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Chapter 28
Hastings~
People said that getting your ass kicked hurt like hell, but that the wonderful thing about adrenaline was that it helped keep the pain at bay. Your survival instincts kicked in, and they went a long way to numbing the pain, so that you had a chance at winning.
Yeah, well, there was no adrenaline or survival instincts kicking in the next day, so talk about feeling like I just got my ass kicked.
Holy crap.
Rolling over, I let out a painful moan, and I didn’t even want to know what my face looked like. I knew there had to be a black eye or two, and I wasn’t sure how far down the stitches in my head went. I knew the bruising was going to look worse in a day or two, but I was past caring about some discoloring and discomfort. The worst of it were my bruised ribs. Those hurt like a sonofabitch, and even taping them up didn’t seem to help.
Willing myself to suck it up, I took a deep breath, sat up, let it out, then prayed for death. A little dramatic? Yeah, it was. However, I was owed some theatrics. Not only had I gotten the crap beat out of me by a guy, my boyfriend was in a secret society, my closest friend was also a part of that secret society, I was apparently friends with Stone Lexington, Fox Harrington, and Ross Carmichael now, and I still had classes to get through next week.
What a mess.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I turned my head, and Saxton was making his way into the room. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I can’t lay in bed all day, Saxton,” I answered.
“Why not?” he grumbled as he came to stand in front of me.
I looked at him, and I swear to God, he looked like a petulant child. “Because my body hurts like a sonofabitch, and everyone knows that stiffness doesn’t help. Besides, even I don’t need to look in a mirror to know that I need a shower.” His grey eyes slid to the side, and I assumed that was his way of agreeing that I probably looked hideous.
When he looked back down at me, he said, “Okay, I’ll concede that you probably need a shower, but we’re not doing a shower-”
“You’re not sponge bathing me, Saxton,” I replied forcefully.
The jerk grinned. “We’ll do a bath,” he said. “It’s a compromise.”
My brows peaked. “You know how to compromise?”
“Baby, you have no idea just how hard I’ve had to,” he said. “If it weren’t for the fact that I love you, you’d be at my place right now.”
My heart bloomed with how easily he could say that he loved me. “We discussed this,” I reminded him. “Didn’t you all agree that your place is where August would automatically assume we’d be?”
“Yeah, but I still don’t like it.”
“Deal with it,” I shot back.
“Oh, I am,” he replied. “You have no idea.”
Instead of arguing with him over something that didn’t make a difference in the scheme of things, I said, “I’ll still need to rinse off after my bath. I imagine the bath water is going to be pretty dirty by the time I’m done in there, so-”
“You’re taking a bath in Kincaid’s bathroom,” he announced. “She already said it was okay.”
I almost moaned. Kincaid’s bathroom was the stuff of dreams. Her tub was huge, and it had a detachable shower nozzle. It also had jets and miracle bubbles.
Well, I couldn’t swear they were miracle bubbles, but in that tub, how could they not be? Not only could you have a mini-spa day in there, but the tub was also big enough for two people. I could probably swim from one end to the other.
“Is she here?”
Saxton shook his head. “No. She took off this morning, and I honestly don’t know where she went.” His tone of voice made me pause. While I was certain that he wasn’t lying, something about the tone told me that he might not know where she was, but that he probably had a good idea.
“Is she okay? Do you know?”
His lip twitched as the thought about his best friend. “Kincaid is always okay,” he replied. “Sometimes, I think that’s the problem. The girl doesn’t need anyone.”
I thought about that. “I don’t think that’s true,” I told him. “I think she needs you.”
