Page 78 of Break for Me

“You want to come help me cut these off, son?”

My thirty-seven-year-old ass wondered how immature I’d sound right then if I informed him of my age and called him son right back. My brain reminded my ego that this joker with the beer gut and grandkids asleep upstairs wasn’t a threat to me in any fashion.

“Here, try to hold the fabric up away from her skin and I’ll cut through it,” he said and motioned to where her jeans ended at her ankle. Both her hands wrapped around my arm and her fingernails dug into me when we made it up to her thigh.

“Probably wouldn’t be so difficult if you hadn’t painted them on,” I said. The tiny, little half smile she offered me loosened whatever device was constricting my lungs just enough for me to be able to breathe again. Just to turn around a second later and realize that I was fully prepared to take those scissors to this man’s hands when he continued cutting toward her hip. He saved me the hassle when he stopped just below the pocket of her jeans.

“You’ll probably have to hold her leg down while I numb it,” he said. “She won’t be able to sit still through it.”

I nodded that I understood and waited while he explained to Trista what he’d have to do to numb as much as he could before he removed the knife and prepared to repair what was done beneath the surface of her skin. Judging from the way all the blood drained from her face while he spoke, we might not need to worry about numbing any of it anyway. She might just faint if he continued talking. He showed me where he’d be doing the injections to give me an idea of where my hands needed to be on her leg to get ready to hold it in place. The way that she screamed with every touch of that needle made me want to drive right back to that building and kill all three of those assholes again. It made me want to kick my own ass for ever leaving her in there in the first place to allow this to happen. Her whole body was shaking and sweating by the time that he was done with the needle. Her fingers were still locked in a death grip on the blanket underneath her even after Doc had walked away to prepare his tools for the next part of the process.

“What happens next, J?” She asked without opening her eyes. I used both thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks before I leaned down to put my forehead against hers. I stayed there until she opened her eyes.

“I drag your difficult ass back out of here and punish it for punching me.”

“You deserved it.”

“You hit like a cheerleader,” I said.

“Fuck you.”

“Just as soon as we leave here, Fancy Face.”

She smiled when I kissed her forehead, but it was forced and the amount of pain in it hurt me more than I would’ve ever cared to admit.

“I meant what happens next for the big picture?” She asked even more quietly.

“I know what you meant,” I whispered back.

I just don’t have the answer, baby.

“Everybody ready?” Doc asked.

“Not even a little bit,” she said.

fifty-five

TRISTA

Four million stitches and nineteen hours later, Jersey was carrying me back out to his car. The sun wasn’t even rising yet so, really we hadn’t even spent a whole night in that weird basement. He placed me next to the front wheel of the car so I could lean back on it while he opened my door. He shuffled through something in the backseat before he came back to me. He laid a pair of his sweats on the hood of the car and waited.

“What?” I asked.

“I mean, you’re more than welcome to stay in your hilarious one-legged jeans if that’s really what you want. Or…” he said and patted his hand on his sweats.

“Do you have to be an ass about everything?” I asked, unbuttoning my jeans. “You couldn’t just say here Trista, these might be more comfortable? Or here Trista, these will be easier to get on and off? Or hey Trista, I’m trying so fucking hard not to just say that I care about you but here, I’ll show you. Or —,” he interrupted my little rant by covering my mouth with his hand.

“Take your fucking pants off, Triss.”

He smiled while he released my face. I swallowed so hard that it was embarrassing. Sex should’ve been the furthest thing from my mind. I couldn’t even hold my own body up with my own fucking legs.

“Right,” I said. “Yeah, that’ll work too.”

Just like he’d done with my shoes, he helped get my jeans off and waited patiently while I fumbled each leg into his sweats as he held them for me. And just like last time, I was beyond amazed that he didn’t touch any part of me through the process. He wanted to, and it was written all over his face both times. Some ridiculous part of me wanted him to too this time around. I had an endless number of questions about absolutely everything that had taken place over the last day, but burning in the front of my brain and taking up all my thoughts, was why? He put so much effort into getting me this far. He did everything he could do to bring me here. Unfortunately, he was good at this. He seemed to even enjoy this weird fucking job of his. Except Nate would be after both of us now. Nate would be after Memphis now. Jersey gave up whatever life he’d had the second that he walked back into that building. For me. He brought me to a doctor, handed that doctor an absolutely absurd amount of cash, he changed everything about his world with a single choice. For me.

Why?

For a man with no heart to have a sudden attack of conscience about his line of work didn’t offer the kind of explanation that felt right.

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