Page 34 of Badd Daddy

He grinned at me, but it wasn’t as bright or dizzying as usual. “Now I just gotta lose…oh, fifty pounds or so, and I’ll be in business.” He slapped his belly.

I couldn’t quite smile back, shaking my head. “You don’t need to do anything.”

He rolled a shoulder. “The doctor might think differently.”

I tried a smile. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

He nodded, smile gone, joviality fading. “Yep. Have a good hike.”

I left his apartment, fighting back the disappointment that I knew I shouldn’t feel. This is why I shouldn’t let myself like him. We were different people, and our lives just didn’t mesh. I was just courting more pain by pretending even a friendship with Lucas Badd could work.

I should stop the games and move on with my life.

Trouble was, that was easier said than done; IlikedLucas.

I shouldn’t, but I did.

7

Lucas

Goddammit.

I stood at my front window, watching Olivia walk out to her truck; dejection was evident in every line of her body, in her posture, in her walk. It had been written all over her face.

And it made me feel like shit—for letting her down and hurting her, which I clearly had done. I felt worse for being such a weakling. If I had been doing my rehab I wouldn’t be in this position right now.

I watched her get into her truck, start it, but she didn’t leave right away.

A hot knot formed in my throat and traveled down into my stomach. Since when was I so fucking weak? So willing to let an opportunity to be around a woman like Olivia Goode slip by, just because I had a bad knee?

Fuck that. It wasn’t a bad knee, or a bad leg. It was laziness. Excuses.

Shit.

I growled a long string of curses under my breath, and hustled into my room. I tugged on socks and a pair of boots the boys had bought me when I first moved to Alaska. Found the backpack they’d also given me, and threw a few bottles of water into it, along with a handful of the protein bars Roman had made me buy the other day. There was also the big, thick walking stick Ramsey had made me—seven feet tall, thick as my wrist, with a spiky, bulbous knob on top. He’d sanded it and stained it and polished it, and had even worked a natural grip spot into the wood near the middle, where I gripped it. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, and I hadn’t used it even once.

I shoved my cheap drug-store sunglasses onto my face and hurried outside, not giving myself time to second-guess this decision.

“Wait!” I called out, just as Liv was getting ready to back out.

She heard me, and put the truck back into park. I did my best to keep the limp out of my walk as I approached the passenger side; she rolled down the window as I neared it. “Change your mind?”

I angled my walking stick into the backseat and then slid into the passenger seat. “Yeah, I did.”

“For you, or for me?” she asked.

“Both.”

Her smile was infectious—happy, joyful. “Good answer.”

I absentmindedly massaged my leg where it still tended to throb sometimes. I watched Liv drive; she went an exact three miles per hour above the speed limit, used her turn signals religiously, and checked her blind spots at least three times before changing lanes.

She seemed content to let the silence stretch as she drove to the trailhead, and we didn’t exchange a word the whole way, until she parked on the right side of the gravel road behind a row of cars, shut the windows, and got out.

Smiling at me with an eager gleam to her eyes, she donned her backpack. “Ready?”

I slung my own onto my back and stamped my walking stick into the ground. “As I’ll ever be.”