Page 11 of The Marriage Mistake

“He doesn’t seem very friendly with you.”

“That’s because I kept telling him things he didn’t want to hear.”

“Like how I’m going to die.”

“Well, only if the raccoon has rabies, and only if we don’t get you post-exposure prophylaxis treatment before symptoms start. Those are shots the doctor will give you.” I patted her arm dry and gave her a tight smile. “The likelihood of you dying is extremely low.”

She stared at me for a while. “You’re weird.”

I nodded. “I get that a lot.”

There was another crash, and then a streak of swearing that even had Darby’s brows jumping. Finally, a door slammed, and there was silence. I stepped out of the powder room and glanced down the hall, Darby poking her head around the corner to do the same. I could see Jack’s back, his head bowed, shoulders tense. The small slice of kitchen I could see was littered with debris, and one of the cabinet doors was hanging off its hinges.

Darby looked at me. I looked at Darby.

“I don’t hear the raccoon,” she noted.

I didn’t either, and Jack’s body language—combined with the slamming door—told me he’d probably gotten the animal out. Still, I moved slowly as I crept back down the hallway and finally took in the carnage in the kitchen.

The cereal boxes were shredded, their contents scattered all over the kitchen. The open cabinet with the broken door had once housed bottles of spices, which were now smashed and scattered all over the counters and tiles. A chair was overturned, and the table had been shoved up against the wall. The fridge door was hanging open.

Jack turned, clutching his arm. Blood welled between his fingers, and his face was caught in a grimace. “Fucker bit me,” he growled.

“Dad. Swear jar,” Darby said. “The F-word is ten bucks.”

Jack shot her a glance, and I saw annoyance and amusement warring in his gaze. “I need to go clean this up, and then we’ll work on the kitchen.”

“What? No.” I shook my head. “You’re going to go clean that up, and then the three of us are going to go get you guys your rabies shots.”

Jack stared at me, furious.

I crossed my arms. “You know I’m right.”

“Yeah, Dad. You don’t want to die, do you?”

He took his hand off his arm and pointed a bloody finger, waving it back and forth between me and Darby. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I don’t like what’s going on here.”

“Now you know how I feel,” I grumbled, staring at the carnage in the kitchen. I edged toward the closed door, glancing through the window panes in the top half of it to see if the raccoon still lingered outside. There was no sign of it, but I would definitely sprint to the car when I had to go out. Not that that was saying much; I wasn’t exactly a running enthusiast.

Unlike Jack, who was an avid runner, according to the research I’d done. My supposed love of running was only one of the many lies I’d told in my application. Lies I was now regretting. A lot.

Grumbling, Jack stalked out of the room. Darby walked to the skinny cupboard next to the fridge and pulled out a broom. We had made a small dent in the clean-up when Jack reappeared wearing a white T-shirt that showed off corded forearms and beautiful biceps. Not that I was staring, or anything. Most of my attention was on the bright red bite mark marring the meaty part of his forearm. A trickle of blood dribbled toward his wrist, and he crossed the kitchen to grab a paper towel. He mopped up the blood and pressed the paper towel to the wound, then hunted through three or four drawers until he found scotch tape.

I watched, horrified, as he wrapped scotch tape around his forearm to keep the bloody paper towel in place. Another dribble of blood leaked past a wrinkle in the paper towel and headed for his wrist again.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up from the worst wound care I’d ever witnessed. “I don’t want to bleed all over my car when I go make sure I don’t die of rabies.”

“Do you not have gauze? A bandage? Something sterile, for God’s sake?”

He looked at me like I’d started speaking Mandarin.

Huffing, I pointed at him. “Stay here.” I looked at Darby. “Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“What’s something stupid?”

“You’ll know when you see it. It’ll involve him doing or saying something.”