“I hadn’t thought of that.” She rubbed her tongue over her lower lip. Her lip gloss, strawberry-flavored, was gone already. “Maybe that’s it. I’m just realizing that I don’t know him any better now than I did two weeks ago.”
“But you love him, right?”
“That’s like more of a soul-deep connection. We have that.”
“And the sex?”
“So good.”
Vicki lifted her hands, making a helpless gesture. “So what’s the problem?”
“I just want to know he can support all these babies he wants to make with me, I suppose.”
Vicki’s eyebrows went up. “Are you pregnant?” she whispered.
“I’m late, like really late,” she whispered back.
“So, like, he just looked at you and you got pregnant?”
“We forgot protection a few days after we met. I thought it was too early in the month to conceive, but I haven’t had my period since before I met him.”
“Wow,” she repeated. “You need to get a test.”
Angela reached for the shell charm hanging from her neck. “I know. I just didn’t have time over the holidays. I’ll get one tomorrow.”
“So then what happens, if you are?” Vicki grabbed an order of Cobb salad that Steve had just placed on the shelf.
Angela froze for a moment, wondering if Steve had heard, but intent on his work, he didn’t even glance at her. “Nothing changes. If we still go to Vegas for Valentine’s Day, I’d still be in my first trimester. I wouldn’t be showing.”
“We’re buying plane tickets soon, right?” Vicki glanced through the pass-through. “Steve, I still need a burger and fries for this table.”
“As soon as we pay off our credit card bills. Mine is due January seventh.”
“Mine, too,” Vicki said. “But isn’t Elias paying for everything?”
“I told him my budget and he said I could triple it. I used his credit card to book the rooms and the wedding chapel and everything.”
Vicki nodded as pots clanged in the back. “And your parents are paying for your dress?”
“Right, but we aren’t starting to look for it until they come back from Roseburg.”
“Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.”
“I know. I can’t gain an ounce. I’m a perfect size four right now and I need to stay that way.”
“Maybe morning sickness will start up soon. That will help.”
Angela laughed half-heartedly. “That’s one thing. I haven’t had a single symptom yet.”
“Make sure you buy that test tomorrow. I want news.” Vicki squeezed her shoulder and went into the kitchen to light a fire under Steve.
Angela filled a couple of pitchers for a fresh influx of customers. When she looked up again she saw Elias huddled with Kenny’s loser friends. A wave of misery crashed over her, adding to the slight headache she’d had all day. The truth was, she wanted him, not a bunch of expensive gifts. He hadn’t even come over to say hello to her when he’d come into the pub. Why was he acting closer to Kenny than her? He’d even bought her brother a custom dartboard for Christmas. It hung in the bar now, taking over for the sadly pockmarked one that had been on the wall the past couple of years.
Elias turned as if he sensed her looking in his direction, and grinned. She nodded at him, forcing a smile.
Vicki came back and peered at her closely. “You don’t look good, honey. You okay?”
She put her hand to her forehead and wiped away sweat. “Just kind of light-headed.”
Her cousin took a mug to the sink and turned on the faucet, then thrust it at her. “Maybe you’re dehydrated. It’s easy this time of year.”
She took the mug and drank the water. It didn’t help. Vicki developed two heads, then merged back into one again.
“Take a break,” Vicki urged. “I can stay behind the bar. I don’t have any other orders in.”
“Okay.” Angela pushed open the door and went through the kitchen into her mother’s office. She sat in the desk chair and put her head on her arms. It wouldn’t be hard to take a nap. Maybe she really was pregnant.
Sometime later, she heard a tap on the door. Elias walked in. “What’s going on?” He lifted her chin gently. “Your eyes are a little red. Coming down with something?”
She blinked woozily. “Light-headed. I don’t know why my eyes are red.”
“Allergies?”
“No, I haven’t sneezed.”
“There’s a cold going around,” he said with irritating cheer. He obviously felt fine. “Connor said his wife has a fever and everything.”
“I wouldn’t catch anything from her,” Angela said sourly. While Connor and Elias were friendly now, there had been no couples’ date night forthcoming. Connor always had an excuse for why his wife wasn’t available.
“No. I agree it’s frustrating. She must feel so isolated, never seeing anyone.”
“Why do you care? Surely you’re going to be cleared to go back to work any day now.”
“I’ll have another checkup after New Year’s,” he said. “No point worrying about it this week.”
It wasn’t like she wanted him to get called back to DC right away. “Maybe I have the post-holiday blues.”
“What are we doing for New Year’s again?” he asked.
“I have to work. The pub is open. We have a live band.”
“Who is playing?”
“It’s a bluegrass band. They are quite good, if you like that kind of music.”
He stroked her hair. “Should be fun. Same crowd as our engagement party, basically?”
“Oh, a lot more people than that. It’s a big deal. Not much else is happening around here.”
“Catch me up. What else is going on?”
“Vicki was admiring my Christmas gift, and my anniversary present. I hadn’t seen her since the twenty-fourth.”
“She approved?”
Angela nodded.
“But something’s wrong, honey.” Elias walked around the desk and perched his hip on the edge. She leaned back so that she could look up at him. “What’s going on? Just aren’t feeling good?”
She meant to say it was just the post-holiday letdown again, but something else came out of her mouth. “Why do you spend so much time with my brother? I’ve always thought he was kind of a creep. And I certainly don’t think that of you.”
He tilted his head and grinned at her. Normally he was just a really handsome guy, but that grin was positively adorable, dimples and everything. "We have hobbies in common, don't worry about it.”
“Like what, darts? He didn’t hunt this year that I know of.”
He shrugged. “He’s still knowledgeable, and it makes your parents happy to see us getting along. Might as well keep them happy now, because they aren’t going to like it when you move three thousand miles away in less than two months.”
“That’s true.” The water seemed to be doing the trick, because her headache seemed to have dissipated. “I guess you’re being careful with my parents since yours passed away.” He’d shared that information just before Christmas.
“I want them to like me. We’ll be spending the holidays with them, after all. I’m sure my sister will come out here with us, since your family is so much bigger than ours.”
“I’m glad you want to combine our families.” She stood up. He pulled her in between his knees and wrapped his large hand around the back of her head. She tucked herself against his shoulder and sighed.
“It will be good for you to have a solid support system.”
“It’s going to be hard for you to get back to work,” she murmured, enjoying the scent of his skin. It seemed stronger to her now.
“I’m in no hurry, honey. But you work too hard. Are you starting to resent my lazy ways?”
“Not really. I want your leg to heal completely.”
“My limp is almost gone.”
She ran her fingers down his thigh, then up again. Her thumb bumped
against something hard at the top of his thigh. “Why, Mr. Nader. Are you happy to see me?”
His eyes hooded. “Always, Shelly. That’s never going to change.”
Their gazes locked as she opened his belt and unbuttoned his jeans. His cock sprang out. “Did you forget to do laundry again?”
“These things happen.” He reached under her skirt and peeled down her panties. When he lifted them from the floor, he crumpled them in his fist. “Dripping with honey.”
“I just get so excited around you,” she whispered. “My body’s always ready to take you.”
He hooked his hand around the back of her knee and helped her onto the desk, her thighs spread over his. Without even checking her, he notched his cock into her opening and pulled her hips down. Her body resisted his for a moment before his large head worked in, coated with her juices.
Her entire body shuddered with the pleasure of it. “I just came. Oh, wow, Elias, the way you own me. It’s amazing.”
“Number one,” he rumbled, his face buried in her thick hair.
Wanting to give him the same pleasure, she canted her hips as soon as she regained control of herself.
“Yes,” he gasped. “More.”
She rocked against him, grinding her knees against the desk blotter. His fingers dug into her hips, holding her close. “I want your mouth on me.” She tore her shirt open, suddenly desperate to have his mouth on her nipples. Exposing her breasts, she pulled his head down. He suckled her as she raised and lowered herself on his cock, her sense of tiredness completely gone in the race to another orgasm.
He moved his mouth to her other nipple. She pressed her chest into him so he could take more of her breast. “It’s never felt like this,” she whispered. “So sensitive.”
Before she could think about the implication of that, she started to tingle. Another orgasm swept over her, shattering her completely. He held her close as he found his own pleasure, muffling his cry against her skin.
Eventually, she lifted her head. “I’m supposed to be working.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said softly. “Forgot about that.”
She stood up with his help. The room swayed. She half fell back into the chair. “Woozy,” she mumbled.
“You can’t work,” he said. “I’ll run you home, and then come back and finish your shift.”
“Are you sure?”
“Even I can’t talk Kenny into doing anything,” he said, pulling up his jeans. “Where’s your cell? Text Vicki and then we’ll go.”
~
The next day, Elias persuaded Angela to stay in bed. She’d talked to her mother the night before and she’d insisted on returning to Woodland, not at all unhappy to end her visit to her sister early. Her father had jokingly offered Elias a full-time job but he’d said maybe the best thing to do would be to talk Kenny into working more hours.
This led him into more time with Kenny. Not at all a bad thing, since Justice had been in touch again, asking him what he’d found out about the increased chatter, which wasn’t much. Kenny’s friends had gotten used to him, but he was hardly an insider.
Still, here he was now, taking a walk with Kenny. “What are we doing out here?”
Kenny had asked him to meet at a local cemetery after his father texted him. When he pulled into the parking lot by the mausoleum he saw Kenny’s battered truck was already there.
“Strange place to meet your future brother-in-law,” he said, walking up to Kenny. “Wedding present? Buying us a joint plot for our eternal rest?”
Kenny, dressed in dirt-caked boots, shredded jeans, and a gray shirt with reddish stains down the front, tossed the contents of a beer can down his throat then threw the can in the back of his truck. It plinged against aluminum, telling Elias that the bed was filling up with cans.
“Do you need a jacket? I think I’ve got one in my truck.”
“Nah,” Kenny said, belching. “I’m hot with indignation.”
“Big word,” Elias said. “What are we doing? Going for a walk? Visiting your grandmother?”
“She’s not buried here. She died in Portland and was buried in Oregon.”
“Ah.”
Kenny tilted his head. “C’mon.”
Elias followed him past the building and walked just behind him as they weaved past flat stone-topped graves. “Newer plots?”
“The old ones are back toward the road. Nineteen-fifties, I think. Now they’re putting in more crappy housing. It deteriorates so fast it ends up being used for low-income housing.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, more places for fornicators and their bastard kids to roost, paid for by our tax dollars.”
Elias wondered whose tax dollars those were, since Kenny barely worked. “Where do you live?”
“I got a trailer.”
“Where is it parked?” He hadn’t heard that the Stans owned any land.
“Critter’s property. I pay him for my electricity and shit like that. That bitch took me for everything I had, took my kid too.” Kenny spit on the grass near a veteran’s grave. “Grooming her up to be another fornicator, living off the system after she tricks some man into ruining his life.”
“How old is your daughter?”
Kenny shrugged. “Eight? Dunno. Haven’t seen her in over a year.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Nah, good riddance. I’m lucky I still have the trailer. I used to use it for camping.” Kenny staggered into the street. A minivan zoomed by at fifty miles an hour or more, narrowly missing him. Kenny didn’t seem to notice, just kept moving across, head down. He stopped on the other side, in front of a chain link fence woven through with brown plaits. Elias checked both ways then crossed himself. He didn’t quite trust his leg yet if he had to try to outrun a van. Following Kenny, he walked the length of the fence. Eventually they came to a substation sign. Behind the fence was an electrical plant.
“It’s not operational yet,” Kenny said.
Elias could see heavy equipment on the perimeter, but no one appeared to be around. “It’s been put in to support this new housing development?”
“Yeah. Let’s keep walking. There might be cameras.”
Elias’s senses went on high alert. Kenny cared about being seen around this substation? Not a good sign. What was he up to? Justice might finally get some news.
They took a left at the corner and walked another section of the fence. They crossed another street. On the other side were a dozen cleared lots, with small houses in various states of construction.
“See how small the lots are? And how close? Future low-income housing for sure.” Kenny spat into the dirt that had not yet been covered with a lawn.
“People without a lot of money need to live somewhere.”
Kenny glanced around, as if looking for cameras again, but here, it also looked like the week between Christmas and New Year’s was a holiday period for the workers. No one was around. To the east were older homes. Elias could see a distinctive wagon wheel fence on one property, fallow fields behind it. The next property was ringed by jagged, mossy rocks.
“We need the American equivalent of Sharia law in this country. Stop the fornicators and women who deny sex to their husbands.”
“So you’re concerned about women who don’t have sex with their husbands, too? They cheat on them?” The dark gray clouds seemed to push down on them, as depressing as the words coming out of Kenny’s mouth.
“And then they take half your assets in a divorce. No loyalty.” Kenny stared into Elias’s eyes, spittle forming on the corners of his mouth. “We need new judges, get things back the way they should be. When men were in charge.”
“We’ve never had Sharia law in this country.”
Kenny sneered. “You’re all snowed under by my sister right now. I know you’re fucking her. Whatever. Get off. I don’t care.” He poked Elias in the chest. “But just you wait until you have a couple of brats, and she’s all fat and claiming she’s tired all the time. Needs girl ti
me.”
“Then what happens?” Elias stayed very still, very calm. He couldn’t defend his Shelly, he had to remember who he was, what he was after.
“It’s not girl time,” Kenny said. “She’s off fucking her old high school boyfriend, or one of those college guys she never brought to the bar. Making fun of you, spending your money on him, hiding shit away.”
“Some women really do have close relationships with friends.”
“Yeah, maybe they are really lesbians. Doesn’t matter, they can still get pregnant.”
Elias liked sex as much as the next man, but he also believed in friendship. Still, he could hardly defend it to this loser. “You think your sister is a lesbian?”
Kenny rolled his eyes. “I’m talking about the system, man. We need to fix it, put men back on top where they belong.”
“How do you plan to change things?”
Kenny grinned. Didn’t look like he’d brushed his teeth after eating dinner the night before, and his breath reeked of stale beer. “Something big. I have friends who think like I do.”
“Yeah? Critter? Blake?”
Kenny shrugged. “Smart guys. People with access to what we need. You cool?”
Elias squinted, pretending to believe Kenny knew smart people with big ideas. “I don’t want your sister taking my kids and my money. You really think she’s like that?”
“All the bitches are. Look at my mother. She had an affair. Dad took her back, and then she left him for good six months later. Moron. And Angela’s mom, she’s hardly around, always down in Roseburg instead of taking care of my dad like she should be.”
Elias whistled in a show of sympathy. “That’s tough, man. I never heard about that.”
“It was like an armed camp in our house, growing up. That’s why I joined the army.”
“So what do we do?” Elias asked, spreading his hands in half-hearted fashion, making sure his posture was subservient.
Kenny grinned. “If we blow up this substation they can't build this housing development.”
“Why is this one so important?”
Kenny gestured impatiently. “It’s obviously going to be government housing to enable women to leave their husbands.”
“In the long run,” Elias agreed, to keep the conversation going. He wished he was recording this. “How do you blow up a substation?”
Sex, Vows & Babies: Wedding with a Baby Bump (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 6
