Chapter 25 Clover
Clover
Idid indeed count the days. They melted into weeks, and Logan became a guilty pleasure over the next two months, a distraction I needed and probably took advantage of too readily. My conversations with the rest of the pack were considerably tamer.
Logan waited for me to let him know the house was empty, and then I would call him and come to the sound of his voice with his scent in my nose.
By the time I hit the end of my third month home, I was more rundown than during finals week, but I kept pushing.
I chalked up the daily headaches and ongoing nausea to forgetting to eat while making sure everyone else was fed.
I pretty much lived off smoothies because that was the only thing my body seemed to tolerate.
“Peanut, you can’t keep doing this.” Poppy cornered me one night where I was sitting on the kitchen floor with a juice box. “You’re going to fall over.”
“I’m helping,” I insisted.
“You are,” he agreed, sitting down next to me and dropping his arm over my shoulders. “I don’t think we would’ve survived these past three months without you, but you need a break. A long one.”
“But Pappa still has another three months of recovery.”
“We’ve been working really hard while you’ve been here, and I think we’re enough ahead that we can start alternating who goes into the office again. I know Mike is far from better, but he can get around a little himself now, and we can work half days so someone can be home with him.”
“Are you tired of me being here?” I nearly started crying asking the question. My mood was all over the place, but stress did that to me.
“Absolutely not. We love having you home, but we’re not blind to how it’s impacting you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not, and you know better than to lie to us. If you don’t start putting yourself first, you’re going to end up in the hospital too, and we’d never forgive ourselves for letting that happen. Now, I’m going to take you back upstairs, and you’re going to sleep until you wake up.”
“But—”
Poppy hauled me onto his lap and stood with a groan. “You’re not quite as little as the last time I did this.”
He didn’t put me down, marching upstairs to tuck me into bed like I was five years old again.
“Mike is under strict instructions to tattle on you if you work too hard today.”
“This is bullying,” I said with a smile, relieved to be horizontal again.
“Sometimes you need it. Sweet dreams, peanut.” He kissed my forehead and tucked me in extra tight, leaving my door open a crack, like they had always done when I was a kid.
I wanted to protest, but I didn’t have the energy.
I’d felt a little worse every day I’d been home, which I supposed made sense with being utterly unable to relax.
My dads were right. I couldn’t keep going like this.
It didn’t mean I was excited to go home and leave them to their own devices, but something had to give.
Maybe on my next call with Meadow, I could bring up going back to LA in a few weeks. Her pack had offered to pay for private in-home care, but Pappa was weird about strangers touching him. The poor guy had barely tolerated the hospital long enough to get discharged.
I dug out Logan’s hoodie from where I kept it beneath my pillow. The sandalwood scent had long since faded, but I still searched for it.
When the impromptu nap that turned into a full overnight sleep relinquished me, I went downstairs, surprised to find all of my dads home in the middle of the day.
“Home for lunch?” I asked, diverting into the kitchen for some water. “What can I make you?”
“Nothing, peanut.” Poppy patted the table, ushering me over.
“You guys have weird vibes. Am I in trouble?” I asked as I sat down.
“Never,” Poppy promised, “but we’ve discussed it, and we think it’s time you went back to Meadow, or at the very least, take a long break on caregiving.”
“But—”
“Honey,” Dad said softly. “We can all see you’re not feeling well. You were so vibrant when you first arrived, and it feels like that spark is dwindling. We should’ve made you go home sooner.”
I swallowed hard, staring at my water. “You need me here.”
“We’re not going to lie and say things aren’t easier having you here,” said Pappa, reaching to lay his hand over mine, “but we would be shit parents if we let this continue. We can make it work. We’re not kicking you out, but Meadow is prepared to book your flight whenever you’re ready.”
My lip wobbled, and I sucked it between my teeth to keep it still.
I couldn’t even contradict them. Nothing had been bad enough for me to actually go get checked out.
I had been through bouts of sleeping terribly and my body being finicky before.
They always passed when the stress did. Except, this stress wasn’t going away soon, and I was turning into a wilted peony.
Would going home to Meadow fix it or make it worse because then I’d be worrying about my family from afar?
“Peanut?” Dad pulled my chair closer so he could set his hand on my hair. “What’s going through your head?”
“I could rest here?”
Pappa smiled indulgently at me. “I’ve been telling you to.
Instead, you’ve laundered everything in the house, the baseboards are sparkling, and you’ve washed dishes we probably haven’t touched since before you were born.
If I thought you’d be able to rest here, we wouldn’t suggest you leave, but you’re kind of proving you won’t stop. ”
“How about this?” Poppy began. “You go back to Meadow for a week or two, and see how you feel? If you desperately need to come back here because you’re worrying too much, then that’s okay.
Mike is getting a little stronger every day, and we can send you out of the house as soon as we get home so you can go to some classes, visit the library, or whatever you do for fun these days. ”
“Does that sound fair to you, Clover?” Dad asked. “You know we love you more than anything and we want to support you.”
I nodded eventually. “Okay. I guess it would be nice to go back for a while. Forest has probably already forgotten who I am.”
Dad laughed. “No chance of that happening. Who could ever forget you?”
I flew back to LA the next day and cried for most of the flight. I wasn’t usually such an easy crier, but between leaving my dads and knowing I would get to see Meadow and Forest in person, I was a mess.
I definitely wouldn’t be able to rest around the guys, so I didn’t tell them I was coming home yet. A good thing, too, because the second I got through the doors at the airport and saw Meadow with Forest in her arms, I was full-force sobbing so hard I couldn’t even see to walk to them.
When I leaned too much of my weight against her, Hendrix scooped Forest away from Meadow while Arlo kept her propped up.
“Is something wrong, or are you just really happy to be home?” Meadow asked, wrapping her arms around me.
“Nothing new,” I blubbered out. “I can’t stop crying today.”
A blur out of the corner of my eye, who I assumed to be either Phin or Beckett, dashed away and returned a moment later, pressing a bottle of something cold into my hands.
Probably Beckett, in that case. He was always after Meadow to take care of herself, and apparently that was extending to me today.
I popped the top and chugged down the cool water, still clinging to Meadow.
“Ready to go home?” Arlo asked. “Am I going to have to carry you out of here?”
“My legs work fine. It’s my eyeballs betraying me.” I used the arm of Logan’s hoodie to mop my eyes and cheeks. “Give me my nephew. I need auntie hugs.”
Hendrix passed over his son, and I cradled the little boy, kissing his chubby cheek while he mercilessly got his fingers tangled in my hair and pulled. He’d gotten so much bigger, and that made me cry anew.
“Forest,” Phin lightly admonished as he untangled the baby’s death grip on my locks. “Be nice to Auntie Clover. She’s having a hard day.”
I felt steadier with Forest’s warm weight against my chest. “Okay, I need to get horizontal sometime soon.”
“We rented a limo,” Meadow told me. “I figured you would want to stretch out after being on the plane.”
“You’re an angel.”
“I’m a little sad you weren’t here to see them struggle to put the car seat in the limo,” she said with a laugh. “You’d think they’d never touched a car seat in their lives.”
“Hey,” Arlo defended. “We figured it out eventually.”
“You did,” Meadow agreed, lifting onto her toes to kiss his cheek.
Beckett collected my suitcase from baggage claim, and we transferred to the limo, where I sat perpendicular to Forest with my legs stretched out.
I slept for most of the trip to the pack house.
Meadow stayed behind at the guesthouse after her pack retreated to get Forest down for his nap. “Clover, I say this with so much love, but you look like shit. What’s going on?”
I shrugged, already climbing onto my bed that looked freshly washed and made.
“Are you still feeling sick? Or just really tired?”
“Both.”
“Well, in that case…” Meadow rooted around in her purse and set a cardboard box in front of me.
I sat up, blinking a few times to get my eyes focusing enough to read it. “A pregnancy test? Meadow, I haven’t had sex in months.”
“And you’ve been feeling like shit for months. Go pee on a stick.”
I grumbled, but snatched it up anyway, since I had done the same to her when she’d gotten pregnant with Forest. Turnabout was fair play. I lifted my shirt in front of the mirror to see if I had a bump. If I squinted, I could maybe believe one was there, but this far in, I’d be showing, wouldn’t I?
The instructions for the test itself were simple, and I followed them to a T, then set the test aside to wait. Meadow got a timer started and sat on the edge of the bathtub next to me.
“This is dumb.”
“Maybe it is,” she agreed with a shrug, “but better to know for sure, right? There’s no risk of a false negative this many months in.”
What if the test was positive? I wanted a baby one day, but what the fuck would I do with one now? Roll up to Logan’s pack house, tell them I was almost five months along and had no idea which one of them might be the father?
“Sit down on the floor,” Meadow ordered. “I’ll brush your hair while we wait.”
I parked myself in front of her and pulled off the hoodie so it wouldn’t be in her way. Her touch was gentle as she worked through the tangles, but when she froze, I could feel the ice of her anxiety in the air.
“What’s wrong?”
“Clover…is that a bond mark?”
“Where?”
Meadow tapped the curve of my throat, and I hauled myself up to go stare in the bathroom mirror. A silvery crescent marred my skin. I frantically shoved my hair out of the way and tugged down the collar of my shirt for a better look.
“When did you get bonded?” Meadow asked.
“Fuck if I know.” I traced the crescent with my fingertip until a wave of dizziness washed over me and I braced myself on the sink.
“That’s probably why you’ve felt so terrible. We need to find your bondmate!”
“So, I could have bonding sickness and not be pregnant?” That would be a relief, but no less difficult to sort out. Meadow had gone through the same struggle after bonding and bouncing on Hendrix.
“Always a possibility.” The timer went off and Meadow hopped to her feet.
I knew the result instantly by how wide her eyes got.
“Give it.” I held out my hand until Meadow set the test into my palm.
It was right there. Two pink fucking lines.
Shit.
How was I bonded and pregnant?