Page 20 of Proslo

I smiled at her. “I’m here to see Michik and hand off my cases for the next two weeks.”

“Oh! Yes, that makes sense. He should be right out. He was just giving Darla a check up.”

As if on cue, one of the exam room doors opened and Commander Gundar’s very pregnant mate waddled out.

“We’ll see you again in two weeks,” Michik told her and she nodded. “We’ll send the appointment time to your tablet before the end of today.”

“Thank you, Michik. I’ll try to get Gundar to come along since you’ll be doing the 4-D scan.” Darla caught sight of me and smiled widely. “Chief Proslo, how is newly mated life treating you?”

I grinned back at her. “Very well. We’re off tomorrow for an elopement followed by our honeymoon, so I thought it best if I came to do handover with this male here sooner rather than later.”

“Likthir,” Michik called out to one of our senior medics, “go check on our post surgical patient in Alpha wing, please.”

“On it.” Likthir hurried off. “There, everything else can be handled by Lillian and the rest of the team while we speak in the conference room.”

We adjourned to the indicated room and I quickly apprised him of my upcoming appointments and existing active cases who’d been admitted.

“Well, I was already up to date on most of these, seeing as I’ve been covering your two regular days off. Don’t concern yourself with a thing. Sickbay will be in good order when you return.”

I clapped him on the shoulder as I stood up to leave. “I never had a moment’s doubt.”

“Have one of those fruity umbrella drinks for me,” he replied. “They’re sweet but satisfying.”

“I will,” I promised him. Any particular one I should try?”

“Whatever they say their signature one is. You can’t go wrong then,” he advised. “Especially if it has rum in it.” He licked his lips and I decided to bring him back a bottle of local rum if possible as a thank you.

“I’m going to quickly go round and say good-bye to my patients,” I told him. I wanted them to hear about my taking leave from me and not find out when I simply never showed back up. That would have been unprofessional.

I was done a lot sooner than expected and decided to stop and pick up a fresh bouquet of flowers for my own blossom of humanity. I also stopped by Taco Taco and picked us up some lunch as a sort of apology for leaving her alone the rest of the morning and part of the early afternoon. Okay, a very small part, but still. It was only our second full day of mating and I’d gone into work. I felt like a terrible mate.

Reaching our front door, I steeled myself, determined to show her how much I treasure her and regretted having to leave her for even such a short time. Remembering how I’d seen it done in the vids, I went over the mental checklist, eager to not miss a thing. Flowers, check. Food so she didn’t feel as if she had to cook or replicate anything or feel bad that I came home from work and did so, check. That left only one thing left to do - go inside and greet her. I opened the door and stepped inside.

“Honey, I’m home!”

13

BETTY

I’d let my anxiety about techy stuff get the better of me, as usual. Xeranos, who’d told me to call him Xero from now on, had been kindly patient as he walked me through the ridiculously easy process of syncing my Kindle to the Fleet’s Library. I’d even replaced my KU borrowed books with editions from the Library. I felt pretty silly afterwards, seeing as the entire process had been so simple.

That done, I’d replicated myself a blueberry and vanilla frappe and settled back down into my Papasan chair to start reading the first in the Fire and Stone romantasy trilogy. I was so deeply engrossed in the story, that I didn’t notice the door open and Proslo come in until he I heard his deep voice call out, “Honey, I’m home!”

I stared at him over the top of my Kindle, a grin teasing the corners of my mouth. He’d gone all sixties sitcom on me again, with that greeting and a bouquet of flowers. Then my nose twitched and my stomach grumbled. “Do I smell Mexican food?” I demanded, my eyes falling straight to the bag he held in his other hand.

He smiled proudly. “I got us lunch from Taco Taco.”

“Tacos! You absolute angel!”

I put down my ereader and jumped up, making grabby hands. “Give me the precious!”

He looked baffled, holding out both hands to me. I took the bag of food and started for the kitchen. “I’ll grab us some plates,” I called out. “Grab a pitcher from the cupboard and put those in some water. I don’t think either of us owned a vase.”

“I can replicate one,” he replied, following me into the kitchen. I pulled out two plates and watched as he ordered a vase full of water with food for the flowers already in it. One appeared and he carefully unwrapped the flowers and placed them inside it.

“Stick them on the table,” I suggested, going to put the plates on the dinette table I’d indicated.

“You have a seat,” he murmured, placing the vase of flowers in the center. “I’ll bring us something to drink.”