Page 36 of Playing for Keeps (Checkmate 4)

“No.” And even if she was, I wouldn’t tell him. “McHotty said she’s already healing. We just have to wait.”

“McHotty?” Angry again, his eyes snap around and make me reconsider my life choices. “Who the fuck is McHotty?”

“Umm…”Shit.I set my ice-cream down to buy myself time. “Sorry, it was a bad joke. I meant, the vet. He’s… well, he’s an attractive man, even a blind woman could see that, so in my head, I called him McHotty. It was just something dumb, a joke I told myself so I could laugh during a time I worried about you–”

“Right. Awesome.” Grunting, Riley shuffles to the edge of the couch before I can even process the fact he’s moved at all. Grabbing the crutches, he hoists himself up so his grunt turns to a pain filled squeak, but he gives me no chance to help, no opportunity to jump up and make it better for him. Pushing the crutches under his arms, he pulls in a long breath and catches his balance. “Goodnight, Andrea. You can go back to Oz’s now. Or, ya know, three-thousand miles away. The nurse will be here tomorrow, so I’m all set without you.”

He doesn’t glance back. He doesn’t even call Ninja. He just hobbles away faster than when he came out here, and leaves me sitting by the fire; hot on my skin, but powerless against the ice that runs through my veins at his fast dismissal.

Ninja darts out of the living room as a finalfuck youfrom the duo, then the bedroom door slams and makes me jump when Nacho squeals beneath my shirt.

Tears burn the backs of my eyes as five minutes pass. Then ten. Twenty minutes pass, and he doesn’t come back out again.

I’m stupid for thinking he might, but the woman inside me, the one in love, can’t accept that the man I spent so much time with left without touching me, without bringing me to the room with him, without acknowledging my existence.

I’m not looking to get laid, but I could’ve lain with him. I could stroke his hair, and let him lay his head on my chest.

But he’s gone; physically, and I think, emotionally. He’s so far out of reach, it almost feels like my heart might collapse in on itself.

That was my fault.I’m such an idiot.

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