Chapter 7 #2
“Shit.” Spencer laughed. “I’m knotted inside you pretty good.”
“You’re just going to need to think unsexy thoughts,” I chuckled, not wanting them to come in while we were still knotted together.
He kissed me again. “That is a very difficult prospect when I’m inside you.”
Spencer and I snuggled together in the bed, fully dressed, watching a documentary. The nurse checked him over and brought some food.
Riley sent me tons of pictures. Whale watching looked fun, but I was glad to spend time with him.
The door stood open, and the nice nurse, whose mate worked for the Center, appeared.
“Hi, Grace. She says she belongs to you?” The nurse pointed to the small child next to her.
“Yes, that’s my little sister. Um, hi Tru. I didn’t know that you were coming. Who brought you, Verity or your dad?” I sat up, glad we were fully dressed.
Tru bounded in and sat on the couch. “Oh, I came by myself. Verity’s phone has an app that brings me places.”
“Oh, like a children’s ride service?” I frowned, a little worried that they’d just drop her off at the hospital. Also, the idea that there was one for children so young made me a little nervous, even though it seemed useful for working families.
Certainly, Tru got points for ingenuity. Grabbing my phone, I texted Verity.
Me
Tru just showed up at the hospital. She used your phone to order herself a ride. I don’t want you to worry.
“Sometimes Verity uses it to pick us up when she’s stuck at the lab. Mumsy and Mom don’t like it, but sometimes they want her to miss class to get us. Can you believe it?” Her look went aghast. Today her curly, light brown hair was in cute little ponytails.
“That is scandalous,” Spencer agreed, turning off the TV.
Verity
I’m actually at the lab, so how… shit. I gave them my old phone to play games on. I must not have taken everything off. Thank you. I’m done anyway, so I’ll finish cleaning up and come get her. I made you something and was going to drop by, anyway. Thanks for keeping an eye on her.
Me
No problem. I didn’t want anyone to worry.
I wasn’t sure whose watch she’d slipped from. From the little I’d learned about the Thornes, Verity did a lot of the raising of the young ones. How she did that while getting a PhD, I wasn’t sure.
I got up off the bed and sat down on the couch with her. “I let Verity know that you’re here, so you have a ride home.”
“Oh, okay, thanks.” She grinned, kicking her feet happily against the couch.
“While you are always welcome, Tru, is there a reason for your visit today?” Spencer asked.
“You're leaving tomorrow. You haven’t even come over and seen my room and met everyone yet.” Tru sniffed.
“I know. I’m sorry. But we have to get back to Rockland. Everyone has work and school. But hopefully I will at some point.” After all, I had two brothers that I hadn’t met yet.
“Oh. Before I forget.” She opened her hot pink plastic purse and got out a crumpled sheet of paper. “This is my application for the summer ‘ship. Chance printed it out for me and helped me with some words, but we couldn’t figure out how to send it to you because we don’t have emails.”
Tru handed it to me. I was pretty sure Chance wasn’t even in middle school yet.
It was the Compass BioTek high school internship application and had been filled out in colorful felt-tip pens in mostly legible, but not always spelled right, baby scrawl.
“Don’t tell Mercy I used her good markers.” Tru grinned and ducked her head.
“Oh, thank you. I’ll give this to the internship coordinator. But please don’t be sad if you don’t get accepted. I think you have to be going into your second year of high school.” I looked over her application.
Why should you be chosen for this internship? Because I’m going to be the second-best math scientist in the world when I grow up. My sister will be the best.
My heart.
“I can handle it. They want me to be in a different grade, you know. But Mom says it’s not fair to Pax for me to be ahead of him in school because we’re twins.
” Her eyes rolled. “Pax doesn’t care. His favorite subject is recess.
Which is fine. But unsolvable equations aren’t going to solve themselves. ”
“Very true. But perhaps he’ll get inspiration at recess for something else?” Spencer told her.
“Maybe? Dare plays music and it makes my toes happy.” She closed up her purse and set it next to her, giving it a little pat.
“I play the piano,” I replied. “Music and math go together.”
“I think the drums are pretty. If I get the ‘ship, can I stay with you? I don’t think Dad will let me stay in the dorms.” Her head cocked.
“Of course. Just to let you know, Grace and I don’t get to pick. Even Riley has to go through the same application process,” Spencer remarked.
She thought for a moment. “Well, that sucks hairy balls. But Hale always mumbles that favoritism is shitty. I guess it is when you’re not the favorite.”
I put my hand over my mouth. Hale must do his share of babysitting. But I suppose they all did. After all, Dare, who was still in high school, had taken his two brothers to the park the day Hale, Mercy, and Tru came to the beach.
“But yes, if you get the internship, you can stay with us, as long as your parents are fine with it,” Spencer assured.
“Thank you. It will be so much fun.” Tru bounced on the couch.
“It would.” I texted Wes.
Me
I don’t know if you’ve left the restaurant yet, but if you haven’t, can you bring something for Tru? She called herself a ride so she could give me her application for the internship program.
Wes
We’re getting ready to leave, so I’ll see what I can do. She’s the one who’s five, right? Wow. But it makes sense your siblings would be geniuses like you.
Awww.
“What do you want to do eventually, after you solve Garamoci’s Theory of Everything, of course?” Spencer asked her.
She thought for a moment. “I want to build spaceships.”
Sure enough, there it was on her application, complete with a little drawing of a spaceship.
“I like that idea. Riley likes the idea of space travel, too.” I loved how Spencer took her completely seriously and didn’t wave it off as her being a silly little child.
“You’ll hire me when I solve it, right?” Tru asked.
“Absolutely,” Spencer agreed.
Yes, I was paying for her college so she could go wherever was best for someone like her. I might need to send her to the high school for geniuses that Evan’s sister worked at.
“Do you want to color?” I asked her. Liz, the crisis counselor from the Omega Center, kept bringing Riley snack packs with coloring books in them, so we had a couple of them. She’d stopped by a bunch so that she and Evan could have long conversations about Blanket Brigade training.
Tru nodded. “That sounds fun.”
I put away the application and got out the coloring book.
Tru and I colored while Spencer was on his laptop, wearing his slutty little glasses, occasionally adding things to our conversation.
Sweet baby Jesus, that man was going to make a great dad. Yeah, maybe I’d have three babies. Evan would get his first, because of what the doctor said about male omegas being good at making babies and getting my hormones going. Then Wes, and then Spencer.
While I’d take twins, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to carry Spencer’s enormous identical triplets.
“Hey, Babycakes. Heard you want to work with me this summer?” Riley came in.
“Riley! We’ll have the funnest project!” Tru bounced as she carefully colored in a picture of fish.
“Oh, absolutely. Maybe my friend Hiro can be on the project with us? You’ll like him. He enjoys using math to make models to predict things,” Riley replied, grabbing a coloring sheet and joining us.
“That sounds good.” Tru reached for the green. “But can Creed please be on another project? He’s really bossy. Verity is bossy, but it’s mom-bossy. Creed’s just brother-bossy.”
“We’ll see,” I chuckled, coloring in a hedgehog. “I don’t know if Creed got in either.”
Did I want him to get the job? Maybe? It might be nice to get to know him away from everyone else. Same with Verity and Mercy. Maybe I could plan a little girls' trip with Verity.
“How was whale watching?” I asked.
“A lot of fun.” Riley started coloring a sheet with flowers on it.
“I brought food.” Wes came in and gave me a kiss. “Tru, how would you like a brownie sundae? It’s only a little melted.”
Brownie sundaes for dinner? But I didn’t tell him what to get her.
“Ooh, thank you.” Tru’s eyes lit up.
“Did you get some… rest?” Evan came in and kissed me.
“We did.” I grinned.
“Jett and Bren went back to the hotel,” Wes added. “Bren is having more work drama.”
We cleared off the table so that Spencer and I could eat. Spencer even climbed out of bed and sat with us.
Tru dug into her sundae, which looked delicious. Not that my salmon with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy wasn’t tasty.
She and Riley started talking about skate smash. Apparently, Tru played in the little kid league, which had very different rules to make it safer.
“Hi, everyone.” Verity entered, carrying a paper gift bag.
“Verity, this is so good.” Tru, who had chocolate on her face, pointed to her almost-finished ice cream with her plastic spoon.
“It looks really tasty. Everyone was worried about you.” Like what seemed usual for Verity, she was dressed in crisp pastels, with her accessories and makeup perfect.
Tru shrugged. “Chance knew I went to turn in my application.”
“She’s applying for the summer internship program at Compass BioTek,” I explained to Verity.
“That makes sense. I could have helped you.” Verity frowned.
“I wanted to be a big girl and do it myself. Bite?” Tru offered Verity a spoonful.
“Oh, that is delicious. Grace, I made you cake pops.” She handed me the bag, which had ribbons on the handles.
“Verity.” I pulled out an individually wrapped cake pop that had an equation carefully piped on it. “These are beautiful.”
Tru nodded as she finished her ice cream. “Verity makes the best snacks. When we have parties at school, my treats are always the prettiest.”
“Thanks again,” Verity told us. “Tru, now that you’re done, we should get home. It’s a school night.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “Can I take my coloring page home?”
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“Thank you for my dinner.” Tru gave us all hugs. “Riley, I can’t wait to work with you. Let’s build a spaceship.”
“That sounds great.” Riley hugged her back.
Verity gave me a hug. “I started the book that you suggested. It’s great. I think Dad gave up after chapter seven. It was a little much for him.”
“I understand. The fact that he tried means a lot. Some of the titles you texted me sound like they’d be perfect for book club.” The idea of him reading that book, the one Jett had made me read out loud to him back in the cabana, made me laugh.
“Have a safe trip back to Rockland.” Verity took Tru’s hand, and they left.
Riley held out her hand. “I want a cake pop. Mercy was telling me that Verity is one of those alphas that shows her love by baking.”
I passed out cake pops.
“Spencer, we probably can’t hire a five-year-old as an intern, right?” I asked as I cleaned everything up.
“I checked with legal, and we absolutely cannot. But…” Spencer got out his phone.
“Rock Tech has a math day camp for kids her age. Maybe we could award her a special internship and bring her here for camp. I think I can get our education team to partner with the camp for that session and give them a special little project to work on. Like a Future Intern program.”
“That would get a fuck-ton of good press from the sheer cuteness of it,” Riley agreed. “They can have little shirts and badges and come for a tour and eat ice cream in the cafeteria.”
“That sounds like a great idea, if we can get her parents to agree to letting her stay with us–and if the pack is up for a five-year-old.”
Evan laughed. “Yes, have her stay with us. After all, we have to get the pack ready for when you have Spencer’s identical triplets.”
“Wait, are you pregnant?” Riley helped herself to another cake pop.
“No.” I shoved Evan. “No identical triplets.”
“One day we might have some kids, though,” Wes added.
“Yeah, I kinda figured. Please wait until I can legally live in the guest house or let me move into the basement?” Riley asked, taking a picture of the cake pop.
I nodded. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”
A nurse knocked on the open door. “Hi Spencer, we need to get some scans so we can see if you can be released tomorrow.”
“Thank you, I’d like that very much.” He stood, dragging the monitor with him.
I’d like that too. Because as nice as it had been to meet some of my siblings, I was ready to return to Rockland.