Page 10 of Omega Dragon Manny
At this rate, he was gonna burn himself out, and I didn’t know if there was anything I could even do about that. He was my boss. It wasn’t like he was a friend or a relative I could give a wake-up call to. It wouldn’t be appropriate, but also, it felt like it might be my only option. Something had to give.
I decided to give it a few more days before broaching the topic. I hated the way things were, and my dragon? He was good and done. Not only was he itching to spread his wings, he hated seeing Clark so worn out. He was so possessive and protective of Clark, and they hadn’t even met yet.
Some days, my dragon was all alpha despite his omega designation.
I was finishing up making the bottles when I heard a car in the driveway. I assumed it was a delivery person. A couple of times this week, someone’s food delivery had ended up here instead of its rightful location. The numbers on the order were inverted and belonged to the house down the road. At least I recognized the last name from their mailbox. The three kids and I would go down together to deliver it. It was like our little adventure of the day.
But when I looked out the window, I was surprised to see it was Clark.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” He set down his bag.
The urge to race over to him and hug him was strong. It was times like this I had to remember my place. I was his employee.
“Looks like I got here just in time for lunch.” He walked over to the sink and washed his hands. “Who still needs to eat?”
“I just started,” I said automatically. “But I can do this.”
“No, I got it.” He was smiling, but his eyes didn’t show joy. Something was weighing on him. Something big.
“Is work done for the day?”
“You could say that.”
What the heck did that mean?
He grabbed one of the bottles and walked over to where Betsy was finishing up her tummy time. “Look at you, holding that head up like a boss.”
I really wanted to talk to him about what was going on. I could feel the tension rolling off him, but until the kids were down for a nap, it felt like the wrong time.
It always surprised me how much people said in front of little ones at the park. They assumed being little meant they didn’t understand. And that was true, they might not understand the words, or more accurately in the case of infants, they rarely did, but they picked up on emotions.
Some things were grown-up talk, full stop.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Because we were about to eat and then go for a walk.”
“Were you thinking about the park?”
“That’s usually where we go, but we don’t have to. Is there someplace else you had in mind?” If he was here, I was letting him make all the decisions about what we did. I made them every other time, and I didn’t want him to feel like he had no say with his own family.
“I was thinking we could go to the zoo and walk along the paths there. The kids might not get a lot out of the animals just yet, but they might.”
I wasn’t a big fan of the zoo. Once upon a time, they were used to hold shifters prisoners there, according to our history books, and that just didn’t sit right with me. But I needed to remember these were modern times, and our little zoo was known for rehabbing hurt animals more than anything else.
“Sounds like a plan.”
We got them fed, changed, and ready to go and drove the short distance. He still hadn’t opened up to me about why he was home, and I decided to put that aside. When he was ready, he would tell me. For now, I was just going to enjoy this time with him, walking around the zoo with the babies.
We got multiple compliments from random strangers about what an adorable family we were as we navigated the zoo. I didn’t correct them. Clark didn’t either. We just said thank you and moved on.
What was there to say? “Oh, thanks, but I work for him, and these kids came to him after a horrible tragedy and rejection”?
No. Their trauma wasn’t ours to share.
The overly complimentary people had been right about one thing…we were adorable.
The walk through the zoo was nice. We got to see some bald eagles who had hurt wings and were brought here to heal. I wasn’t sure if they’d ever be in the wild again, but they were having fun in their pool. We saw a few other animals in similar situations—one otter who had a missing leg was thrilled topieces at all the attention, and some farm animals that were too old to be “productive” but were friendly and sweet.
