Page 54 of The Doctor

I frowned at him. “Then why are you going to a dance with her?”

“For the same reason I wanted to go with her last year.” He scowled at me as if I was dumb. “She asked and she’s hot… I mean, she’s pretty.”

“Dom. You cannot be interested in someone just for her looks.”

For a moment I wondered if he could roll those eyes any wider. “Of course, I can. Not everyone falls in love with their soulmate when they’re in kindergarten. Some of us have fun instead.”

I was not going to get into how much fun I actually had as a teenager. What I needed to do was mitigate the consequences of that fun. So instead, I pointed to the very top shelf.

The one that Landon couldn’t reach even if he decided to stack chairs and reach for stuff by himself.

That little incident necessitated a trip to the emergency room. I wasn’t at work at the time since I’d received the promotion and had regular hours. However, no one hesitated as I walked into the ER barking orders with a bloody cloth against Landon’s wound.

No, he wouldn’t even attempt to reach the very top shelf. “There are two boxes up there. I don’t use condoms so you will need to replace them with your allowance. Or I can get more if you can’t buy them. Go to the drugstore out of town. Mrs. Spike likes to gossip and you don’t want the whole town to know you bought condoms. It may not bother you, but it will affect whichever girl you’re dating.”

Dom looked at me with daggers in his eyes. “I am not having sex. Not ye… I’m not having sex.”

I looked at him and looked at the top of the cupboard. “Is there a chance they could expire?”

He let out a sigh. “God, I hope not.”

I stifled my smile and walked out. At the door I turned back to him. “Do we need to have another talk about everything or do you remember what I told you?”

“You’d think that getting the ‘birds and bees’ talk from a doctor would be less awkward.” He eyed the box and then back at me. “I never want to repeat that conversation. Ever.”

I smiled and walked out. But I couldn’t miss the slide of the cupboard as he opened it. Yeah, we were in for a world of trouble if we weren’t careful.

“Daddy.” Landon called from his high chair. “I don’t want bocolli.”

“Broccoli is good for you. It will make you big and strong. Like me.”

“And Unca Mase.”

I rolled my eyes and exhaled. “Yes, and Uncle Mason.”

My recovery had taken longer than I would’ve liked and I could only get to the gym a few months after I had been shot. Mason was the one to help with my training. My son had watched his uncle spar with me a few times. My best friend had no problem besting me in front of my kid.

Not that I minded. Landon and Vicky were happy and healthy and ours.

While Landon was a lot more comfortable speaking to all of us, he still wasn’t much of a talker. He was coming out of the toddler tantrum phase but more and more he would throw the silent treatment when something upset him. I was not a fan of that.

His sister, however, had started walking and talking. The walking part she had mastered. Most of the time. The talking? Well, Vicky had a lot to say, not much of it was coherent. She understood cookie and grandma.

I was convinced that Hope Salinger was my little girl’s favorite person. My mother-in-law had more than a dozengrandchildren once you included the honorary ones who became family over the years. She adored each one of them. She still did dance videos with Skylar and continued to teach Dom and Aidan how to both cook and fix a tire.

The most important part of the last year was the day I spent at the court. Let’s just say the wheels of justice were not speedy. Bex and I decided we would have a courthouse wedding on the same day as the adoption hearing. Romantic in concept, but fuck it required a lot of patience. We were only able to officially adopt the children a few weeks ago, even though they’d felt like ours since the day they walked into our lives. And Bex had only been my wife for the same amount of time. And I had known that was something I wanted since before I hit puberty.

She came into the kitchen holding and swaying a crying and red-faced Vicky. “She tried to hit Landon and nearly fell out of the chair. Got more of a fright than anything else but her dinner went everywhere.” She gestured in the direction of the bathroom. “How’d that go.”

“You really want to know?”

“Not really.” She walked over to the couch and gave Vicky a bottle, allowing the little girl to hold it herself. “But we know better than anyone that we do not have the luxury of being ignorant when it comes to these things.”

I let out a sigh. “I showed him where they were. I’m sure he’ll use them.”

Bex shuddered at my words. “Damn, I didn’t need to know that part. He is supposed to be my sweet little boy.”

“Are we talking about the same kid?” I frowned at her. “The one with a permanent scowl, like he is generally pissed off with the world. Thatsweetkid?”

---