Page 79 of Crazy In Love

I choke out a delirious laugh, not because of her stitches but because Chris is being forced to hear about them.Again. “Even then. Are you sticking around for long?”

“I’ll stay until I stop wanting to cry every time you and I are not in the same room. So…” She meanders to the door and picks up her diaper bag. “A couple of hours’ll do it. Assuming I’m sitting for most of them so I don’t bleed out. Then I’ll head over to the gym and watch my man exercise for a little bit. He’s all worked up and undersexed. So he’s got energy to spare.”

“Undersexed,” I snort, dropping my chin in a nod. “So glad I know that about him. Maybe I should come by the gym too, watch a couple of frustrated Watkins boys whale on each other.”

“Not sure Chris is as frustrated as his brother.I heardhe went running through the drugstore last week, buying condoms and making a scene.” She swings my apartment door open,allllmost, but not quite rested up enough to connect a couple of ridiculously obvious dots. “I should talk to him about that. I wonder who he’s banging this week?”

“This week?” Jealousy is like a sharp barbed knife piercing my stomach. “Does he shuffle loversregularly?”

She lifts her shoulder in a delicate, teasing shrug. “Pretty sure he shops from out of town these days, seeing as how he’s tasted everyone within a fifty-mile radius who isn’t married and isn’t Barbara’s age.”

“Ew.” I lose my smile and screw my nose in disgust. “He’s out here banging grandmas, and you’re worried aboutmysex life?”

“Not grandmas,” she cackles. “Just…mas. Single motherhood is a lonely time, and he’s just doing his civic duty, keeping them loose and limber. It’s like community service at this point and could probably buy him leniency within the court system if he’s ever busted for something bad.”

“Go away now.” I follow her to the door and close it at her back, then pressing my ear to the wood and making damn sure she moves down the stairs, I turn again with a growl. “Community service, Christian Watkins? Is she serious right now?”

“Stitches in her vagina!?” He pops up on the other side of the bed, tossing his jeans to the mattress and coming around to meet me, toe-to-toe. “You and Cliff?”

“He’s fixing my bathroom!”

“Giggly and cute?”

“I’mnevergiggly.”

“The condoms were for you!” He sweeps Hazel out of my arms and holds her in a gentle, horrifyingly endearing way. “Why’d you keep the baby if you want to shower, anyway? You would need to get out and tend to her again if she cries.”

“Because I knewyou’dwant to hold her, dummy. Because I knewyou’dbe pissy that she was so close, but you didn’t get a hug. Becauseyouare a community icon, allegedly, and I knew having the baby between us would stopmefrom ripping your face to shreds!” Tearing my shirt off and tossing it into my suitcase, I stalk into the bathroom and flip the taps on. “You shop for ass outside of Plainview, huh? How many hearts have you broken?”

“None.” He saunters to the bathroom door, rocking his baby niece with a barely there sway of his hips. “I break no hearts. I merely serve physical needs.”

“Not for as long as I’m in town, you don’t. You’ll serve onlymyphysical needs, and if I hear you’re serving on the side, I’ll pry a skull open with a crowbar.”

“Whose skull?” His eyes glitter with torment. “Hers or mine? Because that’ll help me make future decisions.”

“Yours. Since it’s hardly her fault she wants to be serviced by themagical Watkins penis. It should be a regulated substance. Your dick is addicktive.”

He purses his lips and looks me up and down. “Really? You can play on words when you’re mad?”

“I’m not mad!” I spin under the spray of the shower, only to slam my elbow and hiss when the pain takes my breath away. “Shit!Dammit.”

“You okay?”

“Shut up!If I find out you’re sharing your dick with someone else for as long as I’m in this godforsaken town, you’ll find out exactly how annoying I can be.”

“Fox—”

I rub my elbow and pretend the idea of him with someone else doesn’t make my chest ache. “Did you order the cake yet for the party?”

“No, I?—”

“Put the baby down, get dressed, and Spiderman your ass out the damn window! Order the cake before I hurt you.”

ROUND TWENTY-ONE

FOX

“I heard a rumor about you, Christian.” Alana crosses her kitchen, more rested now than she was a few days ago, a little less hormonal the further she gets from Hazel’s birthday. Setting a plate of cheesecake beside Chris’ waiting hand—hebrandishes a clean, diamond-detailed fork,of course—she places a second plate in front of Franky and carefully sits down opposite me while Tommy carries three more. “It was a juicy rumor I’ve been meaning to ask about, but you’ve been keeping yourself busy, it seems.”