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He had a point, but one thing stuck out. “I’m bleeding,” I squealed, jerking my foot up to see and almost making him drop me.
Sure enough, there was a trail of blood down my foot.
It wasn’t like I was gushing, but it was bad enough for a wussy like me to faint. Which was exactly what I did.“Thanks, man. I’ll make sure she stays off it,” Kip assured the doctor that he’d brought me to see, who incidentally was one of his friends.
“I know he’s irritating as hell, but try not to throw anything breakable at him again,” Josh advised me. “Go for heavy and unbreakable.”
Seeing as how I was still being carried around by the big oaf, I had to concede that his advice was smart.
“Thank you for patching me up.”
Here’s some irony for you. The shard that was in my right foot had come from the mug I’d thrown. The shard in my left one, though, was from a color changing mug that went from plain black to a picture of a naked woman.
Ask me how I know.
Because, as Josh had pulled it out, he’d found that the bit that’d been inside my foot had turned into a nipple.
A photo of it was texted to Hayden, and he’d shared that it’d been a gag gift from one of his team, and he’d laughed so hard when he’d seen what it changed into that he’d dropped it. Apparently, though, that’d happened five weeks ago, so it was just bad luck that I’d found the piece that’d escaped five weeks of cleaning. Oh, and that it was the boobie part. That nipple had resulted in five stitches in my foot that wouldn’t come out for a week. My other foot needed two days of no weight on it, and then I could just hobble.
Basically, I was screwed.
Thinking about how shitty my luck was, I wasn’t listening to what Kip was saying until he said, “He can’t install it until next Tuesday, though, so you’ll stay at mine. It’ll make it easier to help you out with your feet.”
“Wait, back up. A, what’s being installed next Tuesday? B, why would I need to stay at yours?” The last word came out squeaky due to the fact that his arm around my back had shifted to hold a lot more of my butt, and his knee lifted to rest under the other part of my booty while he looked for something in his pocket.
I figured out it was the keys to his SUV when I heard the locks click on the vehicle beside us. What can I say, blood loss made me stupid.
“Hayden doesn’t have a security system in his house, and the guy who does the best work according to him is away until then. For your safety, and so you don’t hurt your feet even more, you’ll stay at my house.”
“Why does Hayden need security?”
It might sound like a dumb question, but if he hadn’t had it installed before now, maybe there was a good reason? Like the area being safe.
“Because he’s a well-known figure, and you’re staying there on your own.” He refrained from adding a ‘duh,’ but his tone didn’t.
Then, he carefully placed me on the passenger seat and put my belt on me—even though I had zero injuries to my hands—and then walked around the front of the vehicle to get in behind the wheel. If I’d gotten in on my own, I’d have had to boost myself into the seat, but he made it look easy and did it almost elegantly.
Stupid smug footballer.
Yes, I was being unreasonable, but I was in the midst of a moral dilemma here. I avoided unnecessary interaction with sports players at all costs with good reason—some childhood memories left deep scars. And here he was being all nice and genuine and I couldn’t get away from it. I also owed a lot of money to a charity for him that I was certain I’d have to ask my brother for and then pay him back with my firstborn.
And I couldn’t freaking just run away from him because I couldn’t even walk.
I stayed silent, focused on the view out of my window, as he reversed out of the parking space and then drove us home. It wasn’t a pissed off silence, more a frustrated one.
“You being this quiet is making me nervous,” he muttered as he navigated us toward our homes.
“I’m thinking.”
“I’m more used to verbal rants and anger,” he admitted, shocking me into looking at him. “My ex used to do that if I did something to piss her off. Come to think of it, she used to do it for everything.” The last bit was said quietly, almost like he was saying it to himself.
For some reason, him letting down that wall made me drop my own, and I offered up something I never spoke about—my ex.
