Chapter 36 Bloody And Bruised
Bloody And Bruised
Fiona
If one more person comes up and congratulates me, I might lose my mind. Seriously. Lose my mind. The picnic table seems to be fair game for everyone to approach me, as does the street.
This is getting to be the biggest ‘thing’ to ever happen on the street, and I might lose my mind and come clean, which will just make the whole Hope thing worse.
I fold the dough over.
Why is a teenage girl affecting your life this much? You’ve talked to hundreds of them. Dealt with way worse problems than this…surprise pregnancies, STDs, severe illnesses, death. A teenage girl who thinks she’s going to play matchmaker hardly makes it on the scale of the worst things in my life.
Press.
Fold.
Turn the dough.
Fold.
Press.
The repetition should help take my mind off of all the weirdness in my life—like the fact that Max and Dash are out there learning to code. Or the fact that I didn’t take him to daycare for a second day in a row.
Or the fact that Daria finds it hysterical to ask how my day is going every time she sees me.
It’s definitely not the fact that every one of my friends who knows about Canyon and me dating is probably planning our wedding in their head.
Press.
Fold.
Turn the dough.
The texture changes, and it’s time to stop kneading, but my head doesn’t want to. It wants to keep going until a solution pops up in my brain.
There’s no good solution except to stop fake dating Canyon.
But Max is actually acting comfortable around me. It’s like when he found out I was dating Canyon, he knew I wouldn’t pester him.
Press.
Fold.
Press.
Fold.
Turn the dough.
He so doesn’t know me if he ever thought I’d pester a man to date me…okay, that’s funny.
And so messed up. But if it were for real, I wouldn’t do any such thing.
I mean, that’s not really true. If I loved someone, I’d tell them…I think. But I still wouldn’t pester them to love me back. That doesn’t work.
You can’t make someone love you. I’ve seen enough kids try that to know it’s a recipe for disaster.
Press.
Fold.
Press.
What would Max do if he loved a woman?
My heart clenches.
“You okay?” Cammie stops next to me, carrying a tray of cupcakes.
“Yeah.” No. “I think I’m going to take a break.”
“I can put that in to proof for you.”
“Thanks.” I nab two cupcakes off the tray and head to the front of the bakery. Max likes his sweets and I haven’t eaten anything today.
My stomach rumbles in response.
A break was a good idea.
With a glass of milk and a cup of coffee also in hand, I head over to Max’s table.
Dash looks up to see me first with a big smile. He bashes his head against Max’s massive arm.
“What’s up, little man?” Max smiles at the baby.
“I think he was trying to tell you that I’m here.” I set down the dishes and slide into the chair across from my two boys…
What?
No!
They aren’t mine. What nonsense was I thinking? Must be the lack of food.
“Hey.” A smile spreads across Max’s face.
It should be wrong for a man to look that stunning by simply smiling.
“Hey. I thought you might be ready for a snack. I brought you a cupcake.”
He glances down at it and grimaces. “I hate cupcakes.”
Really? Most men love sweets. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I can go grab you a cookie or a sandwich if you’d prefer.”
“No. No. It’s fine. I’m going to take Dash over to the park for some fresh air in a little while.”
That’s sweet. And something I’d totally expect from Max. “Thanks. I’m sure he’ll enjoy that.”
Max reaches up to brush back the lock that’s always falling in his face.
“What happened to your hand?” Most of his hand is wrapped up, and there’s blood starting to come through.
He glances down at it, chagrined. “I hurt them yesterday.”
“Both of them look like that?”
He nods.
“You need them re-bandaged.”
“They’re fine.”
Such a man thing to say. “Come with me.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, I’ll re-bandage them for you. You can leave your stuff here. No one will touch it.” I nod towards Jacko, sitting in the corner, starting on his meal.
“Really, it’s nothing.”
Whatever. I take a nod from Emilia again and get up and start walking.
As I step onto the street, he’s next to me. “They’re really fine. They look worse than they are.”
An eyebrow raise is all it takes for him to stop. “Give me Dash. Carrying him has got to hurt.”
He returns the eyebrow raise, but doesn’t hand over the baby.
Stubborn man.
We walk in silence to my apartment.
Daria’s writing with Knight today, so the apartment is thankfully empty. “You can put Dash on his blanket. I’ll go grab the medicine basket.”
If anyone knows how to fix bloody wounds without a medical degree, it’s me. I walk back in to find Max standing next to the wall of books, staring like he’s memorizing them.
“This is quite a collection.”
“It is. We’re starting to run out of room for Daria’s collection.” I set the basket on the coffee table. “Come on over. It won’t hurt…much.”
“Famous last words.” He smiles as he sits way too close to me on the couch.
I reach for his hand.
“You aren’t going to put on gloves?”
“Do I need to?”
He tips his head to the side.
“Max, I trust you to tell me if I need to put on gloves.” That was thoughtless, but digging out gloves from somewhere in the back of a closet where I threw them five years ago hardly seems worth the effort.
“You don’t need them.”
His all too soft voice sends a shiver down my spine…That felt too intimate.
Focus on the job at hand, not on silly, meaningless physical reactions. I hold out my hand, and he sets his large one on it.
The size difference is marked. His meaty fingers make mine look practically dainty. Carefully, I unwrap his hand.
A gasp escapes my lips as all the bleeding and discoloration comes into view. Those have to hurt. How can he even move them?
“Fea.”
I glance up at his face.
“Don’t cry.”
I never cry. They tortured all the tears out of me when I was…My hip itches. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t cry.”
How? How is that possible?
Don’t think about it.
You have a job to do.
“If this is too hard for you, I can walk over to the clinic.”
“It isn’t. I do it all the time.”
He glances over at the box and then back at me. “Your basket makes Mom’s stock in the house seem almost reasonable. Why do you do this all the time?”
Think of something. Anything. You need a reasonable lie. Something believable. Or at least halfway believable.
“You searching that pretty little head of yours for a lie?”
Obviously, I’m not doing it well. Oh well. The truth will have to do. “Yes.”
“Just tell me you’re not ready to share that with me. I’d prefer that to a lie.”
“I’m not ready to share that with you.” And I won’t ever be.
He reaches up and brushes a finger across my cheek. “Thank you.”
I forget to breathe.
Max leans forward until our heads are almost touching.
The world closes in until only Max and I exist in it, and even our breathing syncs up.
Slowly, he moves closer, and my eyes close.
My stomach lets out the loudest rumble, startling me. A blush steals up my face.
“You're hungry. I’m sorry I took you away from your cupcake.”
I’m not. I was before, but my belly feels too fluttery right now to eat. “It’s nothing. Let’s get your hands taken care of.”