“Yeah, figured as much. She hates me.” He leaned to the side to look around me, offering Mira a smile that I know she wasn’t going to return.
“ I hate you.”
“If you truly hated me, you’d have had her ward the yard.” He grinned at me.
“I didn’t actually expect you to come back.”
“We always come back.” His smile vanished instantly, and his eyes flared red for a heartbeat. It seemed more an unconscious thing than his usual posturing. “You should remember that. We always come back, Jesse.” For a moment, I thought he’d say more; then he just stuffed his hands in his pockets and wandered off around the corner of the house, shoulders hunched against the steady rain.
I waited for longer than was probably necessary, to make sure he was really gone, and Mira handed me a towel as I came inside.
“What did he want?” Worry warred with outright hostility in her green eyes. My wife was ready to go to war, if need be. God, I loved her.
“I don’t know. He was… being strange.” She raised a brow at me. “Stranger than usual. Did anyone else realize?”
“No. Why would they?”
And that was a huge relief, really. Even my friends who knew what I did in my spare time-Will, who patched me up; Marty, who crafted my weapons; and Cole, whose soul I’d saved-knew nothing about Axel. I suppose, deep down, I was ashamed of myself for even talking to him. I’d never told anyone but Mira. And Esteban now, I guess. The circle widens.
“Here, take these into the living room. They’ve got the football game on.” Mira plopped a bowl of tortilla chips into my hands and shooed me out of the kitchen.
Over the course of the evening I couldn’t forget Axel, but I did manage to push him to the back of my mind for the most part. I had more important things to do. Things like laughing at Will’s truly horrific impressions, teasing Marty about his upcoming foray into fatherhood, just spending time with my little brother, which seemed to happen so rarely anymore.
We watched football. We mocked the commercials. We discussed world events like grown-ups ought to. Seemed like there was something going wrong in every corner of the globe, lately. Riots. Droughts. Unrest and discontent, fledgling conflicts that promised to grow into mini-wars and disasters just poised to strike. Is it any wonder that I’d been in a crappy mood for the last few months? Every time I flipped the TV on, the world was going to hell, and…
See, that’s what I’m talking about right there. The sudden dives into dark thoughts, the overwhelming sense of impending doom. Like there was this giant boot somewhere, and I was just waiting for it to drop on my head. It wasn’t like me, and even I knew it. That’s what I was supposed to be working on. I would enjoy my friends, dammit.
And if I fell into a brooding silence, I had Anna and Nicky there to clamber into my lap, chattering about anything and everything. It didn’t matter what. It was nearly impossible to be glum with the pair of them in close proximity.
I had Dr. Bridget there to threaten electroshock therapy (and of course the guys knew just where to get a spare car battery to make that happen, if she was serious). Her keen eyes watched me when she thought I wasn’t looking, the medical professional in her always analyzing, diagnosing. I couldn’t blame her. It’s what she did, and she was good.
I had Mira. And she was just perfect, hiding her worry much better than I did, touching my shoulder lightly every time she walked past the couch. More than anything, that tiny bit of contact did me a heap of good. Just that reminder that I wasn’t alone, and someone amazing loved me. I glanced over my shoulder to give her a grateful smile.
And somehow, somewhere, Mira and Bridget got their heads together, and before any of us realized just how it happened, Cam-short-for-Cameron had been invited along on our camping/paintball trip.
Oh how wonderful.
3
Nothing can put a dent in a man’s dignity so quickly as being forced to parade around a doctor’s examination room in nothing but a paper sheet. But after my injuries last spring, Mira insisted that I get Dr. Bridget’s okay before I went traipsing off into the wilds of Colorado. So, here I was doing laps while my friend the doctor watched me critically.
Not that I mind good-looking women staring at me, normally. Dr. Bridget was curvy in all the right places, even in the tailored suit she was wearing for the day. Funny how she looked so different here at her office, her dark hair all pulled back and tamed, than at my house with her hair in pigtails and wearing shorts and a smart-ass T- shirt. The two sides of Dr. Bridget.
“Are you having any more pain?” She jotted down some notes in my file as I hopped back up on the table.
“Nope. Everything seems to be fully functional.” Her hands were ice cold when she started groping my calf, and I jumped. “Geez, Bridge! Did you go juggle snowballs or something before coming in here?”
She smiled sweetly at me over the rims of her new glasses. “Iced them down just for you, Jesse dear.”
The scars on my calf were still nicely pink and hairless, circles the size of fifty-cent pieces adorning both sides where a crab-demon had stabbed me last January. I didn’t think that was a body-piercing fad that was going to catch on. Innocuous in appearance now, that wound had almost cost me my leg, the demon’s poison invading my body despite all medical intervention. Only my wife’s magic had kept me from having Stumpy as a nickname.
Of course, it was the torn muscle on the inside of that same leg that had landed me back in Dr. Bridget’s office. That particular injury was earned by falling on my ass on a wet floor (speaking of bruised dignity). Well, and the running around fighting hellhounds and dodging tornados after that hadn’t helped either.
But I’d been a good boy ever since, I promise! I’d given up walking with a cane (most of the time) only two months ago, and I’d been diligent with my physical therapy. I was hoping I’d get credit for time served.
I wasn’t sure what Dr. Bridget was looking for with the poking and prodding, but she found it. Or didn’t find it. Whichever one was the good one.
With a sigh, she stood up and leaned against the counter. “You know I’m not in favor of this trip, right?”
“You may have mentioned it once or a thousand times.” I put on my best begging eyes. Hey, it works on Mira. Sometimes. “C’mon, Doc, please? Pleeeeeeease?”
She tried real hard not to laugh, and finally managed to keep it to an exasperated chuckle. “You have no shame, do you?”
“None.”
“Yeah, I guess you can go. Just make sure you pay attention, and if it starts hurting, take it easy. Go get dressed.”
I gave a little “woo-hoo!” of celebration, and ducked into the tiny curtained alcove to get my pants back on. I expected to hear the door open and close as the good doctor left the room, and when that didn’t happen, I knew she wasn’t done with me. “Something on your mind, Bridge?”
“Mira says you’re still not sleeping well.”
“Why is it that I always seem to come up in conversation between you two?” Annoyance made the words a bit sharper than I’d meant. But dammit, why was my business everyone’s business? Deep breath, Jess. No reason to rip her head off, she’s just doing her job.
“She’s worried about you.” Even without seeing her, I could hear the frown in her voice. Part of it was the doctor in her, being irritated at a stubborn patient. Part of it was my wife’s best friend, being pissed at me for upsetting said wife. “Are those sleeping pills not helping?”
Fully clothed, I pulled the curtain aside so I could at least look at her while we were talking. “Wouldn’t know, I didn’t take them.”
She sighed again. “Jess-”
