Page 15 of The Hard Way

“You wanted to help me. You wanted to love me, and I lashed out.”

“I did it to me. You warned me not to try and sleep with you, and I went ahead and tried it.”

“How about both of you stop apologizing. Shit happens.” Thor twisted the ice into a towel and gave it to Odin. “Hold this to her lip.”

Odin held it to my lip. “You trusted me, and I hurt you.”

“It’s so nothing,” I said.

“Everyone’s fine,” Thor growled. “Isis isn’t made of glass.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You can ask the unicorns, hippos, and sperm whales about that.” I snorted at my own joke, then winced again.

“Goddess!” Odin said.

“I’m fine! Sheesh!”

Odin wasn’t buying mysheesh. “Oh, Isis!” he said. I’d never seen him so upset, and we’d been through some big things together.

Thor seemed worried. “You’re flipping out over nothing, Odin.”

“She’s not breathing right,” Odin said. “You made her drink whiskey.”

“Yeah, and it tasted great. And I might have Zeus’s half of the almond croissant, now, too,” I said.

Odin frowned.

“Get over it. She startled you, and she has a hurt rib,” Thor said. “A minor injury that she’ll have the best care for. Because who is the best doctor in the world?”

Odin grumbled.

“That’s right, brother. I am.”

“Except this is getting a littletoocold.” I took the makeshift ice pack from him and shifted it. “Um…the croissant, please?”

Odin studied my face for a second and then went off to the porch to get it.

I forced myself to eat it, even though it didn’t go that well with the whiskey. But Odin was upset. Like, really upset. And I’d noticed that my guys liked it when I ate. It seemed to comfort them. Like eating was a sign of well-being. Like with a dog. “Yum.” I took over the ice-holding after that. “I don’t know how much more of this ice I need.”

Odin stood and paced. He still wore the boxers he’d worn to bed and nothing else. His beautiful hair was askew. “I’ll never forgive myself, goddess.”

“Wait, did you go down to the lobby and fill the ice bucket just wearing those underpants? Because Odin, that kind of makes up for it.”

Odin wasn’t fooled. He paced back and forth some more.

“That’s it,” Thor said. “You’re putting on your clothes and going out for aspirin.”

As soon as Odin left, Thor made me take off my shirt. He inspected the area. “This is going to be a massive bruise.” He pressed his fingers on it, palpating the area, making me rate the sharpness of the pain on a scale from one to ten. “It doesn’t seem broken. Probably a bruise, or maybe a hairline fracture,” he decided. “Still. No coughing. No sudden movements.”

“Acrobatic sex?” I joked.

“Not for a week or two.”

I nodded over at our hot tub. “A relaxing soak?”

“Not for at least seventy-two hours.”

“You sound so doctory when you say seventy-two hours. It’s kind of hot.”

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