by D. Brumbley
“I’d be a fool if I thought I was actually getting rid of you. You’ll only be an hour away, and that’s with your driving. Cory over here can make it in half that.” Joseph nudged Cory with one elbow and fell into more of a coughing fit, but like the first one, it didn’t last long. “So long as Liam doesn’t have any illusions about having Emily or Gwen shipped off to your house in a few years, I think I can handle sending two of my children up to your place.”
Cory chuckled and shook his head. “Just trading girls, really. Bickford for a Prince, Prince for a Bickford.” He laughed and went to hug Anna again. “Congratulations, Sis. I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you.” She said as she hugged Cory carefully, but she held onto him for longer than she normally would have. “It’s a good trade. You’ll be happy with Larissa.”
“That’s not the part I’m worried about so much as I’m worried about her being happy with me.” Cory said sheepishly, looking over at Logan.
“Good. Stay worried about that.” Logan said with a grin that could have been taken as either encouragement or a warning, it was hard to say. “You stay worried about that, and she’ll be happy with you. I’m not concerned.”
Anna stepped away from Cory and turned her attention to Ben, who had remained quiet the whole time. She walked over to him and pulled him away from Susan for a hug, one that she didn’t let go of right away. “I was planning to tell you about the Cory and Larissa thing before the sky crashed in. I’m glad everyone is more or less alright.”
“It’s alright. I get it.” He held onto her tightly, grateful for what she’d done without needing to say so. “Next time something goes completely to hell, though, at least make an effort to keep your distance? They’ve been showing Kevin’s phone footage non-stop on the news, and I’ve seen you look a whole lot more graceful than you did trying to break in and do CPR on a corpse.”
“Phone footage? What have they been showing everyone on the news?” She looked concerned about that, especially because she had no idea about any of it. “I’ve been a little distracted.”
“Yeah, no one in this room wants to hear about your distractions. Sorry.” Cory said with a grin, but he was already picking up a tablet on the other side of the room. The video clip streamed on the wall of their kitchen, in vivid color and clear definition, even if Kevin’s hands were obviously still shaking. The video started with the arm coming down as a shining fireball in the sky, Kevin attempting to run back toward the house with the rest of his family while still holding focus on the fireball. When it crashed, the video cut out for a moment as Kevin was thrown back from the force. Kevin obviously made it out alive, but most of the rest of his family wasn’t so lucky. He kept the video feed going as he rushed from one of them to the other after emerging from the cellar, but it was a helter-skelter piece of footage at best, with blood and panic everywhere. Mostly it was a soundtrack of Kevin’s screams.
Cory fast-forwarded through most of the clip to get to Logan and Anna’s arrival, with Kevin having gotten into the half of the house that wasn’t on fire in search of any other phone that would still make calls. He saw them arrive, taped Anna going around to the back of the house to look through the carnage and the fallen pods, but Kevin had gotten trapped in the upper room by the fire. He watched Anna through the window, unable to even scream for help because he had shredded his voice long before that. He saw her get to the pod, saw the glass give way and slice her arm, heard her throwing up as she tried to wake up the occupant, but then Logan burst through a flaming door and picked Kevin up to carry him down to safety. The footage continued, but it was focused on Kevin’s family, since he was in complete hysterics, thinking that everyone was going to die except him. He kept muttering that he was going to be alone. Eventually his muttering was covered up by the sound of the wind whipping the back of the truck as Logan drove away at breakneck speeds. Kevin got a few more final shots of Anna and Logan in the front seat, Anna with her head on Logan’s shoulder, before the video feed died completely with the phone’s battery life.
“You guys are heroes already over pretty much the whole world.” Cory said when it was over. “There’s already petitions to get you guys medals or some kind of decorations. They even had Director Vance on yesterday, talking about how terrible a tragedy it was for all the families of those aboard the arm, and praising you two for jumping right in to try and help even if there was nothing that could have been done.”
Anna felt like she was thrown back into a nightmare as she watched the footage, and she couldn’t respond for a few minutes as she stood there next to Ben. It hadn’t felt real, even though she knew it was. It wasn’t some horror movie that she had tried to block out in her mind, it was real. No wonder the Jannah officials came sniffing if they saw her in one of the pods, but she would deal with it later. “Logan is the hero. He saved lives.” She said softly but loud enough for everyone to hear. Anna hadn’t done anything, and she knew it. “We should get some sleep. It’s late.”
Her brothers and Susan seemed to take that dismissal at face-value, and each of them gave her a hug before they headed off to their own rooms in the basement. Only she and her father had rooms upstairs, so he walked with her and Logan up to the landing and held to the railing on his way back toward his own room. “If I had known you were bringing company, I could’ve switched out one of the old queen beds we’ve got in storage. That and also spent some time soundproofing the attic.” His voice was weak as he tried not to give in to another coughing fit, but he was still smiling.
“Don’t worry. We’re going to go straight to sleep. It’s been a long day.” She didn’t know if that was true or not, but she didn’t want her father to have to think that he was going to hear her having sex with Logan. “Did you get more medication from Doc Weber?”
“I’m fully stocked for now, don’t worry about me.” He looked and sounded ancient as he said so, though, even though his body was still that of a man in his late thirties. He and her mother had gotten married young, which was the only reason they’d been able to have seven children together. But young as he was, Anna was nearly eighteen, and that made him an old man, by Earth’s standards. “We’ll talk more in the morning. You get some rest.”
Anna didn’t move until she watched her father disappear into his room. She could hear him coughing, but that wasn’t anything new, and it wasn’t going to end. She looked over at Logan, who had remained quiet behind her. “I hate watching him get worse.”
He put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder as they headed into her room and shut the door behind them, his face solemn as he thought about her father. “My parents were their executors for a while.” He took off his boots and set them by the door. “They told me and Liam about it because they wanted to make sure we understood how things worked. You and Ben were too young still to do things, but your mom and dad had my parents as backup in case anything happened to them. It’s just who your father is. He looks out for people. It’s hard not to be able to look out for him the same way.”
She nodded again and slowly took off her shoes as well before she went to her closet and pulled out a deflated air mattress. It was bigger than her bed and she usually reserved it for camping, but there was no way she and Logan would fit in her bed without breaking the thing. Her bedroom wasn’t large, so the mattress took up a good portion of the floor when it was spread out. Once it was inflated, Anna pulled blankets off her bed and her pillows and tossed them onto the mattress before she looked back at Logan. “This is the best I’ve got.” Her family was bigger and their house was smaller, so it made for some tighter spaces. Anna started taking off the rest of her clothes as she watched Logan carefully. “We have to be quiet.”
He smiled slightly, since the mood had clearly been a somber one. “Easier said than done.” As he stripped down as well, Anna could see the burn marks on his torso more clearly than they had been the day before, since his body was busy healing through the assisting material Doc had put in place. He didn’t
act like he was in pain as he got onto the air mattress, though, and he shifted to bounce her as she joined him, smiling the whole time. There was no way he was ever going to be in a bad mood if he was in bed with Anna. “Whose room is right below this one? Danny?”
“Mhm. Danny and Cory’s. We knocked down that wall last year so that they could have one giant room instead of two small ones. They’ve been bunking it up so that they can have their own little bachelor pad on the other side with games and stuff. Though I imagine Cory will keep it now and Danny will come up here to my room. Depending on how things go between Cory and Larissa.” She snuggled close to him as soon as she could, touching his burns lightly. “I almost got sick all over again, watching that footage.”
“The house looked worse than it was. Kevin just wasn’t in his right mind. The stairs were still intact, he could’ve gotten down on his own.” He wasn’t comfortable being thought of as a hero, that much was obvious. He put one arm around her shoulders and ran his other hand up over her waist, careful of her arm that was still in the process of healing though even a day had improved her wound immensely. “At the time, I considered telling you to stay in the truck, but I figured you would’ve told me to go to hell, so I didn’t try.”
“I wouldn’t have said that, but I would not have stayed in the truck.” She turned into him even more and kissed along his cheek and jawline. Anna took a deep breath of his scent and moved to kiss his lips gently. “We’re getting married next weekend.” Anna didn’t want to think about the fact that they had nearly died. She wanted to think about being Logan’s wife.
“Yes we are.” He returned the kiss, moving his huge hands over her back to warm her up in the slight chill that lingered beneath the blankets. Every little move got a squeak from the air mattress, but that was a price he was more than willing to pay. “You know what that means, of course.” He said teasingly with a kiss to her jawline. “It means you’re gonna have to put up with Liam forever.” He whispered the last word with as much sarcasm as he could muster, even if sarcasm wasn’t usually his strong point.
Anna actually laughed but then she followed it with a groan. “Do you really want me to think about Liam when I’m naked? Doesn’t he have enough women fawning over him?”
“He does. He really does.” He shook his head and kissed her some more, his hands roaming over her without trying to start anything. It was still too new that she was there, his to have and hold. His hands treated her like a shiny new toy he couldn’t bear to put down. “I wonder about what’s going to happen with him if we do go. To Jannah.” He kept his voice so low that nothing beyond the air mattress could have heard him, but he didn’t care about much in the world beyond the confines of the air mattress at the moment. “I’m not too worried about the estate itself, so long as Larissa and Cory hit it off, which I think they will. She’s smarter than either of us, so she can manage the business perfectly well on her own. Not to mention she’s not half bad with the machines either, in a pinch. I just worry if we leave, Liam will turn his wing into his private harem and some gold-digger will come along and fuck him until he agrees to turn over half. You know him. I like the girls he’s already got, but he’s clearly not shy about picking up more when the mood strikes him. Which is always.”
“You like the ones he has? As in, all three?” That actually made her laugh again, though it certainly wasn’t unheard of for a man to take more than one wife. Her own sister-in-law was trying to make it happen for her brother. “At the rate he’s going, he’ll knock one of them up before anyone else comes along to get tangled in that mess. Or maybe he’ll have a good week and get ‘em all at once and then he’ll have a house full of girlfriends and babies. He’s gonna need the help anyway. If we do go to Jannah.”
That got Logan thinking, apparently, and he settled on his side on the mattress, which produced its own set of squeaks and creaks. “That would keep him in line, for sure. If he was actually locked down to those three. Rachel is the most level-headed of the bunch, Brianne is…kind of a freak, as far as I can tell, and Margo…well, Margo seems to actually care about him more than the other two, but that makes sense, they’ve been together the longest. Between the three of them, they might actually be able to keep him in line.”
“Are you actually considering it?” She couldn’t believe that, and it made her laugh out loud again. “Talk about one hell of a wedding night. What makes you think they would even agree to that? Or that he would?”
“I have no idea if they would or not. Any of them. Certainly not Margo, I don’t think.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, I just worry about the guy if I’m not going to be around. He’s a good man, underneath all of it, but he’s definitely used to me running things. If I’m gone, that’d be him, and he’d need to do a lot of growing up in a damn hurry.”
She kissed along the side of his neck and smiled as she kissed down to his shoulder. “I think you should see if the girls will do it and if they agree, talk to your brother last. I would love to see his reaction to that.”
Logan couldn’t help but laugh at that proposition, even though he had to admit it sounded cruel and unusual when he thought about Liam’s usual whimsical nature. “God, he’d be in such a bind.” He chuckled against her shoulder and kissed over her skin a few times, taking in the taste of her and the warmth of her beside him. “Let’s you and me figure out what we’re doing about Jannah first. Then if we decide to go, I’ll see what his girls think about the arrangement. We’ve got enough to worry about right now without that.”
Anna focused on kissing him all over before she slung a leg over his waist. “Whatever we’re doing, we’re doing it together.”
“Damn right we are.” One hand moved down to her backside to press her in against him, since lying there next to her naked was more than enough to get his body’s attention. He moved slowly, though, which was a first for them, and his kisses were long and lingering as her body pressed against his. “You’re not getting away from me. Now or ever.”
10
Mercury wasn’t sold on the idea of going to a club, but Orion promised her it would be a good time and a perfect way to get out for the evening to enjoy Three. She took a long time to get ready, but it was worth it when she came out in a silver dress that went to her knees, hugging her curves in all the right places. Her hair was down again in shocking red waves, and she was wearing heels, celebrating the fact that she could, when standing next to Orion. “Are you absolutely sure that we should go to this club? I rarely drink alcohol.”
He wasn’t in uniform, and it was the first time she’d seen him dressed in anything but military attire or pajamas, during the one night when they had decided they needed to wear something in order to get any sleep at all.
Not that it had worked.
His dark grey pants were long and loose above his boots, and only accented how incomprehensibly tall the man was. The black shirt he wore was unbuttoned most of the way down his chest, but didn’t quite show his dog tags. It was enough, however, to show the fractal tattoo on his shoulder, which she had learned was the insignia for his unit when he’d come through flight school, with which he was still associated. The only other adornment he wore was a mesh band around one forearm that functioned as his communicator.
He stood by the door and made no secret of checking her out thoroughly. “You know, I was sure we should go until you walked out looking this good.” He pulled her into a kiss, his hands settling on her lower back to hold her against him. “But yes, I’m sure we should go. This might be the last day off we get for a while.”
Mercury put her arms around his neck to pull herself up into a kiss, arching herself against him as she agreed. “We’d better go, then. Before I change your mind.”
When they got close to the right district, Mercury could feel music through the soles of her heels. The open corridors were a warren of humanity, with impromptu stalls set up in every corner selling alcohol, drugs, all the way to a clothing store set back from the rest wi
th spinning racks of scandalous outfits.
The population presented the full range of modesty, from Mercury’s relatively conservative dress all the way to women in nothing but the bare minimum of coverings. Some men wore little more than boxer shorts. The rhythm of the place and the sound of the buzz through the hallway, peppered with laughter and spiced with shouting from high-spirited groups, was a different kind of world than she’d ever seen tolerated on Seven.
Most people nearby ignored them as they made their way through the corridor. Some stared at Orion’s height before minding their own business. They passed the open front of a tattoo parlor where a topless woman was mid-tattoo. The man tattooing the woman’s cleavage raised a hand to wave at Orion, though, which he returned, before squeezing Mercury’s hand. “You alright?”
It was clear she was out of her element. Mercury and Orion had tried several different things behind closed doors to broaden her sexual experience, but she was nowhere near comfortable showing anything off in public. “The people here are much more…free with their bodies.”
“We tend to be.” He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders instead of just holding her hand, trying to let her know she was safe as she took in the sights. “There’s a whole arm toward the south side that’s a nudist colony, actually. Interesting place to visit. Not a place I think I’m ever going back to by choice. That was a weird day.”
Mercury held tighter to his arm, since she felt a sting of jealousy slice through her at the thought of a whole group of people ogling Orion. “I’m glad you’re not going back. I don’t want to share.”
“Good. I don’t either.” He held her tighter, enjoying her possessiveness. “So that means no running back and getting your chest tattooed tonight. I know you’re heartbroken. Try to work through it.”
