Page 34 of Crossing the Line
"Yes?"
Hank was not immune to the sound. In fact, he looked a little nervous.
"Are you done mocking Bixby?"
Bixby felt his chest puff out a little in reaction.
She lifted his hand between them before she turned to look at him.
It was probably just the fact that he was hurting.
Or maybe it was all the physical exertion from building the coop.
But as he stood there, his hand in hers, Bixby almost had a rather embarrassing physical reaction to her touch.
She looked up into his eyes and he straightened, leaning back. "Do you think you broke it?"
When he didn't answer, she asked him another question.
"Do you want me to take you to the Emergency Room?"
His eyes widened at that. "Uh... no?"
"No?" She shook her head and sighed. "Urgent Care?"
He opened his mouth to answer and instead of continuing, she let go of his hand.
"Is this one of those manly things? You're going to wait until your thumb is three times its size before you do something to take care of yourself?"
Honestly, he would have answered her a moment later if he could have found his voice, but...
He'd suddenly gone a little stupid.
For his ex-wife.
"I think I just need a little time. I'm..." he looked up and around, hoping to find a worthwhile excuse. "I think I need to go back," the words were unsettling to him, "to my half of the house."
The word 'half' stuck in his head like a bad note played on a piano.
A tinny twang of sound that no one could misunderstand for music.
It felt like their easy life apart from each other was just that, separate and easy.
But, the feelings that were stirring up inside of him that made easy feel... counterfeit.
Wrong.
Before he could think too much about it, he stepped back and she let go of his hand. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
He walked away and considered trying to make it over the fence between their properties, but really, that was crazytalk.
Or crazy thoughts as it was.
He could only imagine how idiotic he'd look when he tried to scale the fence and end up pitching himself ass over teakettle onto the other side.
Yeah, he wasn't elderly by any means, but that didn't mean he had the skill to scale the wall or jump on a pommel horse like they did in the Olympics.
Even at his best, he'd never been able to leap over anything.
