Chapter 211

#Chapter 211 – Midnight Chats “Well, you look happy,” Victor says to me, coming close when I walk back to the RV after hanging up with Bridgette. “So why am I wiping tears from your face?

He does just that as he says it, wiping my cheeks with his thumb, looking down into my face with concern on his.

“It’s nothing,” I say, trying to be encouraging. Then I lift my phone, which he can see has a couple tears on it as well. “I was just talking to Bridgette. Trying to help her get things sorted.”

“That was good of you,” Victor says, pulling me close. “Is she all right?”

“Yes,” I say, wrapping my arms around his waist and putting my head against his chest. “Um…”

I hear him laugh lightly at my hesitation. “What,” he says, pulling back and looking at me. “I know that pause means you’re up to something.”

“Um,” I say again, biting my lip and then smiling innocently. “I kind of gave her…a lot of money.

Everything I took out of the account when I left with Ian.”

Victor laughs at that, shaking his head, dismissing it. “That’s fine. Did you think I’d be mad? We’ll take it out of Rafe’s pay.”

I burst into a smile, but then, pleased to think we had the same thought. But, when I consider his words further, I frown and narrow my eyes.

“What?” he asks again, smirking, looking at me in wonder. “What could you possibly be mad about now?”

“Why aren’t you madder that I gave away all that money? I mean, it was a lot of money.”

Victor just grins at me.

“Wait,” I narrow my eyes further, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Is that not a lot of money to you?

How rich are you?”

He laughs harder at that, pulling away from me and grabbing my hand, tugging me back towards the RV.

“Seriously!” I exclaim, letting him pull me. “Did you only give me a pittance of your actual wealth in my account? Did you give me chump change!?”

“You had more than enough to keep you comfortable, Evelyn,” he says over his shoulder.

“Yeah but if you’re THAT rich then it is rude of you to only give me a little bit! Divorce is 50/50!”

He shakes his head, grinning and turning towards me at the door to the RV. Before I can step inside, he pulls me tightly against him. “To get that, you’d have to marry me first.”

“Fine,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him. “I’ll marry you, just to divorce you, just to get half, and then I’ll know just how much you shortchanged me the first time I ran away.”

“Is that your idea of a yes?” Victor asks, his voice a husky murmur as he brings his face close to mine.

“Is that your idea of a proposal?” I respond, quirking an ironic brow. He opens his mouth to respond but I shut him up, swiftly wrapping a hand around the back of his neck to pull his face down to mine for a kiss.

A good, long one that leaves me breathless.

A breathlessness that reminds me…well, it’s a breathlessness that comes too soon. And it was not born of desire alone.

I pull away from Victor and see that his eyes are just as worried as mine in that moment, his face pale.

We are losing our strength rapidly, and he knows it just as well as I. But neither of us wants to face it right now. What could we do, anyway?

“Dinner?” he asks, looking towards the door.

“Yes,” I say, taking his hand and stepping close to him. I’m not hungry, but I want to sit down with my family and eat.

It was a pleasant, late dinner. The boys scarfed down enough that they left the plates clean, even though Victor and I hadn’t taken much food onto ours. They didn’t notice, but Stephen did, looking worriedly between us.

But no one says anything. Instead, I pack the boys off to bed and Stephen steps out for some air while Victor does the dishes.

When the boys are tucked in, their noise-cancelling headphones on while they watch shows on their ipads, I lean against the wall of the RV and watch Victor finish up.

“Who would have thought,” I say quietly, smiling at him. “That the big bad Alpha knows how to do dishes. And to stack them so neatly.”

Victor’s eyes flash towards me as he grins a little, pleased with himself. “The Navy teaches all sorts of things besides combat.”

“Oh really?” I ask, my eyebrows up. “And were you a dishwasher for long before they put you in SEAL training?”

“No,” he says, stacking the last dish and drying his hands with the towel as he comes over to me. “They saw my potential almost immediately. Packed me away to the tough stuff before I could lean the ins and outs of true scrubbing.”

He comes and takes me in his arms then, pulling me back on the lounge that would soon be pulled out to become Stephen’s bed.

“Shame,” I say, running my hands through his dark hair and taking a moment to let my eyes linger on his beautiful face. “It would be useful to have a housekeeper with all of the force of an Alpha personality.”

“Don’t let Burton hear you say that,” Victor murmurs, closing his eyes and enjoying the sensation of my fingers against his scalp. “He’ll be offended.”

I laugh a little and continue petting him, enjoying our quiet moment.

“Actually,” Victor says, his eyes still closed. “I was thinking of the Navy. For Ian.”

“What?” I say, surprised, sitting back in shock.

Victor opens his eyes, wondering why I’ve stopped.

“Do you want to like…ship our six-year-old son away to bootcamp?” I ask, confused.

“No,” he says, laughing and glancing back to where the boys are laying in their little bunks. “For his future, I mean. I think he could have an affinity for military strategy, that it could be very good for him.”

I bite my lip, considering it. It is, of course, every mother’s nightmare to send her little boy off to war – I hate to even entertain the idea. But Victor was a product of military training; I couldn’t deny that it had turned him into a good man.

“But not Alvin?” I ask quietly.

“I think his affinities lie elsewhere,” Victor says, considering. “I think he would be a great soldier or sailor, but that he would respond more avidly to academic, theoretical work. Engineering, technology.”

He shrugs, seeing my frown. “That sort of thing.”

“Why are you bringing this up now?” I ask him, curious. He understands, I see, that I’m not angry at him for talking about it. I just want to know where he’s coming from.

He shrugs and looks down at his hands. “I’ve just been…thinking. A lot. About their futures. Especially if…”

I reach out and take those hands. Especially if we don’t make it.

I can’t say the words aloud, but I highlight them in his mind. Because I know they’re already there, unsaid. He raises his eyes and looks into mine, and I know that we both get it.

Tears come instantly to my eyes and begin to spill over my cheeks. Victor moves closer to me, wiping them away, for the second time, with the soft press of his thumbs.

“God, I’m so sick of crying,” I say, laughing a little. It’s all I can do, in the face of this enormity. This unimaginable idea of leaving our children behind, alone. To face this world without us.

“I know,” he says, leaning into the joke with me. “Your eyeballs are going to dry out if you don’t stop.

Become crusty little raisins in your face.”

I laugh for real at that, the sound ringing from me and bringing a smile to his face as well. It’s a healing sound, and it brings us back to ourselves. To the hope and determination that rests at both of our cores.

“Emma and Delia,” I say quietly, meeting his eyes. “If we…don’t. I want them to take the boys.”

He nods. “I already wrote it down,” he says. “Signed, notarized. This morning. I know you should have signed it as well, but I didn’t want to upset you. And, since it’s what you’d want, and no one will fight the father’s signature, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“That’s all right,” I murmur, pulling him closer. “We won’t need it anyway.”

“No,” he says. “We certainly won’t.”