Page 90 of Tripped By Love

She stalked away to the counter and said in a voice loud enough to make her point, “I’m here to pick up Arthur Mason.”

Jonas’s face fell. Sadness and anger all mixed together.

I kept my arm around him and pulled him toward the exit. The last thing we needed was for round two to start when they released Arthur into Mel’s care. Jonas looked back at the last minute, and when my eyes followed his, he was watching Mel as she bit her nails and paced like we had been just minutes before. She didn’t look toward Jonas once. Her eyes were trained on the back doors.

Jonas choked, a croaking noise strangled deep in his throat, and I rushed him out of the building because I knew he wouldn’t want to break down in front of Mel. In the rental car, he leaned his head on the back of the seat and groaned. In the rearview mirror, I saw tears slide down his cheeks that he quickly wiped away.

Cassidy and I exchanged a glance of heartbreak and sorrow.

I drove us to Maliyah’s empty house instead of Maria Carmen’s. There was no way I was taking Jonas toTía’splace while Maliyah was there recovering. She’d take one look at Jo-Jo, and her heart would certainly give out.

When Jonas barely held back a yelp of pain as he got out of the car, my heart jerked again. “Do you need a doctor?”

Jonas shook his head. “No. My pride and my ribs are both bruised, but that’s it.”

I let us into the house, and Jonas started for the stairs, but I held him back with a hand to the shoulder. “I don’t think so. Come into the kitchen. We’ll get you patched up, and you can tell me what the hell happened.”

He grumbled something under his breath but did what I’d asked.

“What can I do?” Cassidy asked, eyes wide as they ping-ponged between us.

“There’s a first aid kit under the sink in the downstairs bath. Just down the hall to the left.”

She nodded, and I followed Jonas into the kitchen. I grabbed a bag of peas and carrots from the freezer and handed them to him. “Put that on your eye.”

He sank onto the barstool and then immediately sat up again, clutching his ribs. Cassidy came in with the white box, and I spent some time butterflying the cut over his eyebrow, checking out his nose and lip, and then wrapping his ribs as tightly as I dared. He didn’t even yelp. Instead, he just bit his lower lip and took the pain. Even though I agreed with the EMT assessment, I was still angry that they hadn’t taken him to the hospital. He’d heal. At least everything on the exterior would, and those were the only wounds I was equipped to deal with. I didn’t know what to do about the gashes in his soul…not when I’d been unable to heal my own.