Page 55 of Our Haunted Omegas
“Good question!” Cobalt said, throwing his hands in the air.
Indigo grabbed them and put them back at his sides. I stepped away trusting Indigo to navigate his brothers. He’d lived with them all their lives. I sat back down next to Odie and took his hand in mine.
“Because Cobalt’s right. Your scent is like ninety percent less anxious since that thing showed up. If it was inside you and now it’s not it would explain a lot and I only know about it because he,” Teal pointed to Cobalt, “told him,” he pointed at Indigo, “about it. I think something to do with Cobalt’s magic probably cleansed the haunting but kept it around. Now, it’s whatever that is. It’s like his magic strangled it into submission.”
“No,” Odie shook his head. “If you’re right, he didn’t strangle or beat it into submission. He befriended it. What do we do if you’re right, though?”
“That’s up to you. I think we could remove it and put it on a necklace or something,” Teal said.
“That’s not morbid,” Cobalt rolled his eyes.
“Or we could leave it where it is now,” Teal finished his thought.
“No one’s going to study him to learn how this happened,” Cobalt said.
“I’m not a test subject,” Odie crinkled his nose. “But I don’t think getting the ultrasound makes me one.”
“I’ll do it,” I volunteered. “I’ll do the ultrasound. That way, Cobalt can hold your hand, and Teal can look at the screen and not touch your ass and get eaten.”
“It wasn’t about that,” Cobalt cut in again. “If Odie wants Teal to touch his ass, Teal can touch his ass. He’s just been through enough without having medical tests forced on him. It sounds like some sort of strip search followed by a probe or ---”
Indigo laughed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“He’s afraid of doctors,” Teal said as if he’d just remembered the fact. “There’s this doctor named Dara. He’s a great guy butI can’t count the times Cobalt nearly took of his hand when we were tiny.”
“My dragon said he didn’t have permission, and he tried to give me a shot anyway,” Cobalt said, and I melted a little alongside Odie.
“You’re going to have a long three months if you two have a wolf pup,” Teal pointed out.
“That’s why you became a doctor,” Cobalt countered.
“Well, I don’t know if it worked because we just came pretty close to blows,” Teal stood akimbo, rubbing the toe of his boot against the hardwood floor.
“I wouldn’t have let it,” Indigo shook his head. “It wasn’t going to go down like that. Cobalt doesn’t want Odie’s freewill trampled on. No one’s trampling on it. No one gets to look at anyone else’s butt without permission. Guys, we are grown ass men. We should not have to have this conversation.”
“I’m not the one trying to scan people’s asses,” Cobalt laughed.
A second later we were all laughing. It wasn’t that funny, but I’d rather have them cracking up than exchanging blows.
***
Later that evening, after the nest was built, we all gathered in the living room with Teal’s portable ultrasound machine. Odie wasn’t the shyest person I’d met and Cobalt didn’t seem to be that modest about his own body but he might’ve blindfolded us all if we let him get away with it.
“It’s okay,” Odie whispered to Cobalt who sat on the floor, stroking Odie’s hair as if he was dying instead of about to have his butt scanned for haunted shrapnel. “I’m okay. If we have a baby there’s going to be a lot more scans. Scans all the time and bloodwork. They’re going to suck my blood.”
Cobalt whispered something in Odie’s ear that I couldn’t make out and his face turned beet red. I didn’t want to knowwhat Cobalt promised to suck to make it up to him, but I had a good idea of what it might’ve been.
“Here,” Teal handed off the ultrasound wand to me and Cobalt reached over to point out where it was.
“This is awkward,” Odie laughed, hiding his face in a pillow. “I feel like a porn star for a very niche audience.”
“If it was porn, the wand would be going somewhere different,” I teased him and he laughed again. “Hold still. Now I’ve lost the spot. I can’t scan your butt if you’re wiggling around.”
“I take it back. I feel like a melon or something being scanned at the grocery store and you’re the new cashier who doesn’t know how to ring up the fruit,” Odie teased and Cobalt pointed out the slight raised spot on his butt cheek again.
“Are you three having fun?” Indigo asked from his post across the room.
“No,” Odie said. “They’re playing with my butt cheek and it’s going to be achy later.”
