Page 24 of Motivating Mira
I looked at my tray and shrugged. “I can eat in my mom’s room.”
“But will you?” His tone wasn’t quite accusing but it did make my nipples tighten. It was his Dom voice.
I set the tray down and crossed my arms mostly to cover my nipples but also to stand my ground. “Will or won’t, it isn’t your business. And if you think buying me a wrap makes it your business, then you’re sorely mistaken.” I spun on my heel and walked away then, leaving the food behind, my heart beating so hard in my chest I worried I might have a heart attack.
“Mira,” he called after me. “Stop.”
And god help me, I did.
“I’m sorry. I just want to be here for you. I know we’ve got a complicated past, one you’re obviously not interested in revisiting, but we were close once. And I want to be here for you.”
I turned around slowly, my eyes finding a spot near his eyes but not quite meeting his gaze. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in revisiting our past, it was that I couldn’t. It would be easy to pick up where we left off. Wewereclose. But then I’d just fall back into the pattern of letting someone take care of me. Of being weak.
“Don’t make me let you do this alone, Mira.”
I looked down, saw my food in his hands, and let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Okay. Fine. But stop treatingme like I can’t take care of myself, because I can, even if I do it in a way that makes you and my mother think I can’t.” I waited for him to nod, then I pulled out a chair and plopped into it. He set the food in front of me and sat too.
“I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I know you can take care of yourself.”
“I can. Missing a few meals, having some sleep deprivation, being overwhelmed—these are all normal things for someone to experience while going through something like this.”
“You’re right.”
I nodded feeling proud for standing up for myself. Grabbing my wrap, I opened the cellophane that he’d taken the time to recover it up with and took a bite.
“But having friends and family to help you during this, that’s perfectly normal too. We’re human, we aren’t meant to do hard shit alone.”
I swallowed too quickly and the food slid down my throat painfully, but I ignored it. “Is that what you are? My friend? Because it feels like you’re trying to be…” I glanced around at the tables around us, but even with them empty I couldn’t say what I wanted to. “It feels like you’re trying to bemore.”
“More?” He picked up my apple and a napkin and started to polish it. “Like your Dom?”
“Yes, and I don’t need one.” I sort of stuck my nose in the air haughtily.
“Do you have one?”
My eyes cut to his. “No, but I don’t need one. I told you, I’m not the same girl I was before.” I looked away because it was a lie. An outright, bald-faced lie. The truth was, I didn’twantto be that girl anymore, but I was still her, and when I was tugged back to look at him by the silence, I knew he knew I was lying.
“Friends then. Just friends. And if I come across too bossy, you’ll just have to stand up to me. Should be easy for you now since you’re not the same girl anymore.”
I squared my shoulders, his challenge irking me. “Deal. Easy peasy,” I said and wanted to smack myself for the immature word choice.
His mouth slid into the half-smile I still saw in my dreams, and he leaned back in his chair. And then someone walked by and called him Dr. D.
“That was last week, Garcia.”
“Already? God, the hours blend into days, and days into weeks. I swear one of these mornings, I’m gonna wake up forty and wonder where the hell my life went. Tell me it gets better.” The doctor rubbed a hand over his tired face.
“It gets better?” Wes laughed.
“Who is it this week?” Garcia asked.
“Evans.”
“Dan? What the hell did he do?”
“Distracted a POS so we could get his battered wife out of the waiting room to safety. Took a few shots to the face for his efforts.”
“No way! Anything broken?”
