“Yet,” I was pretty sure I’d gone into shock.
“You’re not my wife. So I don’t have the husband systems. Yet.”
“So what…you… what are you using now. A notebook? A spreadsheet?”
“Custom app. Had Luca build it.” he said, like that was less insane.
I choked. He could not be serious right now.
“Luca knows about this?”
“He wrote the code. He doesn’t see the data. It’s all under my profile. I’m not an amateur.”
I pressed my hands over my face. Heat burned from my chest to my ears. “This is not normal behaviour. You have a custom app to track my period!”
He slid closer, him palm firm on my knee. “Hey. Stay in bed with me, angel. Don’t start pacing.”
I hadn’t realised I was halfway to getting up until he said it.
“This is not normal,” I repeated, fingers digging into the comforter instead. “You cannot seriously think this is fine.”
“Madeline. It’s data.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“It makes it useful.” His thumb stroked my knee. “You act like I’m doing surveillance. I’m not watching cameras of you in the bathroom. I’m tracking dates and symptoms you tell your handler anyway.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not.” His voice stayed calm, annoyingly calm. “The handler uses that data for reports. I use it to take care of you.”
I glared at him. “Not everything I do is my period.”
“Baby… I never said that. I’m saying it’s a variable. Influencing how you feel, think, react. Not the only factor. One of them.”
“So if I get upset, you just… blame my uterus.”
“I’m not blaming anything.” He reached for my hand, tugged gently until I let him lace our fingers together. “I’m factoring.”
“That’s the coldest sentence I’ve ever heard,” I muttered.
He squeezed my hand. “Listen. Patterns matter. When you get this kind of… heavy. When you feel wrong in your own skin for no obvious reason. When you cry over me watching yourshow. It matters whether that’s coming from the city, from me, or from your body chemistry being an asshole.”
“You can’t prove it’s that.”
“Three days before and during, you get more sensitive to rejection. You second-guess yourself more. You apologise more. You go quiet in debriefs. You fidget harder. That’s not you being dramatic. That’s your body shifting hormone levels and your nervous system reacting.”
My pulse drummed in my ears.
“That still doesn’t make this normal.”
“If I know you’re three days out, I know I shouldn’t take your ‘I’m fine’ at face value. I know to offer more touch. To check if you’ve eaten. To ask twice instead of once. To not pick that fight I could save for next week. That’s not control. That’s care.”
My throat tightened. He lifted our joined hands and pressed a kiss to the back of mine.
He leaned in, free hand cupping my jaw, thumb brushing a tear away
“I care for the woman I love. Deeply. Obsessively. With every tool I have. My beautiful, gorgeous sub doesn’t get the half-version of me.” He kissed my cheek, along my jaw, my temple, the corner of my mouth.
