Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
I nod and swallow another sip of coffee. “It would seem so. That’s what he said, anyway. But I’m not sure what I can do about that.”
“You don’t have to do anything about it. Let me take care of it,” Aaron says, making my brows shoot up my forehead.
“How are you going to do that?”
He smiles. “I have my ways. Just pack a suitcase for yourself and one for Chase and tell Ben you’ll be staying somewhere off the radar for the next couple of weeks. That way no one will know where you and Chase are, let alone be able to hurt you. And bonus—we can get someone in here to clean and repair the attic while we’re gone. It’s a win-win.”
I shake my head. “I can’t let you do that. Short-term house rentals are too expensive.”
“I have plenty saved up to pay for it. Let me take care of this,” he says, holding up a hand when I start to protest again. “Please, it’ll be good for me, too. You and Chase make me happy. If I end up needing surgery, I’m going to need all the happiness I can get. You’d be doing me a favor, really.” He shoots a pointed glance toward the fridge. “I can even have Slasher help me transport all your food and cooking things to the new place. You’ll be ready to make dirty green beans as soon as you get home tonight.”
I feel myself weakening. “But I—”
“But nothing,” he cuts in. “Go pack. Forget about the beard. You can tidy me up tonight if we have time. Do I need to pack the DVDs, too? So we can watch Finding Nemo with Chase?”
I shake my head. “No, I have it on my streaming account, and I can pack all his toys now.”
“Perfect,” he says, looking proud of himself.
“You love playing hero, don’t you?” I ask, cocking my head to one side.
He grins. “Maybe. A little bit.”
“Well, thank you. But you don’t always have to be the hero, you know. I’d still like you if you didn’t save the day.”
His expression sobers. “I’d still like you even if your butt wasn’t the best butt that ever slipped into a pair of jeans. Those jeans are…amazing.”
I smile. “Yeah? My butt is happy to hear that.”
My butt also wants him to take its virginity, or at least it did in my dream, but we won’t talk about that. As long as certain things remain unsaid, we should make it through the rest of Aaron’s recovery without doing any serious damage to each other’s hearts.
Or butts.
Chapter 16
Aaron
The suspense is killing me.
If I didn’t have house hunting to keep my mind off the doctor somewhere in the bowels of Bad Dog Memorial Hospital, reading my scans, I’d be coming out of my skin.
“What about this one? It has a hot tub on the porch,” I say, tipping my phone toward Slasher, who’s sitting next to me in the diagnostic waiting area. Gram had a charity auction she couldn’t miss this afternoon, but that’s fine with me.
Sometimes, a little man time is nice.
He slides his reading glasses up his nose, scratching his nose ring as he scans the listing. “Five bedrooms? What are you going to do with five bedrooms for two adults and a little guy?” He opens his guitar monthly magazine and sits back in his chair. “I’d go for the cottage. The one with the fireplace and the sledding hill behind it. Chase’ll love that.”
I swipe back to the home he suggested. It looks like a tiny German cottage from a fairy tale, complete with bric-a-brac trim around the roof, and is set far enough back on the road that no one will see Mel’s car parked in the driveway. It’s also in a private community, with a guard at the gate, so we’d have an extra level of protection.
“Yeah? You don’t think it’s too small?” I glance at the description again. “There are only two bedrooms, one full bath, one half bath, and a foldout cot.”
Slasher shrugs. “So? That’s plenty of room. Melissa can sleep on the ground floor bedroom with her son on the rolling cot. You sleep upstairs.” He points toward one of the pictures near the bottom of the screen. “If you can’t handle stairs, that’s a massive couch. You’d be comfortable there.”
“I can handle stairs,” I say with a huff. “It’s my shoulder that’s garbage, not my legs.”
“Your shoulder isn’t garbage,” he says.
“That remains to be seen,” I mutter, looking up as Slasher puts a slightly gnarled hand on my good shoulder.
His pale blue eyes are serious as he says, “It isn’t garbage, no matter what. You’re not a machine, son. You’re human. Injury and moments of weakness are part of that. Learning to deal with them is, too. You gotta give yourself a break and some credit. You’re a strong man, inside and out. Whatever happens next, you’ve got what it takes to handle it.”