Page 14 of Headstrong Like Us

He nods strongly. “I’ll call you.”

* * *

Every fuckingtime a green temp is assigned to Maximoff’s detail, I feel like I’m throwing a dart in the dark and crossing my fingers it doesn’t impale my fiancé. It’s not a fun place to be, and I’d say we lucked out today since we both made it back to the Hale house for a late lunch.

But something just happened.

“Shit,” I curse, an apple in my right hand while my left steadies Maximoff. He tries to stable me with the same force, same strength, the same exact way. Except my elbow is the only one that just went through plaster and put a fucking hole in the kitchen wall.

Normally this wouldn’t faze me. I don’t give a flying shit if I crash into lamps and ding walls when I’m wrestling Maximoff.

But we’re not in our own place, and I’m not exactly thrilled that I’ve just destroyed the future in-law’s house.

“I can fix it.” Maximoff’s tough forest-green eyes are on the plaster.

My lips rise, his chlorine scent flooding my senses. “That’s cute that you’re pretending to be a repairman.”

“I’m not pretending.” He lets go of my waist. “There should be some stuff in the garage to patch this up.”

It dawns on me. “You’ve put a hole in the wall before?”

“Yeah, and I’m not proud of it.” He walks past the spread of turkey, ham, bread, and vegetables on the island counter. We were in the middle of making sandwiches before we started fucking around.

I rotate my red apple in my hand. “What’s the story there?” I skim him up and down, his muscles flexed and his jaw sharpened. I don’t love seeing him upset.

The longer we live here, the more I’ve been inadvertently digging up pieces of his childhood that haven’t surfaced yet. It’d happen to me if we were at my father’s place, but we’re stuck in his time capsule, not mine.

His Adam’s apple bobs.

I head to Maximoff. “That bad?”

His hand is glued to a doorknob that leads to the garage. “It’s the same old shit. I was fourteen, and I read something on the internet about my mom. I can’t even remember what it was. Maybe a fake rumor about how she was so horny that she cheated on my dad.”

I nod slowly, understanding. “So you were pissed and punched a wall.”

He sighs out a heavy breath. “Like you’ve never punched a fucking wall before.”

Fuck, my smile is killing my face. “He wants to be just like me.”

Maximoff releases his grip of the knob, just to give me two middle fingers, and he stands more against the door.

I’m so close that I place a hand on the wood, right above his broad shoulder. Our eyes latch strongly. More serious in the next beat. “I didn’t put my fist through plaster as a teenager,” I tell him. “I had other shit to hit, like the boxing bag in my room.”

He contemplates this. “In retrospect, I should’ve just jumped in the pool. It was the best de-stresser.”

I picture him cutting lithely through water like he was born to swim, and I smile. “That’s too bad that you want to change the past.”

“Why?”

“Because then you wouldn’t know how to patch a hole in the wall.”

He smiles like he beat me at something. “So I’m the better repairman.”

I lift my brows at him in a wave. “We’ll see.” I bite into the apple and start to reach around his waist for the knob. But his gaze drifts off and his mouth downturns.Where’d you go?

His eyes meet mine, and I notice how his gaze tightens. Almost like he’s wincing, plus mortaring on a strong front.

I swallow the bite of fruit. “What are you thinking, wolf scout?”