Page 40 of Absolutely Pucked (Punk as Puck #3)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

FORD

“Go home.”

I heard the words. I just didn’t process them for way too long.

“Ford!”

Blinking up, I saw Andrew staring at me. “What?”

“Go home before you get fired. Just tell them you have…I don’t know, the Black Plague from some fleas that your cat brought in.”

“First of all, fuck you. My princess doesn’t have fleas. Fleas wouldn’t dare touch her. Second of all?—”

“Bro. Please. I am begging you. If they fire you, I’m going to be stuck working the late shifts with Candace. I cannot be stuck with Candace.”

She was the cashier who’d been there longest. The one up for promotion next. The one who would act like she was the literal franchise owner if given even a whisper of power. I couldn’t do that to him.

I also couldn’t go home. “I’m not going to be able to pay my rent if I don’t start getting hours. ”

“I will literally gift you a million dollars if you go home and get your shit together. I’m sorry that your new friend up and quit without notice, but?—”

I winced. I couldn’t help it. I was sleeping a little better, but I still wasn’t eating much, and I spent most of my waking hours stalking Killian’s socials.

Not that he’d updated any of them. Boden, Hugo, Tucker, and Deo were all taking turns watching me like I was about to build a giant slingshot and fling myself into the sun.

If I had the engineering skills, I might have considered it. But only for a second. I wasn’t about to orphan Nugget.

Patting my apron pocket, I felt for my keys. They jingled softly with the promise of being able to put on my ratty pj’s and hop back into my bed.

“If he comes in for his last check,” I said, taking a step toward the exit. Killian’s final paycheck was sitting on the office desk, gathering dust.

Andrew raised a brow at me.

“Tell him I said to go fuck himself.” It was that or tell him that I was still madly and desperately in love with him and would do anything to have him back. But I wasn’t going to make myself look that pathetic in front of my coworkers.

Or, at the very least, I’d wait until the day I quit, and then I could be whoever and whatever I wanted, and I wouldn’t have to care what anyone thought. I shot Andrew a salute, then hurried out the door, ready to zone out on the drive home.

It was just past nine when I pulled into my parking space, and I kind of regretted not finishing my entire shift because at this rate, I was going to have to borrow money from the Bank of Boden to get all my bills paid. Not that he would have minded, but I did.

Grabbing my things, I trudged up to the front door, then paused when I realized something felt off. Through the blinds, I could see a light on somewhere, and Nugget wasn’t poking her little face between the slats to look at me.

And she was always waiting for me.

Dear God, she had better be safe. I would burn this whole city to the ground if something happened to her.

My hands were shaking as I pulled my phone out of my pocket, leaning on the doorframe as I got my keys ready. I unlocked the door with the quietest click I could manage, then put each key between my fingers for a vicious punch if there was some evil asshole who had infiltrated my home.

I took a breath, then turned the knob.

At first, there was nothing odd. And then I realized the flicker of light was coming from the TV. And then a familiar, small voice spoke, echoing off the walls. “They’re heeeere!”

My heart leapt into my throat, and I felt a rush of adrenaline as I moved as quickly as I could without my hip giving out on me. I turned the corner, then came to a skidding halt with my fist in the air like it was a lethal weapon.

My living room had been upended. But I hadn’t been robbed.

No. All my furniture had been rearranged, and in the space where the couch had been, there was now the most intricate and probably expensive blanket fort I had ever seen.

It was like the kind out of those childhood magazines my mother always kept on her coffee table.

And then a shadowy figure appeared on their hands and knees. I didn’t need to even really look to know who it was. My heart was skittering around my chest, and my body refused to cooperate. I was pinned to the floor.

“Hey.”

Could I speak? What even were words?

“Look, before you start yelling at me, this was Tucker and Jonah’s idea. They said a big grand gesture was the way to go, and I wasn’t sure because you deserve better than some showy fucking nonsense that?—”

Somewhere between “deserve” and “showy,” my body began moving. When he got to “nonsense,” I shut him the fuck up with a punch to the mouth.

With my mouth.

Tenderly.

He grunted, then slung both arms around my waist and lifted, taking all the pressure off my hip. Carol-Ann hung there a little limply as he held me even higher, kissing me like he was afraid that if he stopped, this would all go away.

I dug my fingers into the front of his shirt and clawed the fabric into both my hands. “What the fuck?”

He laughed as he eased me back down. I realized the TV was playing Poltergeist , and as I glanced over, little Carol Anne had her hand pressed to the screen. It was oddly apropos. It had nothing to do with this, of course .

It wasn’t a love story, but the way Killian was still holding me felt like one.

“You blocked me,” I finally said when I regained some of my senses.

He grimaced as he walked me to the chair that was holding up some of the sheets and sat me down. Reaching for the remote, he paused the movie, and then his hands went right for the waistband of my work pants.

“I did. Tucker made me very, very aware that making decisions for other people about what I think is best is a dick move.”

I smacked him on the shoulder gently. “It is a dick move.”

“You can make me pay for it later. Right now, I’m going to undress you, feed you, and tell you something really important.”

“Mm, I don’t like that order. My anxiety is out of control right now. Can you rearrange?”

He looked up from where he was scooting my slacks over my ass, then paused. He went fully down to his knees, spreading mine with his shoulders, and he held my gaze. “I’m in love with you.”

“Oh, holy fuck. What the hell, Killian?”

Heartbreak bloomed all over his face. “Did I…oh man, did I get all this wrong?”

“No, but you can’t just say it like that. With your words.”

“Um…”

“Never mind. You get it,” I said, waving him off.

He froze, then burst into laughter and surged up, grabbing me by the chin and kissing the absolute shit out of me. “I’m gonna have to say it with my words. I know I fucked it all up, as usual, so I’m going to try harder this time. I’m in love with you.”

My eyes got hot, and to my horror, when I tried to speak, my throat got all tight and rough. I was not a crier. I really wasn’t. He was turning me all upside down and inside out.

“You don’t have to say it back.”

“I can’t,” I rasped. “I mean, I do. But…it’s…I’m…”

He gentled his touch on me, palming my cheek and taking a softer kiss this time. “That’s good enough for now.”

For now.

With a heavy breath, I sat back and waved at my legs. “Carry on.”

He grinned as he finished his business, pulling off my pants, tossing my shoe to the side, unstrapping my prosthetic belt, and easing the socket off my stump.

He gave it a gentle massage for a few moments, then yanked a pair of definitely new pajama pants from the floor.

They were neatly folded and dark purple with black cats all over them.

“I couldn’t find any that looked like Nugget, so I went with Athena-themed ones,” he said as he gently lifted my foot and slid my leg inside.

It was when they were around my hips that I realized he’d cut and hemmed the second pant leg to just barely rest at the edge of my residual limb. “I hope I got this right.”

“You’re as good at getting things right as you are at getting things wrong,” I told him honestly. “Ghosting me was a big fuckup, but this is making up for it.”

“Yeah?” He sounded insecure, like maybe I wasn’t still ass over tits in love with him after the two weeks he’d been gone.

“Come on,” he urged, standing up and helping me join him. He took most of my weight so I could take small hops, and then I dropped down to crawl into the tent. It was covered in pillows and blankets that were also obviously new.

“Do I want to know how much you spent on this?”

“My accounts were unfrozen, so I splurged,” he told me.

I turned around and crossed my leg before looking at him. “I see. So you and Delia worked things out?”

He gave a solemn nod. “I’m getting divorced. I called my old boss and told him to go fuck himself, and if he tried to stop me from doing anything, I was going to expose his ass in court. He backed down. Delia called Tucker?—”

“Wait. Shut up. She did not.” The balls on that woman were bull-sized. Minotaur-sized. Fuck’s sake. “What did she want?”

“To chat him up. Then to see if he would give up info on me so she could convince me to work it out with her. I’m sorry to say I’m still getting divorced.”

I grinned. “My heart is crying for her.”

Snorting, he leaned in and stole another kiss. “I still don’t have a job or a real place to live, but I have my car back. I’m getting my life back.”

“So, are you going back to California, or?—”

“I’ll have to for the divorce, but I’m done with that place. This is my home.” He touched the side of my jaw. “You are my home.”

Every emotion I’d been trying to hold back hit me like cascading, rolling thunder. I let out a single gasp, and then suddenly, I found myself in his arms, kissing him frantic, desperate, pouring every ounce of pain I’d been feeling in his long absence from my mouth to his.

He kissed me back with the same feral ferocity, grunting as he yanked me into his lap, gasping as he thrust up against me, his mouth wide, tongue sliding against my own. “Ford,” he murmured, half-whine, half-gasp. “Ford, Ford.”

He said my name like it meant something. Like it was important.

Like I was worthy.