That damn smile slips over his stupidly handsome face. “You wouldn’t want me any other way, sweetheart.”
I hate that he’s right. I don’t want him any other way. But for today, he’s irritating the hell out of me.
“I didn’t dump you,” I say to him, and that sparks some emotion in his brown eyes. Hurt? Anger? I can’t be sure.
“Felt that way from over here.”
“How in the world can you even think that I dumped you?”
“You left.”
I blink at him. “I went away for a year for my freaking job, Brax.”
“You left,” he says again. Now I really do need some fresh air, so I stomp back out to his porch and kick the post next to the steps.
“That’s it,” I mutter and pace. “I’m done with this. If I don’t leave and wash my hands of this, he’ll suck me in with that smile and sweetheart, and I will not let this man break my heart twice.”
I walk back through the door, ready to tell him that I’m leaving for good, and almost collide with the man himself. He’s standing in the middle of the living room, watching me.
“You’re supposed to be resting. Why are you standing?”
“Because I saw you throw that adorable little fit on my porch.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Josie,” he says and reaches for my hand. “I’m sorry, okay? Really.”
His voice has softened, lost that cocky edge, and now I know I’m in deep shit.
“I should go,” I say but don’t pull away as he gently tugs me closer to him. “And you should lie down.”
“I think we need to talk some things out.” He presses his lips against my forehead, and my eyes slide closed. It’s always felt so right when I’m right here, like this. And I know I’ve missed him.
Yeah, we have plenty to talk about.
His fingers link with mine, and his free hand drifts up my arm to cup my face. As if in a trance, my mouth lifts to his, and his brushes over mine, so gently it’s almost like a whisper.
His fingers tighten on my cheek as he takes the kiss just a little deeper, nibbling my lips and rubbing my nose with his.
My God, did he get even better at kissing since the last time I saw him? How is that even possible?
“Josie,” he says in a whisper. “We need to talk. But I might fall over if I don’t sit.”
That pulls me out of the romantic haze. “Oh, God. Of course, you need to sit. Come on, let’s get you settled.”
“I think everything just caught up with me,” he says as he carefully lowers himself to the couch and lies down. “Don’t go, okay?”
“I’m going to go get you some supplies,” I tell him as I cover him with a throw blanket. “You just sleep.”
Before I finish the sentence, he’s breathing deeply, already under. The poor guy was in a traumatic accident less than twelve hours ago, and I’ve been arguing with him.
Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but it can wait.
I set the medicine on his counter with explicit instructions that I wrote on yellow sticky notes and placed in front of the bottles. While I wrote instructions for him earlier, these are clearer. There’s also soup in the fridge that he just has to heat up. That should last him a couple of days.
I check his temperature one last time before I go.
I don’t want to see any sign of fever, and thankfully, there isn’t any.
I need to go home and sleep.
So, I kiss Brax on the forehead and then let myself out, locking the front door as I leave by pressing the button on the keypad and turning the deadbolt.
I feel like a zombie. I’m exhausted from work and not much sleep to speak of yesterday, and I’m emotionally drained after having Brax unexpectedly crash back into my life.
Literally.
All I need right now is rest.
Maddie’s already left for work when I get home. I don’t even bother eating anything, just bypass the kitchen on my way up to my bedroom. I quickly shower off the night of work, put on pajamas, and make sure that nothing interrupts me while I sleep by setting the phone to DND, drawing the black-out blinds, and turning on my sound machine to drown out any noise from outside.
It’s dark and cool in my room as I snuggle down under the covers and fall into a dreamless sleep.
“Have you heard from him?” Maddie asks. I’ve been awake for all of fifteen minutes after a solid eight hours of sleep. The first thing I did was walk downstairs and tell Maddie about Brax’s accident and everything that unfolded afterward.
“No,” I reply and pour myself some coffee. “Either he’s still sleeping, he doesn’t want my help, or he woke up and remembered that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”