Chapter 19
Doc
Two Weeks Later
Since Lena agreed to be ours, we’ve spent most of our free time in bed finding new ways to make Lena scream with pleasure.
Whether it’s just the two of us, a few, or all of us, the sex is always incredible.
Lena can make it feel like I’m commanding her entire focus, even when the others are involved.
When I first met Lena, I was, of course, attracted to her.
What started as a playful flirtation and a sexual attraction has since grown into something more.
I can’t help but picture a future with Lena, one that involves more children, perhaps.
Mia is a joy, and I’m surprised to find how much I enjoy spending time with her.
We’ve settled into a domestic routine that works for all of us.
It’s especially easy to imagine this working as a long-term, serious relationship on days like today.
Lena, Mia, and I are on shopping duty today.
A dull, mundane chore to some, but something that families do.
A domestic task that makes us feel like a real family.
Mia has spent the whole grocery trip asking to go to the park, so as I finish loading up the truck and climb inside, making sure they’re both strapped in and ready to go, I drive toward a big park with a playground outside instead of heading home straightaway.
“Thanks for letting us come with you, I think we’re going a little stir crazy in that house,” Lena says, reaching over and squeezing my leg.
Cole and Rex were against Lena and Mia joining me, but Judge and I agreed with Lena that, although the threat of Zeke was still ever-present, the Iron Vultures had quietened down lately, and it was probably safe. I’m silently hoping that means they’ve given up.
“You’re welcome, just try not to get yourself into trouble. I swear you’re a walking magnet for it.”
Lena playfully slaps my arm. “I am not!”
I glance over at her, raising an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
She rolls her eyes and laughs. “Fine, maybe I am a little. But it’s not my fault.”
“That should be your nickname, Trouble,” I suggest with a grin.
“Do I get a nickname? Aren’t they like a biker thing?”
I chuckle at her naivety. “They are a bit of a biker thing, I guess, but it’s not like you get one on initiation. We all earn our nicknames the same way everyone does.”
“I already know how Judge got his. So how did you get yours?” she asks, intrigued. “You’ve got medical knowledge and experience, is it just that?”
“I wish,” I reply with a rueful grin. “When I was a kid, before I got braces, I had prominent front teeth with a wide gap. People used to say I was like Bugs Bunny from the cartoon.”
A knowing look crosses Lena’s face. “And they’d say to you—”
“What’s up, Doc?” I finish, nodding.
“Kids can be so cruel. But why are people still calling you that? You didn’t meet the guys until you were grown men.”
I shrug. “By that time, I’d had my teeth fixed, but I was used to it. Plus, I became an army medic, people would call me that anyway, so no one ever questioned it.”
“I could call you by your real name if you’d prefer,” she kindly offers.
I shake my head. “Nah, that would be weird. No one has called me that in a long time.”
Lena doesn’t press the matter further, and she already knows all of our real names. Or so I thought. “Why don’t Cole and Rex have nicknames?” she asks.
I glance at her and smile. “Rex is a nickname. He hasn’t told you then?”
She shakes her head. “No, he hasn’t.”
“We all became friends when we were in the army together—going to war, seeing what we saw, and doing what we did bonds you in a different way. Anyway, Rex was with us on deployment when he got the call about Jennifer’s miscarriage and her suicide.
Shortly after that, he was discharged. He went home to live with his mother.
” At Lena’s confused expression, I clarify.
“He was adopted by one of his foster moms after a couple of years in the system.”
Lena nods and patiently waits for me to continue.
“Rex couldn’t face going home to an empty house full of reminders of Jenny, and he fell into a depression.
After a while, when things got really bad, we decided we had to intervene.
We flew out to his mom’s place, where we found him still in bed, in the middle of the afternoon, in his childhood bedroom. ”
Lena’s expression is filled with compassion as she listens intently.
“His mom hadn’t changed the bedroom since he was a kid, as it was covered in dinosaur things.
I’m talking figurines, wallpaper, bedsheets, posters, all dinosaurs.
If he didn’t stink and the room wasn’t littered with empty liquor bottles, it would have been funny.
So, there we were, trying to cheer him up, to say anything we could to break him out of his funk, thinking maybe we were gonna have to manhandle him into a shower, when his mom appeared.
‘How’s Rexy doing?’ she whispered. We all looked at her, confused, and she clarified.
She told us that she used to call him her little T.
Rex, which became Rexy. Of course, this was all the ammo we needed to start laughing and teasing him.
He snapped out of it pretty quickly then, mostly to punch Cole and tell him never to call him Rexy again.
After a while, it became Rex, and he didn’t mind so much anymore.
I think it reminds him of emerging from a dark time with the help of his friends. It does for me, anyway.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t heard that story before.” Lena looks sad all of a sudden. “Actually, I can. Rex doesn’t talk to me like this.”
Lena is much lighter outside of the house.
Although Rex and she are sleeping together, there’s still tension between them, and they haven’t properly discussed how she lied to him about Mia or how he feels about being a father.
Rex fucks her, or watches her being fucked, and then immediately leaves.
Outside of the bedroom, he barely talks to her, and it makes the atmosphere in the house tense.
If he doesn’t speak to her soon, we’ll have to intervene.
That’s another reason we wanted Lena out of the house today so that the others could talk to him about it.
We’re meant to be giving this relationship a real chance, but we can’t if Rex treats Lena like it’s only sex to him.
“He’ll come around eventually, you know,” I say to her.
Lena sighs. “I’m not so sure. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea…” The light, jovial atmosphere is gone, replaced by Lena’s anxiety and sorrow.
I want to yell at Lena that it’s not. To tell her that I love her and that she can’t leave us just because of Rex. But of course, I don’t.
“But it’s not just Rex you’d be ending things with.”
“No, it isn’t,” she says sadly. “But I’m not sure I can stay if Rex continues to punish me.”
I feel her slipping from me, falling through my fingers like sand. Instead of saying how I truly feel, I resort to my default: hiding my feelings behind humor.
“You seem to enjoy his punishments.”
I waggle my eyebrows and smile at her, but she doesn’t smile back.
“This is more than sex to me,” she says sadly.
“I know, it is to us, too.”
“Is it? Sure as hell doesn’t seem to be with him.”
“Give him time.”
“That’s what you all keep saying.” She looks out of the window, saying nothing further.
I don’t know what comfort I can offer her. I curse Rex inwardly for making her feel this way. The opportunity is lost as we reach the playground.
There are many cars parked and children already playing. To one end of the parking lot, there’s a diner. “Drop me and Mia near there before you park up, I gotta change Mia,” Lena says.
I do as she asks and park up toward the other end of the lot, nearer to the playground. I sit waiting in the car, lost in thought, wondering how I can keep her and how I can fix things with Rex and her. If one of us loses her, we all do.
Ten minutes pass.
Fifteen.
I start to worry. Lena and Mia should be back by now.
I get out of the car and head over to the diner. There are just two toilets inside. Both are unoccupied. “Did you see a woman and a little girl, about two years old, come in to use the restroom?” I ask the server.
“Sure, they left about ten minutes ago. Something wrong, hon?”
I don’t bother to reply as I rush outside to look for them.
With a sinking feeling in my heart, I know that they are gone, but I still try to find them.
I search everywhere, calling out their names.
When it’s clear that they’re gone, I start asking people if they’ve seen them.
I desperately hold out my phone and show everyone photos of them.
Most people say no. Some say they saw them entering the diner.
Finally, I find someone who claims to have seen them leave.
An old man, maybe in his seventies who’s sitting by himself at a table near the door.
“They got in the back of an SUV,” the man says.
“Did you see the driver? The license plate? Anything?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“How did she seem?” I ask. “Did she shout for help?”
Surely if someone were kidnapping them, Lena and Mia would have screamed?
“No. She just got in the car with the woman.”
“Woman? What woman?” I ask, frustrated that I have only just now discovered that there was another person in the vehicle.
“She was wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, and dark clothing. I didn’t see her face. They spoke for a moment, and then the women climbed into the back with the child, and they drove away.”
“Shit!”
“Should I call the police?” the man asks, startled. My actions have started to draw a crowd.
I don’t reply. I run back to the car, put it into gear, and use the hands-free system to call Cole as I do.
“Cole. Lena and Mia are gone.”