Page 73 of Diesel
“He didn’t feel so cute coming out,” Maylie mutters. “I’m never going to feel normal down there again.”
“Well, shit,” Dayna says from behind me. “I sure picked the wrong time to join that conversation.”
I blink up at her. Her tone is wrong for the weight hanging between us. Too light, too easy, like she’s dialled into the wrong channel.
She sinks into the chair next to me, her hand splayed over her stomach, like we’re not waiting for our men to come back from battle.
Wordlessly, I hand her the bag of leftover pastries from the table. She tears one in half, popping it in her mouth. Dayna moves and talks like she’s relaxed, but her hands shake. She’s scared beneath the bravado.
“I stand by it,” Maylie says. “It was like being cut apart with a chainsaw.”
“Chainsaw… Right,” Dayna says, deadpan. “That’s really just the image I need in my head when I’m due to give birth in six months’ time.” She glances around the room and folds her hands in her lap. Still shaking, still afraid of what’s to come. Still pretending she’s not. “Where’s Ivy and Toby?”
“Still in bed.” Maylie adjusts the baby, who lets out a sleepy growl of protest at being moved. “Seren had a rough night and Toby’s thirteen. He’d sleep for a week if I let him. What about Dash?”
“He’s riding the painkiller wave. He’ll probably wake up in an hour, wondering what his name is.” She leans over and strokes the baby’s head. “Speaking of… Are you ever going to name him?”
Maylie sighs. “It’s a big decision and it’s not like we’ve had time to think about it with everything going on.”
“You’ve had nine months,” Dayna says unhelpfully.
“I want to call him Rowan.” Maylie’s voice is quiet. “Mace vetoed it and wanted Rafe, which I hate.”
“Considering you did all the gestating and birthing,” she eats another piece of croissant, “I say you get to pick, and Mace’s opinion is banished to the realm of ‘no say’.”
I snort. “Is that your plan with Dash?”
Dayna crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back in her chair. “Absolutely not. He’ll deny me orgasms for the next ten years if I name our child without him.”
Maylie’s eyebrows climb up her forehead. “And yet you’re telling me to do that to Mace?”
The wave of her hand is flippant. “I don’t have to live with him and a child called Rafe.”
She laughs, kissing her son’s head, but it’s flat and sharp. Her smile slips too fast, as if she can’t hold it in place. Like it costs more than she has to give. Maylie adjusts the baby in her arms, and I notice the way sheclings to him a little tighter, like she needs to keep him close. “I guess,” she says slowly, her eyes distant, “I keep thinking if I don’t name him yet it means Macehas tocome back to me so he can give his son one.”
The air changes between us, the weight and heaviness of what is happening behind the scenes crushing all of us. I don’t tell her it doesn’t work like that. It’s not what she needs to hear.
“They’re all coming back,” I say, firm and sharp.
I have to believe that because the alternative will break me.
“Of course they are,” Dayna agrees. “It would be boring around here without them.”
“Oh, damn.” Maylie shifts the baby. “I think he needs his nappy changing and I’ve left the changing bag in the room.”
She starts to move, but I stand. “I’ll get it. Don’t disturb his royal cuteness.”
“You’re a star.”
My smile is a little awkward, as it always is when anybody gives me a compliment, and I push up from the table, waving it off. “Seriously I think I’m the most able-bodied person here right now.”
Dayna tears into the other half of her pastry. “Please. I’m barely pregnant and my legs still work.”
“You were also throwing up your soul this morning,” Maylie snitches.
I walk away as they continue bickering. I try not to stare too much at the men left behind to protect us. They are built like mountains, and I’m glad they’re on our side.
By the time I reach the corridor to the rooms, tension buzzes under my skin like static. I hate not knowingwhat’s going to happen, not being able to plan. I hate feeling afraid all the time.
