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“You should have been, and it should be elevated.”
I roll my eyes when Ava’s eyebrows look like they could jump off her face, but I’m distracted from my soon-to-be wife’s cockiness when the nurse sticks my arm in a sling. The bandage isn’t enough? I’m not walking around with that thing hanging around my neck. It’s bad enough feeling like an invalid. I don’t want to look like one too.
“Are we done?” I ask, and she nods. “Thanks.” I leave the room, Ava following me, and toss the stupid sling in the trash on my way out of the hospital.
“What are you doing?” I hear her call.
“I’m not wearing that thing.”
“You bloody are!” she yells.
I’ve come to a hospital, seen a doctor, had an X-ray, and let them bandage me up. The sling is a step too far and fucking pointless. Like the doctor said, it’s not broken, though that’s a fucking miracle considering the abuse it’s been subjected toandthe fucking pain.
I stomp to the car, feeling at my pockets for the keys. No keys.
Ava arrives on the other side of my Aston, her expression fire. I mirror it. “Are you going to open the car?” I ask.
“No, not until you put this back on.” The sling appears. She rummaged through a bin?
“I told you, Ava, I’m not wearing it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t need it.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
Her nostrils flare, and the fire rages harder. If I wasn’t so agitated, I might find it attractive. “Put the fucking sling on, Jesse,” she yells, for the whole fucking car park to hear.
My mouth falls open in shock, surprise, disgust. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
She snorts. It’s condescending as fuck. “Fuck,” she spits.
What?My pounding head pounds harder. “Mouth!” I bellow, shaking the ground with the volume of my yell. And my fucking head. Jesus. I clasp my temple, and pain radiates through my hand. “Fuck!” My eyes water, I clench my good fist, grit my teeth, circling on the spot, hissing and spitting. Not broken?
Something, another noise, filters through my cursing fit, and I glance up and find Ava chuckling on the other side of the car. I can’t even appreciate the sparkle in her eyes. The flush of her cheeks. The face-splitting smile.
“Open the fucking car, Ava.”
“How’s your hand?” She snorts, her lips pressed so tightly together they’re turning white. Then her cheeks balloon and she folds in half, falling apart. I can only watch her, part delighted, part fucking furious, her body jerking and shaking, the sounds she’s making glorious. I discreetly adjust my jeans, hardly wanting to admit that her insolence turns me on.
She eventually returns to vertical. Good. I have her attention again. “Open.”
“Sling,” she retorts, throwing it at me. It lands on the roof, and I snatch it and toss it to the ground.
“Open!”
“You’re a child sometimes, Jesse Ward. I am not opening the car until you put that sling on.”
We both know I’m not putting that sling on. It’s not about me thinking I don’t need it anymore. It’s something else now, and as I stare her down, seeing her head tilt, seeing her challenging me with her dark gaze, I realize she is one hundred percent asking for it.I think. “Three.” I sound sure. I’m not. Am I making a massive mistake?
Ava looks disgusted, but that’s standard. “You arenotgiving me the countdown.”
Hear me, lady.“Two.” I prop my arms on the roof, all casual, as she continues to stare at me like I’ve just landed from another planet. But I’m not so broken I can’t see the faint sparkle past her disbelief. “One.”
“You can get stuffed.”
