Page 68 of Filthy Little Secret

“You worried about me?” he asks, and I can hear the playfulness in his voice, but I’m not feeling playful right now.

“How do you feel? Do you need me to get you another pill?”

“I don’t think it’s anything ibuprofen can’t handle.”

I stroke my thumb across the side of his face, where there aren’t any marks and run it through his hair.

“I’ll go get you some,” I say.

He grabs my arm.

“Stay,” he says.

I think he can sense my distance right now—this intensifying worry that’s reminding me I’m no good for him.

“I’m getting you the pills,” I explain, pulling from him.

I fetch him some painkillers and a glass of water from the kitchen.

“You want me to make you some breakfast?” I ask. “Eggs? Sausage?”

“I want you to calm down and get into this bed with me.”

“I’ll make you some eggs.”

I head into the kitchen and get started on breakfast.

He needs to eat.

I check my phone to see if Nanna’s responded to my text to see if she’s awake yet.

She has. Just says:Hope you had a good night. :)

As I mix three eggs in a cup, Mark steps out of the hallway to his bedroom, and I see him through the opening above the bar.

He hasn’t put on a shirt.

Looks groggy as fuck, but I know most of it is because his face is swollen. But even with his face banged up, he’s still fuckable as hell.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

“The one fucking thing you said to me when we got into this is that you didn’t want me to hurt you, and now look what I fucking did.”

“You didn’t do this. Some asshole at a party did.”

“That guy wouldn’t have decked you if I wasn’t a fucking dealer.”

“Tim. I’m not a fucking kid, and it was just a fight.”

“That’s the reason you can’t parade around like that.”

“Parade around? You mean spend time with my boyfriend? You mean act like other fucking couples?”

“We’re not any other fucking couple, and you knew that getting into this. You knew that we couldn’t go around—”

“It was a weird coincidence.”

---