Nothing But This (Broken Pieces 2)

She gently wiped away the blood with some wet wipes, pausing for a long moment when the cleanup revealed the white gold of his wedding band. She stared but didn’t comment on it. Greyson had noticed that she no longer wore her ring, a feminine version of his.

They had had a rushed civil ceremony, nothing traditional, wanting to present family and friends with a fait accompli rather than having everyone weigh in on the subject of their nuptials. The only bit of tradition to the ceremony had been the exchange of rings, which they had chosen together.

Greyson hated that she no longer wore hers. But he couldn’t blame her for removing it. He had abandoned her at the time when a woman needed her husband most.

He hissed in shock and pain when something cold, wet, and really bloody astringent came into contact with the wound. It served as an effective distraction from his roiling thoughts, and he yanked his injured limb out of her grasp. “God. What the hell was that?”

“Don’t shout. You’ll wake Clara,” she warned, grabbing his hand again and dabbing at it some more with a wet cotton swab. Whatever was on the swab smelled sharp and surgical and burned like a son of a bitch!

He cringed when she daubed it all over his cut, his eyes watering at the vicious sting of it.

“Satan uses that shit to torture lost souls in hell,” he ground out from between tightly clenched teeth.

Olivia shot him a narrow-eyed look. “It’s antiseptic, you big baby,” she said. “Clara fussed less when she got her first shots at a mere two months.”

“Why does an infant need shots at such a young age?” he asked in horror, momentarily diverted from his own discomfort. He hated needles and couldn’t imagine his tiny daughter being stuck with one.

“Her first vaccinations,” Olivia replied, her head down again as she thankfully set the bottle of antiseptic aside to pick up the gauze. “She’s due for her second dose next week.”

Greyson didn’t say anything but wondered how she would take it if he asked to accompany them on that doctor’s visit. He filed the information away for later. She had allowed him a lot of leeway today, and he knew asking for anything more would be pushing it. He would save that particular request for a different day.

She placed a square cotton pad on his palm over the wound and wrapped it securely in gauze. Her movements were sure and efficient.

“Something tells me you’ve done this before,” he said.

“Lots of little accidents happen in restaurant kitchens. I’m certified to perform first aid and CPR,” she said, and he nodded a bit dazedly. He knew her very well, better than she realized, but she was right—there was so much they didn’t know about each other.

He tended to withhold himself from others. He hadn’t believed that she needed to know more than he wanted her to. But hearing about her first aid certification, he wondered how much more he didn’t know about her, and he was greedy—desperate—to know everything.

For the first time he understood how frustratingly elusive he must have seemed to her. He kept people at a distance, deliberately parceled out only the most basic information about himself. And he hadn’t seen the need to be any different with Olivia. He’d reasoned that she’d known him her entire life, and that was more information than most other women had ever had about him. He’d thought it would be enough.

It wasn’t.

And he now recognized that even if he hadn’t fucked everything up with his stupidity, if he had continued keeping the most important pieces of himself from her, their marriage probably would have failed anyway.

Because he had expected so much more than he had been willing to give.

“Done,” she said, releasing his hand. He immediately missed her soft, gentle touch on his skin and swallowed painfully, trying to alleviate the dryness in his throat.

“Thank you,” he said hoarsely, lifting his hand to inspect her neat dressing. He folded his fingers, forming a loose fist, wincing at the painful pull of his skin. “I’ll fix the water and then, when Clara’s awake, fit the bolts on the door. I’ll change the lock tomorrow. I don’t think I can do it today.”

“I don’t think you can do any of those other things today. Not with that hand,” she argued.

“I’m fine.”

“Greyson, don’t be . . .”

“I can do it, Olivia,” he said softly, and the rest of her argument petered out into a soft sigh.

“What are you trying to prove?” she asked, her voice tired.

“That you can depend on me.”

“I don’t want to have to depend on you. I don’t need you, Greyson. I can do this on my own.”

“I know you can,” he said. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

“No, I shouldn’t. But I’m going to.”