Page 132 of Unbreakable
I poked around my knee, wincing. “Probably need a fresh one.”
She checked the clock over the stove. “Almost time for your next meds too.”
She returned to my side with an ice pack and counted out two pills. After she packed my knee, I put my hands in their designated spots on her waist. “Hey,” I said, pulling her close. “I see you doing all this running.”
She just flicked her eyebrows up, looking amused. “I’ve been trying to tell ya, ya dingus.”
“Whatcha listening to?”
“A book,” she said, gasping as my lips trailed up her neck to her ear.
“A smutty little book?” I whispered, capturing her earlobe between my teeth.
“No,” she said, but I felt the heat blast off her face.
“Liar,” I said, snapping her phone out of her back pocket and checking the screen. A shirtless man looked back at me with a hockey stick over his shoulders. “Who the fuck is this?”
Jeanine covered her face, giggling. “No one! It’s just a cover! I didn’t pick the cover!”
“J, he has like no body hair! Is this who you’re cheating on me with? You want me to shave to look like that?”
“Only insecure men think it’s cheating. Where do you think I get all my good ideas from?”
My jaw fell open. “Since when?”
She tried to snatch her phone from me, but I held it out of her reach. “When I went for my medication evaluation, my doctor suggested I inject more joy into my life. She told me to read books I actually enjoy and stop trying to read self-help garbage?—”
I lit up her home screen, taking in the roided-up man looking back at me. “Jeanine, you know that guy has never played hockey a day in his life. Look at his muscles! He’s too big to be a hockey player. We’re not that jacked.”
She smirked, pulling up the cover photo again. She sighed, dropping her cheek into her hand like he was such a dreamboat. “Looks pretty good, right?”
“Jeannie!”
She cackled. “What? I’m injecting joy into my life. How do you think we got started doing primal play?”
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. “I thought it was a game of tag gone out of control!”
She simpered and scrunched her nose, like she was about to tell me Santa wasn’t real. “That’s what I made you think.”
“You’re telling me you’ve been reading this kinky ass shit for years, Jeannie?”
She tossed her hand. “On and off. I usually stop when I’m going through a hard time, but my doctor recommended I focus even more on joy then.”
I sighed. “I mean, it’s good advice. I get it. I want you to have joy in your life.” I flipped her screen on again. “But this guy, Jeannie?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t pick the covers? Sometimes even the authors don’t! And besides, Rachel said this was a good one.”
“Rachel reads them too? Does Chappy know?” I leaned to get my phone out of my pocket to text him.
“We’re going to buddy-read our next one,” she said.
“You guys share porn links?”
“Ugh, it’s not porn. You wouldn’t get it. And anyway, not like you’ve never seen something stimulating.” She lifted her brows at me and tipped her head.
I huffed because she was right, but I still felt defeated. She leveled me with a look. “Are you seriously mad, Dylan? Jealous?”
“No!” I objected, sobering. “No. No, I’m not mad. Or jealous. No. I just, I had no idea. Here I am thinking you’re listening to cute little mysteries and you’re over there having the time of your life.”
