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“My point is there was no need for all this,” I hiss.
“All this?”
“You put me in a luxury hotel room when my cot in the emergency room was fine.”
“It’s not a luxury hotel room.”
I lift my good hand, gesturing to the calming green wallpaper, the beautiful, fresh flowers, and the wooden panels on the accent wall behind the television. “Why does a hospital need an accent wall?” I push down on the mattress beneath me. “Why does a hospital bed feel softer than the bed I have at home?”
“It sounds like you need a new bed,” Cullen says evenly.
I’m suddenly overwhelmed by an image of Cullen in my bed, spooning me to sleep, and my heart misfires like my car after the check engine light blinks on.
What is wrong with me? He showed up at my food stall with Jenna. How much clearer can he be?
Mouth hardening, I grumble, “I’m paying you back for all this.”
“You are?” Josiah pipes from the sofa, the disbelief clear in his tone.
I glare at my little brother. He’s quiet twenty-four seven but, when he finally opens his mouth, it’s to betray me.
“I have money,” I argue.
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“We’re broke.”
“We’re lower middle class.”
“That’s the new ‘poor’,” Josiah says, head still bent to his phone. “We learned that in economics.”
I sink lower in the cot, too embarrassed to scold him. Why did Josiah have to attend a school that teaches advanced economics to eleven year olds?
“You’re not paying for this room. I am. It’s my fault you got hurt,” Cullen says firmly.
My eyes fly up to meet his. “How is it your fault? It’s not like you sabotaged the tent.”
“You were distracted because of me.”
He’s wrong. The one who bears the ultimate responsibility for this is me, but if some blamehasto be shared, it would be with Jenna.
The situation escalated because ofher.
But Cullen isn’t even acknowledging that. Just like he shielded her by standing in front of her during our argument, he’s shielding her again.
My throat burns the way it usually does when I want to cry.
But that’s ridiculous because why would I want to cry about Cullen protecting Jenna from me—the big, bad, emotionally unregulated wolf? He and Jenna can go run off into their artificially generated sunset, for all I care.
There are much better things to cry about. Like the inevitable medical bills from this little trip to the emergency room. And filing for time off at the office when I’m nothing but an office assistant. And I’ll most likely have to cancel Sunny’s catering gig next week due to my injuries.
She’d offered a generous pay, way more than I would have charged her, and I really need that money.
The whisk of the door being pushed aside makes us all look up. The doctor and his entourage enter the room.
Josiah puts his phone down.