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He’d sacrificed himself for me. I’d never had anyone do that for me. Well, my team would, but he wasn’t part of my team. He was part of me. And he just tossed his life aside like it didn’t matter because he loved me. He fuckinglovedme.
“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, or do you want to throw more shit? I have some knives.”
I turned and glared at him. “What is it about men?”
“Uh…you’re going to have to be more specific. I’m not sure what that means.”
“Duke was injured and he just tossed his life aside for me. Who does that?”
“Someone that loves you?” Fox said, though he was questioning his answer.
“And if he loves me so much, why was it so easy for him to hand his life away, but the thought of putting in the work to keep his leg is so damn difficult.”
Fox’s eyes twitched with unease. “You know, this is one of those hard conversations that calls for a little liquid courage.”
He sauntered off to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a bag of Funyuns and two juice boxes. He took the film off his straw and stuck it in his drink, then tapped it against mine. “Cheers.”
“What the fuck is this? Alcohol is liquid courage.”
“What?” He looked at his drink and laughed. “No, see, it takes courage to drink apple juice when you want the hard stuff. We have to keep our wits about us.”
“Maybe you do, but I need the hard stuff.”
He grabbed my hand as I shot up from the couch and pulled me back down. “Tell Papa Fox what’s really going on.”
“I just told you,” I spat. “Duke is being a pansy ass because he might lose his leg, but instead of focusing on the methods to treat him, he’s already acting like he’s lost his leg.”
He nodded solemnly. “You know, we went through the same thing with Anna. She had this hole in the middle of her hand. A fucking hole! And it seemed unlikely she’d regain the use of her hand. Especially because of all the crushed bones. But you know what I did?”
“What?”
“I gave her shawarma.”
I gritted my teeth, doing my best not to fucking kill him. “Shawarma is not going to help the situation.”
“No, but getting her mind off it did.”
“You…distracted your girlfriend with shawarma so she could face the inevitable,” I said dumbly.
“The perceived inevitable,” he clarified. “Duke knows there’s a possibility he could lose his leg. But as a human, your head goes immediately to the worst possible scenario. It doesn’t matter what it is. Cancer, a bullet wound, a heart attack…no matter what it is, if the doctor doesn’t immediately tell you you’re going to be fine, your head goes to the darkest recesses of the brain. He knows there’s a possibility it won’t be lost, but the only way to make sense of this right now is to go with what he knows. And what he knows is there’s a good chance he could lose his leg.”
I sipped my drink and thought that over. “So, you’re saying I was a bitch for slapping him across the face.”
He winced, then chuckled. “Fuck, if only Anna would do that to me.” He sighed dreamily. “I love it when she hits me. It gets me all hot.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You did the right thing. He needs to be angry at someone, and you gave him that. Props for being a bitch.”
“I wasn’t trying to be. I just can’t stand to watch him sink to his lowest. I hate seeing him think this is the end.”
“It’s not the end, and he’ll see that in time, but until then, listen to Papa Fox.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You need to stop calling yourself Papa Fox.”
“I like it. I think it has a kitschy kind of ring to it. Funyun?” He held the bag out to me, and because I was so fucking pissed, I took one. I chomped on it, then snatched the bag out of his hands.
“Hey!”
