Emergency Medical Dad

XXXVI: early july, present

JESSIE

The lake house turns out to be almost in the middle of nowhere. It's well off the beaten path and a good ways into the forest, leaving just a little dock off into a pond and a cabin that looks like it should hold maybe three but appears to be holding at least a good group of the guys from the barn.

Two cars are parked out front and ours makes a third, crammed into the parking space between two trees. It looks as if the boys planned for us to be here too.

"Who's here?"

"If I'm right, Luka, Kaz, Duke, Pitty and Ian, that should be the peak of who could come."

"That's quite a group, how much can this place sleep?"

"Four? Maybe five if someone takes the couch?"

I give him one long look, "who's... sleeping where?"

He shrugs, "I've never been here so who knows."

"What are we planning on doing?"

"I assume an assortment of things," he shuts off the car. "Luka will be high out of his mind this whole time so I guess that's something we know will happen regardless. Kaz might join him."

"Ah-"

"You don't have to if you don't want to, in fact, you shouldn't if you don't really want to. I'll be right there with you, I should steer clear."

"Okay, good, thank you."

"No problem, and if they make you uncomfortable or you feel pressured at all, just find me. We can go home or change topics or do something and fix it."

He's overprotective to a point where I might have to ask him to breathe a little bit. I like it, it feels nice that he's acting as sort of a faraday cage against everything I can't see but at the same time he almost treats me the same way he treats Connor.

In the next fifteen minutes we manage to get all of our stuff into the little house and spark an argument with the boys already inside.

"Alright, but she's the only girl, she shouldn't have to sleep on the floor or a couch or whatever, she needs a bed, like a real actual bed." Kazian proclaims from the other room.

"I'm not giving up a bed to just one person, beds are a two person deal," Luka sounds like he's right up in his face in return.

"But it's Jessie, who would we even make her sleep next to?"

"I dunno, take a wild guess," it's almost so riddled with sarcasm I'd be willing to put money on him having practiced the tone, "maybe, I'd go with the guy that she's spent every minute of the last two months with, no breaks, instead of any of us schmucks that she doesn't really even know."

"Yeah but what if she doesn't wanna sleep next to him, huh? He's got all those night terror thingies, he's probably a menace to be in bed with."

I'm watching him from across the little kitchen, listening to the conversation in the other room. That comment makes Jorgen's eyebrows shoot up.

"In bed?"

"Not like that, you know I mean not like that," Luka groans. "Though if she's getting her shit rocked by Jorgen every night, honestly we should separate them because there's no way that man can't go for a couple hours and I really don't wanna hear that."

"Right, but Jorgen is respectful and Jessie is too shy."

"Jorgen ain't respectful to those guts."

Jorgen's got his hand over his mouth, staring at his toes. The shake in his shoulders is telling me he's trying very hard not to laugh and the red in my cheeks is highlighting the fact that I am trying very hard not to think about Jorgen in bed. It's harder than anything mental I've done in a while. Simply the fact that the veins that run down the back of his hands are showing from the position he's standing in is making me a little queasy.