to have kids…”

I lost any control I had, tears coming again. It was so stupid. I didn’t want kids. I’d never once thought about having them, but now that there was a chance I couldn’t, it was heartbreaking. I hated myself for letting the tears fall. I hated myself for showing weakness in front of a man who I didn’t want to think of me as weak—not when he himself was so strong.

Travis made a strangled noise in his throat, and the next thing I knew, he’d picked me up, and I was sitting in his lap instead of in the chair. My natural instinct was to stiffen at the touch. Then I realized stiffening was part of my problem, carrying my wounds in my muscles along with my heart, and I just lost it all over again, sobbing into his chest while he held me, rubbing my back and making soothing noises I hadn’t heard from anyone in so long it hurt all the more because of it.

Eventually, the tears stopped, and I let out a hiccup which made Travis chuckle, the deepness of it inside his chest sending little messages to all my nerve endings that had nothing to do with pain.

“I’m sorry,” I said and tried to push away, but his hold on me tightened instead of loosening.

“Don’t you dare apologize. You have every right to feel this way.”

“I just…you…I mean, this isn’t what you signed up for,” I stumbled over the words.

“I signed up to help you.”

“With medical insurance, not tears and emotional breakdowns.” I pushed again, but he held on tight, and I wondered if I let him hold me, if some of his strength would leach into my being somehow and leave me feeling powerful instead of powerless like I did at the moment.

“This is you breaking down?” he asked with a smile. “Geez, this is nothing. I’ve seen way worse than this.”

“Liar.” I gave him a watery smile.

“What did the doctor say?” he asked.

I looked away and gave him the short synopsis, similar to the one I’d given Violet. Just as I was finishing, the door opened, and Dr. Price came back in, holding her hand out to Travis. “I’m Lidia Price, nice to meet you.”

“Truck,” he told her.

“Truck?”

I was slowly getting used to his nickname being said, but her own reaction was so like mine had been when I first met him with Eli and Ava back at the bookstore a few years ago that I had to smile again.

“Travis,” he told her with his own heart-stopping smile. “But nobody really calls me that anymore.”

Except I did. Because it felt too personal to call him Truck. I wanted to slap the back of my own head like he often did with Dawson, because how could it be too personal when I’d married him? When I was sitting here in his arms where he’d held me while I cried. Our entire situation was so backward it seemed impossible.

“Do you have questions for me?” Dr. Price asked him as she sat down.

“Not at the moment. Jers has been catching me up a little,” he said, and I silently thanked him for respecting my privacy.

“A lot of partners want to know about how this will impact their sex life,” she said to him over the top of her glasses as she eyed us both. I’d just told her I hadn’t had sex in a long time, and now I knew she was wondering what that meant for me and my supposed husband. I flushed and pushed hard enough that he finally had to let me go.

“We don’t?” I started to say, but she cut me off.

“You can still have sex on the days you feel up to it. It won’t make things worse, if that’s what you’re worried about. And honestly, sometimes having an orgasm will relax the muscles and break them out of the cycle they’re in currently. The progesterone might dry you out, though, so get some oils. Judge everything by your pain. If it hurts, then don’t do it.”

I just stared, a little in shock with exactly where the doctor had gone, and when I risked looking at Travis, he actually looked a touch embarrassed himself. He met my gaze, his look becoming expressionless, but he reached out and took my hand, squeezing it. I looked down at our joined hands. He’d touched me so many times in the last few days that it wasn’t quite the jolt to my body it had originally been. Now it was worse; now it felt like coming home.

---