Page 8

8

Holt

Everything hurts.

My fucking foot hurts. My armpits hurt. My back hurts. My neck hurts. My head hurts. My fingers hurt. My ass hurts.

It all hurts.

But the thing that hurts worst?

Knowing I owe Ziggy an apology.

I don’t have to. I could kick her out. Deny I did anything wrong. Never see her again.

Except she’s right.

I should’ve let her know I was headed back early.

There’s a pregnant woman in my house, watching my dog, keeping me updated on what’s going on around here while I’ve been gone, and I scared the shit out of her in the middle of the night, coming back weeks before she expected me .

I can make all the excuses I want.

Hard to give her a heads-up when you lost your fucking cell phone somewhere between camp and the airport.

Hard to care when you’re facing potentially missing part of the season playing ball in the US instead of signing with a team in Europe.

One goddamn accident in the weight room that ended with a broken foot and they’re no longer interested.

I’m broken and they don’t think I can get better enough to belong.

Not just my foot.

All of me. I’m not competitive in Europe anymore. There’s a big crop of younger guys who’ve been training harder than I have. They’re better than I am.

I can’t compete overseas anymore.

Too old. Barely thirty, and I’m too fucking old.

And getting home—I can’t even sleep in my own damn bedroom. Caden’s bedroom is on the main floor, but I won’t use it. Still not ready for that.

There’s no water in the bathroom I use upstairs. Piles of renovation shit everywhere. Have to go up the damn stairs just to get to my bed.

So I lay down to sleep on my couch.

Not that I can sleep.

Feels like noon at six in the morning.

Fucking jet lag.

But I was wrong and I know it.

She’ll probably never want to see me again.

And that’s for the best.

After hours of tossing and turning and hitting my foot wrong and cussing to myself, I hoist myself off the couch, take a piss in the downstairs powder room—don’t want to use Caden’s bathroom either—and head to the kitchen.

Early morning sunlight streams through the side windows, but it’s not enough light, so I switch on the overheads. Then I fumble around trying to figure out what to make for myself when I can’t carry anything since it takes both hands on my crutches to keep weight off my foot.

There’s Ziggy’s air fryer on my countertop. The one I’m not supposed to touch.

Bananas on a banana hook that wasn’t here before.

A ten-pound bag of potatoes front and center in the pantry. Six bags of tater tots in the freezer. Two leftover containers in the fridge—one with cubed potatoes, one with—I sniff it—mashed potatoes.

The vegetable drawer is full of peppers and green onions and carrots. There’s a carton of eggs. A stick of butter. No milk. No cheese.

No chicken , I can hear Caden say.

Can see him smirking about it too.

I mentally flip him off.

I want a bowl of cinnamon cereal.

Which I also don’t have in the cabinets.

Can’t drive myself, which fucking sucks. No phone, so I don’t have my app to order grocery delivery. Got a business card from the taxi driver who brought me home, but see again, I don’t have my phone to call anyone for a ride to the store to get a new goddamn phone either.

I’m snarling as I tear open a banana like I have a personal vendetta against it.

And that’s how Ziggy finds me.

Fuming over how all of the food in my house is easily eaten by toddlers or old people who have lost all of their teeth and eating the banana in enormous bites out of spite.

I brace myself for more yelling, but when I slide a look at her, all I see is wariness. Wariness in her bloodshot blue eyes. Wariness in the way she’s holding her shoulders. Wariness in the way her body is leaning away from me.

Fuuuuck .

I scared her last night, and I’m scaring her again this morning.

Look who’s about to choose Naked Tuesdays over you .

Jessica growls.

“This way, pup,” Ziggy says quietly.

Jessica takes the opportunity to full-on snarl at me before they both escape onto the porch.

And yes, I mean escape .

Ziggy’s hugging her body, staying to the other side of the kitchen, as far from me as she can get.

Jessica’s not making any attempts to be a vicious guard dog who wants me to believe she’d take out my good foot.

She’s hovering at Ziggy’s side as they slip out the door.

Dammit.

Dammit .

I haven’t had enough sleep or pain meds to deal with this yet.

Did it to yourself, dude , I hear Caden say in my head. Go tell her you’re sorry.

Great idea.

Right idea.

And I’m too damn pissed to muster up the sorry part of my personality.

Instead, I finish my banana, drop the peel on the counter, swing myself to the refrigerator, pull out the leftover mashed potatoes, set them on the counter too, and then push them around to the microwave.

Crutch-swing-push.

Crutch-swing-push.

Crutch-swing-push.

See?

I can cook for myself.

I shove the container into the microwave and hit the button for two minutes.

Do I want mashed potatoes?

No.

But they look like the easiest thing to reheat without using Princess Potato’s beloved air fryer.

Yep.

Still in a mood.

I grunt to myself and head to the sink.

Thirsty.

Want water.

I’m bent over the sink, sucking water straight from the tap, balancing on one leg, when I hear the back door shut again.

And there’s Ziggy.

Hovering just inside the kitchen.

Alone.

Eyeing me with that same wariness.

“What?” I growl.

And there it is.

The obvious answer to my what?

It’s you, dummy , I hear Caden say . You’re being a shit .

He’s not wrong.

She’s standing there looking at me like she’ s afraid I’m going to turn into some kind of assassin who’s only faking using crutches so that I can use them to murder her.

I need to?—

A loud pop ! in the microwave interrupts my thought.

Fucking mashed potatoes just exploded.

There’s splattered white junk all over the inside of the door as the container inside keeps spinning.

Christ on a lollipop.

Did any of the mashed potatoes stay in the container?

That’s a shit-ton of mashed potatoes.

If I believed in the supernatural, I’d say there’s a ghost in the house making the appliances and the food agree with the sentiment

That’s gonna be a bitch to clean up. “God dammit .”

“What happened to your leg?” Ziggy asks.

“Nothing.”

“Yes, you obviously have one leg clearly in excellent health. What about the other leg? The one in a boot?”

I scowl at her.

Her eyes narrow.

Less wariness now.

That’s good.

That’s real good.

She’s pretty when she finds her backbone.

There’s another pop ! in the microwave, and more mashed potato splatters the microwave walls and doors.

“Most people stop the microwave after the first explosion,” she muses.

“I can’t get to the fucking microwave.”

“The mashed potatoes levitated themselves into it and turned it on?”

Get out .

It’s all I have to say.

Get the fuck out of my house .

Then she’ll leave, and I still won’t have a goddamn phone and I still won’t have food and I still won’t have the ability to get around my house on my own.

Even if I take over her bedroom, I have to get up and down the steps.

And then I’ll have put a pregnant woman in the awful position of having to find a new place to live if she doesn’t want to move in with her parents.

I’m the asshole.

I am completely the asshole here.

I scowl less viciously at her.

“I was going to apologize for yelling at you last night,” she says, “but I don’t think either one of us is ready for that this morning.”

Dammit .

She’s extending an olive branch.

Or maybe just a leaf off the olive branch.

Where the fuck did that saying even come from? And why do I care that I don’t like that she’s being the bigger person? “Give me your phone.”

The crankier I get, the less wary she gets.

Maybe she doesn’t like to apologize any more than I do, and she’s glad she doesn’t have to because I don’t deserve it.

“Men on crutches shouldn’t make demands of women they’ve seen take down two-legged men with nothing but bodily fluids. Pro tip: you’ll get a lot farther if you say things like good morning, Ziggy. Sorry to startle you last night. Could I please borrow your phone? ”

There’s a scratch at the back door.

Ziggy opens it, and Jessica trots back in .

The dog spots me and matches my energy, growling while she bares her teeth and paws the ground.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ziggy says to her. “He seems like he’s in the kind of mood where he’d smack you with one of his crutches. That would be a faster way of getting to go with me whenever I leave, but it would hurt, and that would make me sad.”

“I’m not going to fucking beat her with my crutch.”

The mashed potatoes explode one last time as the microwave beeps and turns off.

Ziggy looks at the microwave.

Then at me.

Then she heaves a sigh that I feel in the pit of my gut. “Do you have pain medication you’re supposed to take?”

“Yes.”

“Have you taken it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Food.”

She’s right. I shouldn’t be an asshole. She’s probably contemplating beating me with my own crutch.

I’d let her.

Everything’s shit right now. Might as well make it shittier.

She points to the living room. “Go sit down and keep your mouth shut, and I’ll make you breakfast so that maybe, just maybe , you’ll be tolerable to talk to.”

“Don’t want to talk.”

“That’s obvious, Captain Okay . ”

I jerk my head at her.

Does she know I’m the Pounders’ captain?

Was .

Was.

There’s no fucking way they’ll keep me when I go crutching into Coach’s office later today to report my rugby camp accident to him.

Ziggy looks like she’s three seconds from forgoing stealing my crutch in favor of strangling me with her bare hands instead. “Or don’t go sit and don’t get breakfast. I don’t care. But I have to eat, so I’m making myself food, and you’re in my way.”

I take one last look at the microwave.

Ankle’s aching like a bitch. Need to elevate it. Get my pain meds.

And I’m being an irrational jerk to the one person who’s here and who can actually help me feel better.

Don’t want to have to rely on other people.

I’m the guy they come to when they need things. Not the other way around.

Jessica growls at me.

“You’re standing between my baby and food,” Ziggy says to me. “Go. Away.”

Fuck .

That does it.

That pushes me over the edge from I’m hurting so I want to be an asshole to I’m being exactly the kind of asshole I tell the guys on the team not to be.

I swing myself on the crutches right out of the kitchen and get the hell out of her way.