Charlie nodded. “It came on really suddenly. It’s one of her migraines.”
Dammit. Jordan had suffered from migraines since they’d been about seventeen. They’d started suddenly and he knew her doctors thought they were hormonally influenced. He also knew she had special medication for them and that they knocked her out of commission for most of the day when they occurred. But he didn’t know…much else.
Her mother had taken care of her when she’d lived at home and when she got to college she mostly handled them on her own.
But he knew what she would need the next day. She’d text him and say that she’d had one the night before and could he bring her a cheeseburger, fries, and the biggest Coke he could find.
So tomorrow he could help her.
But he wasn’t sure what to do right now.
Well, he could nix the plan for Dill Prickles, one of the new porcupines, to go home with him tonight.
He pulled out his phone and noticed the text.
Going home. Headache. Just need to sleep.
He blew out a breath. Well, fuck. The thing he hated the most was when he felt like he didn’t know what to do for someone he cared about. Particularly Jordan, of course.
Thankfully, he knew better than to call her or head home, wake her up, and ask what she needed.
She would be in bed, shades drawn, lights off, door shut, just wanting to be left alone.
Yeah, he’d made the mistake in college of knocking on her dorm room door when she’d had one. It had been with good intentions. He really had been concerned and wanted to help. But she’d looked so miserable, and had begged him to leave her alone, and that had been all she needed to say.
But he’d sat outside her door, doing his homework in the hallway to keep anyone else from knocking or even shouting in the hallways or slamming their own doors.
She’d almost tripped over him the next morning when she’d come out to head to the showers.
That was when she’d asked for a cheeseburger and a Coke.
He’d had to drive several miles to find a twenty-four-hour café that would make a cheeseburger at seven thirty in the morning. But he’d done it. And nothing had made him feel better than delivering exactly what she needed after she’d been so miserable.
So, he could definitely get her a cheeseburger and fries tomorrow morning. He knew that Cora or Ellie would happily make a burger for her while they were frying eggs and hash browns for the rest of their breakfast crowd.
But right now, he had nothing.
“You feeling okay?” Charlie asked.
“Useless,” Fletcher said with a shrug. “But otherwise fine.”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “It definitely sucks when the person we love is upset or hurt.” She cast a glance at Griffin, who was listening to Zeke tell him about the zebra pen. “And I know it’s hard for you, Fletcher. But you can’t fix everything. She’ll be okay.”
She would. In the overall scheme of things. But knowing she was hurting right now and there was nothing he could do, definitely sucked.
He really just wanted to head home with a cheeseburger. Or balloons. Or ice cream. Or take her for a drive. Or any of the other stuff he’d done for her in the past when she hadn’t felt good.
But see, the timing was off. In the past, he’d known when to show up.
At the end, of course. For the grand finale.
Now…he was the husband. Twenty-four-seven. All the hours were his now. And he needed to figure out what to do in them.
This was the stuff he had to learn.
This was the stuff that Jason had done.
Fuck.
“What happened?” Naomi asked, leaning in.
Fletcher realized he’d said the “fuck” out loud. He shook his head. “Just trying to figure out this marriage thing. Wish there was a handbook.”
“You’ve got a real live handbook right here,” Owen said, stretching his arms out and hugging his wife Maddie to his side. “You’re surrounded by people living in wedded bliss. What do you need to know?”
Fletcher looked around. He had a point. Josh, Owen, Sawyer, and Kennedy were all married. Happily. His mom and dad and several of his aunts and uncles had also been doing the marriage thing for a long time. And then there were Ellie and Leo. His grandparents had been married for fifty some years. They’d even divorced and gotten remarried. To one another. So they definitely knew something about the ups and downs.
“Okay,” he said to his family at large. “What if you’re already married when you figure out that you might not be good at it?”
Owen looked at Sawyer, then at Josh then back to Fletcher. He nodded. “Yup, sounds like you’re about right where you should be.”
Fletcher frowned.
Josh nodded his agreement. “Yeah, if you’re not wondering what the hell you’re doing, and feeling like you’re fucking it up once in a while, you’re either delusional, or you’re just not paying attention.”
Tori leaned in and kissed his cheek. “But it’s so sexy when you work on getting it right.”
“For sure,” Maddie agreed. “And it’s not like I’m getting it right every second either. Working at it is a way to show your love, too.”
“Definitely,” Sawyer agreed. “And if you never mess up, you never get to have make-up sex.”
“Hell, I piss her off sometimes on purpose just for the make-up sex,” Owen said.
Maddie lifted a brow. “And sometimes I pretend I’m pissed off just for the make-up sex.”
Owen grinned. “Yeah? You’re very convincing when you’re pretending to be mad at me.”
“You’re very convincing when you’re ‘pretending’ to screw up,” she returned with an eye roll.
Owen just laughed.
“So you already did something to require make-up sex?” Mitch asked Fletcher. “You’ve been married for like a minute. And I’ve never seen Jordan pissed at you.”
Fletcher had to admit that the few times he and Jordan had ever argued had been minor. Except about the fucking tour with Jason. And she’d gone home after he’d made her cry so none of these people had seen that.
He shook his head. “Nope. She’s got a migraine. Pretty sure there’s no migraine sex.”
Or was there? Maybe he needed to look that up. There were endorphins and things like that, right? If only sex would fix this. They were getting really good at the making out. Getting to know Jordan’s body and her turns-ons and teaching her a few things she hadn’t even known she’d liked had been amazing. There had been grand finales every fucking night this week, thank you very much.
Until tonight.
Tonight he couldn’t come through with an orgasm, an amazing article to help build the new petting zoo program, or a cute animal to play with. Well, he could. But none of it would fix what Jordan had going on.
Tonight he couldn’t do a damned thing.
“Yeah, well, there’s good days and bad. That’s what those vows are all about,” Sawyer said.
They were. Even when you made those vows spontaneously because you were trying to be the big shot knight-in-shining-armor.
“Right,” Fletcher said with a nod. “I know. Just…still adjusting.”
“I’m not sure it ever stops being an adjustment.” Josh placed his hand lovingly on his wife’s big, pregnant belly. “There’s always something new to figure out.”