Thomas smiled. “Thank you,” he whispered. I gave the boney little twerp a hug.
I walked over to Claire. I started to get a lump in my throat. I would be devastated if anything happened to her. She was like the sister that I never had. She grabbed me, and we hugged one another. We both wept uncontrollably. Then we looked at each other and laughed.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be back before you know it.”
“I hope so. I love you, Claire.”
“I love you, too.” She gave me another quick hug, and they headed out to the truck.
“I’m going to walk them out,” Nick ran out after them. I watched from the front porch. He went to the passenger side and opened the door for Claire. They stood and spoke for a few minutes, and then they embraced. He kissed her on the cheek. She smiled, and looked to be somewhat embarrassed. He helped her in and closed the door for her. Sophie started the truck, and they drove off.
When Nick came back to the porch, I met him at the top of the stairs. “What?” he said with an innocent smile.
“Unbelievable.” I had my hands on my hips.
“What?”
“You!”
“What did I do?” He had a ridiculous smirk on his face.
“You have the hots for Claire, don’t you?”
He brushed past me and into the house. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Nicholis Cooper! You better tell me what’s going on!”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He plucked a book off our dad’s bookshelf, sat down on the couch, and began to sift through it.
“Nick! You two had sex, didn’t you?”
“Shh, baby sis. I’m reading.” He smiled and chuckled, knowing he had information that I wanted.
“Ugh!”
I stomped off through the kitchen, only to find Henry standing in front of the fireplace, looking at our family pictures. I lingered in the doorway between the kitchen and the family room, enjoying the view of the beautiful man in front of me. When he realized I was there, he said, “You had a beautiful family, Elaina.”
“Yes, I did.”
“It pains me, knowing what has happened to them.”
“Me, too.”
“I hope we can have a family someday.”
I smiled. “That would be amazing. I think you would make a fantastic father.”
“Really?”
I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Yes. But we need to talk about this a bit more.”
He frowned. “Right.” He turned around, sounding disappointed.
“We can’t have a baby any time soon.” I tried to keep my voice down so Nick didn’t hear our conversation.
“I agree.”
“So, we’ll have to be careful.”
“Ahh, yes. That.” Realizing where the conversation was going, he said, “Right. Of course.”
“Good, I’m glad we’re on the same page.” I nestled my nose into his neck. Even his funk smelled good to me. He kissed the side of my neck and moved up to my ear, licking and nipping. My nerves were dancing all over my body. I started touching him, caressing his cool, battered body. Then I pulled away with a gasp.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“We can’t.” He looked annoyed. “Did you forget the conversation we just had a few moments ago?”
“Hmm…yes. I must have some sort of short-term memory loss. Too many concussions, you know.” I rolled my eyes at him, and he winked at me.
“Plus…I have some questions.”
“About?”
“You, and what you are.”
“Alright.” He guided me over to the sofa. “Ask away.”
“Sophie’s kids... They aren’t like you?”
“I don’t know exactly. I can’t imagine he would have lied about that.” What he said made absolute sense, but I had more questions.
“If you’re infected, wouldn’t you infect me?”
“Like I said before, there has to be a blood/saliva mix in order to contaminate you.”
“So the injection that they forced into you was made with saliva?”
“A small amount of the virus was mixed with saliva, then injected into my blood stream.”
“So the full blown injection was made with saliva, as well?” I was disgusted.
“Yes, but it was highly concentrated.”
I chewed my cheek for a second. “Right.” I paused again. “I’m just worried, you know, if I get pregnant…”
“I’m sorry. I wish I knew how it all worked, but that was never explained to me. But, like I said, that fluid is clean.” He looked at me in a bit of a sinister sort of way. Then he wiggled his eyebrows up and down. I had to ignore his advances. He sighed when he realized it wasn’t working.