Page 38 of Better Hate than Never

I know walking that tightrope of healing what I’ve broken without bonding us together won’t be easy. I won’t even try to tell myself otherwise. But I’m goddamn Christopher Petruchio. Nothing stops me. Every part of my life, when I’ve set my mind to something—in my work, in the kitchen, in sparring, in my bed—I haven’t settled until I’ve come as damn close to perfection as is humanly possible.

Forcing each step back toward her doorway, out of her room, I tell myself what I’m about to undertake won’t be any different. It can’t be.

Because if it is, I am in some deep shit.

•ELEVEN•

Kate

Waking up is offensive. My head pounds. A sharp ache pounds between my thighs, too. Not for the first time since coming home, I’m hungover and horny—my personal hell.

Shuffling from my room to the kitchen, I squint miserably against the sun.

“And here I thoughtIhad it rough,” Bea says.

I jump a foot and spin toward the sound of her voice, tripping on the coffee table, stumbling back and landing on the armchair in a cloud of dust motes. “You scared me.”

Bea clutches the side of her head, eyes shut. “Sorry. Apparently it runs in the family. You scared Jamie and Christopher last night.”

I ease upright on the chair, experiencing a sudden swell of nausea. “What?”

“They couldn’t find you after everyone left. They were scouring the apartment for you.”

Guilt twinges through me like a plucked string. I want to ask Bea what she’s talking about, but I’ve got a bad feeling about how she’s going to answer me. Before I hear whatever drunken nonsense I pulled last night, I need coffee.

Pushing off the chair, I slip into the kitchen, fumble for a mug, drag the carafe off the warming plate, and pour a hot, sloshing cup of desperately needed caffeine.

“Should you be doing that?” Bea asks.

“Drinking coffee?” I ask, poised to savor that glorious, piping-hot first sip. “Fuck, yes.”

“Using your arm,” she says. “Not wearing the sling.”

The coffee I’ve just swallowed flies down my windpipe. I smack my chest.

“You okay?” Bea asks.

I nod, lifting a hand. “Fine,” I croak.

She frowns at me and my lifted arm. The one I’ve been faithfully tucking into a sling for the past two weeks, even though my shoulder’s fully recovered from the run-in with Christopher.

I drop my arm.

“I had it seen yesterday,” I lie off the cuff, loathing myself for lying again, but not knowing what else to do.

Her frown deepens. “Oh?”

I set down my coffee and kill two birds with one stone, turning toward the cabinet with the ibuprofen to fish some out and avoid my sister’s eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay to take it out of the sling now.”

“Huh. I figured shoulder injuries would need longer than that to heal. That seems pretty fast.”

“I didn’t break it right before I came home. It was a little while before I left.”

That feels good, sharing some truth.

Bea makes an understanding noise. “Of course. I didn’t consider that you’ve been healing for a while.”

“Plus,” I add, “you know how they’re always changing what they recommend, how soon you start using it, what you can and can’t do.” I make a derisive noise in the back of my throat. “Doctors.”

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