Page 19 of Guarded Love

I would've told him the truth if he had stopped for a moment and shut his perfectly sculpted mouth. I didn’t expect him to come because I didn’t think he would find me worth the time. I’d assumed I would be left alone to handle things by myself. It had nothing to do with not wanting him around. Life might have been easier if it had.

I wanted to tell him.

I really did.

The words were on the tip of my tongue until he rolled his eyes when it came time for me to get in the car. “Do me a favor, and don’t try to fight me, okay? That’s all I need, having to take you back inside because we tore your sutures or something stupid like that.” He was pissed off, in other words.

I doubted he would want to listen to anything I had to say, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

“All right.” He scratched his head while looking back and forth between the car and me. “Let’s figure this out.”

“It’s actually very easy.” I pointed to my left leg, my good leg. “All I have to do is use this leg to stand on, then sort of hop until I can sit sideways in the seat, then twist around and get my legs inside.”

“That won’t hurt?”

“Right now? I don’t think anything could hurt.”

Except rejection.

Rejection didn’t care whether a girl was on morphine or if she had demolished more champagne than she could keep track of.

“Well, at least let me help you.” His hands landed on my sides, and all at once, memories from that night came rushing back. This was not the time for them. It was a lot easier to wait until night when I could lie in the darkness and replay every last moment to figure out what I could’ve done differently to avoid having my heart broken.

“I can handle it myself,” I told him, just needing to get this over with.

His breath fanned across my cheek and made me shiver. “Would it break your ass to let somebody try to help you just once?”

“Are you looking to do a good deed or something? I don’t need you using me to earn good karma. No, thank you.”

“You are unbelievable. You really are.” I pushed myself up using the armrests on the wheelchair, then, all at once, the world tilted, and I lost my balance. “See?” He was quick to grab me before I could fall, holding me up with what seemed like no effort at all. Dangerously close to his firm chest, so close the scent of his skin and his cologne and even his laundry detergent played unfair tricks on me. I was ready to melt against him. It was all I wanted to do.

However, it would’ve been a huge, humiliating mistake. I had already embarrassed myself enough.

“I’m still a little woozy,” I admitted as he helped me sit on the leather seat.

“Which is probably why they had you in a wheelchair to begin with,” he grumbled as he took hold of my calves and helped me adjust my position. The place where the doctors worked on my leg was tender, but I knew it would get worse.

Which reminded me of something. “I’m going to need my prescriptions filled. Antibiotics and pain meds.”

He blew out a sigh before nodding. “Sure. That makes sense.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” he questioned, looking at me like he genuinely didn’t understand. I guessed he didn’t know what it felt like to be a burden.

Once he closed the door, I caught sight of myself in the passenger side mirror.Oh God, I look like that?Quickly, I ran my hands over my hair, which was flattened and hanging in a tangled mess. It was bad enough I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup or perfume for surgery—the perfume, I could understand, but makeup? That never made sense to me. I looked like I had just come in from a storm—messy, unbrushed, with a pale face.

Wait a second. What did it matter? I already knew he didn’t want me. I wasn’t good enough and never would be. What difference did it make what I looked like fresh out of surgery? Or ever, for that matter?

Once he found a place to leave the wheelchair, he dropped into his seat and peeled out of the parking space like the garage was on fire and we needed to escape. “I’m sorry,” I murmured again as my head dropped back against the seat. It was so heavy. “You must have better things to do than this. You’re probably in a hurry.”

“You don’t know what my plans are. If I’m in a hurry, it’s because as much fun as it is to have you kick me in the balls, I would rather get it over with and get you someplace where you can be comfortable instead of going out of your way to be sarcastic.”

He had the nerve to act like he was the victim? “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to your balls. I know they’re your second favorite part of your body.”

“They’re not just my second favorite.” He made a point of chuckling, snide, and knowing. “There are plenty of other people who enjoy them. Repeatedly. Whenever possible.”

“What a charming story. I think you forget I’m not one of your buddies who gets off on all this raunchy talk.”

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