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“Hannah!”
“Being with someone is thestartof a journey, Axel. It’s the beginning of a life two people who love each other are supposed to sharetogether. So the fact you think us being anusmeans my life is over, boggles my freakin’ mind!”
“I was blown into the fucking air two weeks ago, Sullivan. I fell through the floor today. You can’t sit there and tell me that didn’t make you freak the fuck out.”
“Of course it did!” She shoves up to stand and cruelly reaches across to slap my casted leg. “I was scared as hell. But you being a jerk and telling me to get lost doesn’t take that worry away.”
“So forget I exist,” I groan. My leg throbs with pain, and my back, still sore from my last fall, pulses in time with my heart. “Go somewhere, Han. Go to Italy. Have an adventure. Dosomething! Because so far, all you’ve done is leave high school and make cupcakes for a living.”
She pulls back and slams her hands to her hips. She’s all attitude. Always has been. “You think I’m not good enough for you, Axel Feeney?”
“No, I—”
“You thinkonlybaking cupcakes is beneath you?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Ichooseto work in a shop that makes me happy. Ichooseto work with a woman I consider family. With a little girl I already think of as my niece. Ichooseto come back to you, day after freakin’ day, because I have feelings foryou. Why isn’t that enough?”
“Because the world is so much bigger than me, and Juniper’s Bakery, and this town.” Frustrated, I push up to sit, and ignore the dots that swim across my vision. The machines connected to my bodybeep, beep, beep, so I tear the sensor off my finger until the repetitive sound turns to one long drone that echoes throughout the cold room. “You’re not listening to me, Hannah. You’re nineteen years old.” I set my good foot on the floor and hiss as licks of pain fire up throughout my hips and pelvis. “You’re still so young. You just have a crush right now.”
I spy a set of crutches already resting against the wall, so I reach out for them and growl as two brutal beatings in as many weeks have left me feeling less than able. “I’m nothing more than a crush. It’s a cliché, isn’t it?” Carefully, I set my casted foot on the floor and test, for just a second, putting weight on it.
Only to cry out as pain slices through my leg.
That’s a no to hobbling on both legs.
“Your boss’s brother,” I wheeze past the nausea. “He’s single. He flirts sometimes. He comes into the shop every day to buy a little cake.” I straighten out and use the crutches to take most of my weight. The pads under my arms instantly dig in and prove that, an hour or two of this, and I’ll have blisters screaming at me to stop. But I turn on one foot and meet Hannah’s angry stare.
She’s not one of those weepy, soft females who cry and beg for attention.
She’s thekick-the-door-down, guns blazing, do as I say or I’ll make you regret itkind.
I love that about her, while simultaneously acknowledging that if she was the former, I’d be able to shake her off that much easier.
“Best friend’s brother is a whole thing, right? Women have been trying that on for eternity.”
“Nicole is not my best friend.” She storms around to my side of the bed and stops just an inch or so from my toes, forcing me to sway backwards and risk falling on my ass. “She’s my friend, yes. A very good friend, absolutely. I love Juniper like she was my own, and I turn up to work every single day like it’smyname on the ledgers, and a failure of that store would be a failure of my own. But this isn’t a movie, and I’m not a walking trope. You being Nicole’s brother hasnothingto do with anything, and the fact you keep implying otherwise is a joke.”
“You haven’t even looked elsewhere!” Frustration mixes with exhaustion and adrenaline until finally, I snap. “You haven’t even tried! So when I give in and you get what you want, how will we know it’s what you were actually looking for?”
“You’re afraid I’ll… what? Get bored? I get that instant gratification, win our battle of the wills, and then move along?”
“Uh…” A faint voice, a woman’s throat clearing at the door, brings my head up with a feral snap.
My eyes latch on to a nurse with mousy brown hair, and freckles on her cheeks that soften her expression and make her appear younger than she is.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Slowly, she wanders into the room and around to where Hannah and I stand toe-to-toe. Wary. Understanding that she walks among heated tempers, but still approaches to do her job.
She places one hand on my arm to keep me standing, and reaches around with the other to switch off the monotonous beep. “You weren’t supposed to take that monitor off your hand, Mr. Feeney.” Pulling back, she looks up at me with an innocent smile. “I worried you’d checked out on us.”
“It was annoying me.” I look over Hannah’s head, which is easy, considering our six or so inches height difference, and ignore her pulsing mood. “I was coming to look for Lieutenant Rosa.” I bring my gaze back down to the nurse I know as Kari. “Did he get out okay?”
“Yep.” She’s sneaky, with the way she backs me up so my ass touches the edge of my bed without my brain realizing she’s even touched me. She forces me onto my backside, and then to my back as she passes my crutches to a seething Hannah.
Taking out a penlight and flashing it in my eyes, she works and hums under her breath. “Nix got you and your other victim out, nice and safe. Vic’s just down the hall.” Grinning, she switches eyes with the pen. “Smoke inhalation, fractured arm, a few stitches to close lacs. He’ll be going home tomorrow or the next day.”
Pocketing her penlight, she grabs the blood pressure cuff and slides it up my arm until finally, I look down, and focus on a hospital gown and not my turnouts.
