Chapter 48 Mattaniah
Mattaniah
Amos has been home for ten days and I've memorized the exact angle his pillows need to be stacked for him to breathe without his ribs grinding.
The configuration requires two pillows behind his back, one under his left arm to brace the injured side, and the couch cushion wedged against his hip.
The configuration took me three attempts because Amos kept trying to adjust the pillows himself.
Every time he reached for one his face went gray and Dominic's hand shot out to push him back down.
"Stop moving." I say it for the sixth time this morning while I replace the pillow under his arm that he knocked loose trying to reach his laptop. "Your ribs are broken, not sprained. Broken means they need to stay still."
"I'm aware of the medical terminology." Amos' voice is dry but his face relaxes when the pillow settles into the right position. "I have a master's degree and two broken ribs. I understand the difference between a fracture and a sprain."
"Then stop acting like you have a sprain." I set his laptop on the coffee table within reach and put a glass of water beside it. "You need anything else?"
"I need you to stop hovering." He says it with half a smile. "You've become Dominic."
"Take that back."
"You rearranged my pillows three times this morning.
You brought me water I didn't ask for. You stood over me with a Percocet for eleven minutes yesterday.
" He pushes his glasses up with the hand that doesn't hurt to move.
"You've absorbed his hovering through the bond and now there are two of you. "
"I stood over you for eleven minutes because you argued with me for ten of them about whether the pain warranted medication.
Your face was the color of printer paper.
" I sit on the floor beside the couch, close enough to hand him things without crowding the injury.
"And I haven't become Dominic. Dominic hovers because his Alpha brain tells him to.
I hover because you took a beating that was meant for me and if your pillows aren't right I can't breathe. "
The humor drains from his face. Through the bond something shifts and my bond mark throbs.
"Niah." His hand finds the top of my head. "The pillows are perfect."
Dominic is in the kitchen making lunch because Dominic makes lunch now.
He's made lunch every day since the hospital, along with breakfast, dinner, and the mid-afternoon snack that appears beside whatever I'm working on at three thirty.
The man who used to command boardrooms and terrify junior executives has channeled his entire Alpha drive into meal preparation.
It would be annoying if the food wasn't actually good.
The apartment smells like grilled cheese and tomato soup over the warm undercurrent of medication and bandage adhesive that's become our baseline. My pregnancy sweetness sits on top of everything else now, strong enough that even I notice it when I come back into a room.
"Eat." He sets a plate on the coffee table beside Amos' laptop and a second plate on the floor beside me. He's been making comfort food all week, nothing more ambitious than bread and cheese.
"Thank you." I pick up the sandwich and take a bite. The warm cheese hits my stomach and settles the low-grade nausea that's been constant since the pregnancy. "You don't have to keep feeding me."
"You're growing a human. The human needs calories." He sits in the chair across from us with his own plate. "Eat the soup too."
I eat the soup too.
The afternoon settles into its routine. Amos works on his laptop in careful increments, twenty minutes of typing followed by ten minutes of resting with his eyes closed.
I work beside him on the floor with the Meridian Holdings files, building the supporting documentation for the heir clause filing that the board accepted on Monday.
Dominic rotates between his phone and the kitchen, managing the company transition remotely while keeping both of us in his line of sight.
My mother's absence fills the apartment like a missing tooth, noticeable for the space it leaves. I feel genuine, uncomplicated relief. The relief comes from putting down something I've been carrying so long my spine forgot what straight felt like.
"She spent my whole life teaching me that needing was weakness, that wanting things from people was how you got hurt, that the safest version of me was the one who didn't need anything from anyone." I say it during one of Amos' rest periods, staring at the Meridian files in my lap.
"She was wrong." Dominic says it from the chair without looking up from his phone.
"She was wrong about everything." I set the files aside and lean my head back against the couch.
Through the bond both of them pulse against the marks on my neck and I don't flinch.
"I need things. I need you to make me lunch and I need Amos to tell me statistics about folic acid I didn't ask for and I need someone to stand over me with a Percocet even though it isn't for me. "
"The folic acid information is genuinely important." Amos opens one eye. "Your prenatal vitamin only covers sixty percent of the recommended daily intake."
"I know. You've told me four times." I close my eyes and my hand finds his where it hangs over the edge of the couch. "I'm saying that I need it, the telling and the hovering and all of it. She taught me to be ashamed of needing and I'm done being ashamed."
Amos' fingers close around mine.
Dominic orders Thai food because cooking three meals has apparently reached his daily limit.
We eat on the living room floor, all three of us, Amos propped on his pillow stack with the food containers arranged within reach.
The conversation drifts between work logistics and a ten-minute debate about whether pad thai counts as a pregnancy craving if I wanted it before the pregnancy.
"It counts." Amos dips a spring roll in sauce. "Cravings can manifest retrospectively. The body anticipates nutritional needs before conscious awareness catches up."
"That's not how cravings work." Dominic opens another container.
"The literature supports it."
"The literature supports whatever you want it to support." Dominic hands me the container of rice. "Eat more rice. The baby needs carbs."
"The baby is the size of a kidney bean and doesn't need anything except for its three parents to stop arguing about pad thai." I take the rice anyway. Arguing with Dominic about nutrition has become a battle I don't have the energy to fight.
After dinner Dominic clears the containers and disappears into the kitchen. Water runs in the kitchen while cabinets open and close behind him.
Amos' eyes are closing. The Percocet he took an hour ago is pulling him toward sleep. His hand is still in mine, his fingers going slack.
"Niah." His voice is blurred with the medication.
"I'm here."
"You're going to be a really good parent." He says it with his eyes closed and his thumb tracing a circle against my palm.
"How do you know that?" I press my face against his chest. My only model for parenting is a woman who sold me to Alphas for profit.
"That's exactly how I know." His thumb keeps tracing. "Because you know what not to do. You know every mistake she made and you'll spend the rest of your life making sure your child never feels any of it."
"Our child." I correct him. "Our child, Amos."
"Our child." His eyes open enough to find mine. "Come here."
I climb onto the couch beside him on the right side, careful of the left where the broken ribs are wrapped beneath his shirt. His arm comes around my shoulders and I settle against his chest with my ear over his heartbeat.
"I love you." The words come out against his chest, muffled by his shirt.
Amos goes still beneath me, his steady pulse stuttering for two beats before settling back.
"I know I said it before, but I wasn’t… all here." I press my palm flat against his chest. "This is the version where I looked at everything you've done and everything you've failed at. I chose you anyway."
"Niah..." His arm tightens around my shoulders.
"I was scared that saying it made it real. Real things get taken away. My mother took my childhood and my trust and my ability to recognize when someone loved me. I was terrified that if I said it with my whole chest, someone would come along and rip it out."
"No one is going to rip it out." His voice is rough. "Not while I'm breathing."
"You almost weren't breathing." I lift my head to look at him. "You stepped in front of Richard's fists to protect me and the baby. I sat in that hospital room and realized I'd rather say it and lose you than never say it at all."
His eyes are wet behind his glasses. His hand comes up and cups my face.
"I love you, Amos." I say it aimed at his face this time. "I love your spreadsheets and your folic acid updates. I love that you took a beating for me and then told Dominic to call the lawyer."
"Noted." His voice cracks on the word. "I love you too, Niah. That hasn't changed since the garden."
I catch movement in the doorway. Dominic is leaning against the frame with a dish towel in his hand. He's been standing there long enough.
I look at him across the room.
"I love both of you. I think I have since the garden, but nobody ever taught me the word for this." Dominic's hand tightens on the dish towel. "But you're still going to have to make up for using me for the rest of your lives, probably."
Dominic crosses the room and kneels beside the couch. He sets the dish towel on the carpet and his hand finds the back of my neck. His forehead presses against mine and I can feel his breath on my mouth.
"I can live with that." He says it against my mouth.
"We can live with that." Amos' hand rests on my back from behind.