Page 43 of Best Frenemies

Lizzy: That’s a good uncle. :) We’ll drop her off around seven.

I open up my calendar app to make a note in my phone. Lord knows I’m not going to fucking remember this when the time comes, but before I can enter the information, Katy’s voice grabs my attention.

“Mack.” She holds up a hand, her phone call ended and her crutches tucked under her arms. “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to let you know I’m gonna go in the shower.”

I smirk, and she laughs with a roll of her eyes. “That’s not an invitation. I just didn’t want you to panic when you looked up and I wasn’t there.”

“I appreciate the consideration, but you can’t take a shower,” I tell her as I shove my phone back into my pocket. “Only baths.”

“I’ll keep my foot out of the water.”

“Katy.”I stare at her. “You and I both know that’s impossible. You have to take a bath. And even with a bath, you have to make sure your foot is wrapped up.”

“But my bathroom doesn’t have a bath. Just a walk-in shower.”

I shrug. “Looks like you’re going to have to take one in the hallway bathroom, then.”

“Mack, how in the hell am I supposed to get in the bath like this?” she questions and pointedly glances down at her foot. “I’ll fall on my ass.”

“I’ll help you.”

Her eyes practically bug out of her face.

“Relax,” I comment through a laugh. “We can manage it without me seeing you naked again.”

I don’t miss the way her cheeks flush a gorgeous shade of red.

“Not that I minded seeing you naked,” I swiftly add because I can’t stop myself from razzing her a little. “If you’d rather I did see you—”

“No! I definitely minded,” she snaps back. I have to admit, now that her fiery side isn’t laced with an overwhelming amount of loathing, I kind of like when she shows it to me. “So, if you’re helping me, you can bet your butt I’m keeping myself covered with a towel the whole freaking time.”

“Whatever makes you comfortable, babe.”

She blows out an annoyed sigh, but to my surprise, she doesn’t push any further. Instead, she offers a pointed roll of her eyes and starts heading down the hallway toward the bathroom.

“Is that my cue to follow you?” I question, trying my best not to sound like an excited asshole.

“Do I even have a choice?”

“Of course you do. If you don’t want me in there, I could…I don’t know. Call—”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on.”

A smile makes its way to my lips, and I don’t try to hide it as I head down the hallway and into the bathroom where a now-grumpy Katy stands.

“Stop smiling like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re…waiting on the show to start at Cirque du Soleil.”

I dramatically tuck both of my lips inside my mouth and raise the white flag with two hands in the air. “I’m very serious right now because this is about to be a very serious bath, where nothing will go wrong and no one will see anyone naked.”

“You’re such a pain in the butt sometimes,” she retorts as she plops her cute little ass unceremoniously down onto the closed toilet seat. When she tries to set her crutches against the sink and they start to fall forward, I catch them before they can crash into the wall.

But I definitely don’t smile or say anything smart as I set them outside the bathroom and grab two towels from the hallway closet because, again, this is allveryserious right now. I also grab the tape and plastic I left in there from this morning when I wrapped her foot to go kayaking.

“Okay, so how are we going to do this?” she asks once I start the bathwater for her.

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