Page 58 of Playing for Keeps (Checkmate 4)

Andi deserves freedom. So I don’t kiss, I don’t ask, and I don’t pretend like everything is going to be okay for us.

“I had it under control. Can you hop out? I’m not done.”

“No.” She slides her thumb beneath my eye and accepts me as I lean into it. “I don’t wanna go anywhere, and I don’t wanna leave you.” Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she studies my eyes and reads all my secrets. “I don’t want you to push me away anymore. I really, really don’t want you to push me away. It’s so fucking lonely in that guest bedroom.”

“Can I have a little privacy? Please?”I’m begging you.

“No.” Adjusting on her bent legs, she places a hand on my good leg to keep her balance. “Can we pretend you don’t hate my guts for a couple hours? Seeing you in pain kills me.” She slams a fist against her bare chest. “It fucking guts me that you’re hurt. But I can’t seem to sleep all that well lately when I know you blame me for what happened. Maybe if we just pretend for–”

“Blame you?” My heart races, a painful throb that slams against my diaphragm and robs me of breath. “Blame you for what?”

“For getting hurt. Because I was a total fucking jerk to you on the phone that time. I was a dick and pushed you away, then the next day, you got hurt, and you might’ve been paying more attention at work if you weren’t so focused on your asshole girlfriend.” Now it’s her turn to hide her eyes from me. Standing, she walks around my chair and pumps shampoo into her hand. Dropping my head back and allowing myself a moment that I know I’ll regret later, I rest the back of my head against her belly and stare at the ceiling. The shower spray now hits her back, and the mist settles on my face while she runs her fingers through my hair.

“I was scared of commitment,” she admits quietly. “I was scared that you might get bored with me, so I did it first. I pushed you away, then I sat at home with a broken heart because I’m a saboteur of my own happiness. You called me the night you got hurt.” Her nails scrape over my scalp and relax me in ways I haven’t felt in months. “I was so freakin’ happy you called me, because I was going to tell you how I felt, and that I was sorry for being a bitch. I was going to ask for another chance, but then you hung up and never took my calls again.”

A thick veil sits over my brain when it comes to that night. I can barely remember Kane Bishop in the station, his escape, his girlfriend fighting for his freedom. I barely remember arguing with Jess Lenaghan that night, and I definitely can’t placewhoshot me. I know now, because Alex and Oz told me, but if I had to rely on my memory, I’d be clueless.

But I do remember calling Andi that night.

I remember the way she made me feel.

“You were in a club, Dee.” I reach back, because I can’t not touch, and cup her thighs. For the first time since this all began, I voluntarily touch her, and the way her breath rushes out on a gasp proves she notices, too. “You went out, back to your old world, and didn’t give a shit about me. You broke my fuckin’ heart.”

“No…” She slides her soapy hands along my neck and arches my head around until I turn and stare up into her eyes. Breathing heavily, like she’s just run a marathon, she leans forward and drops a kiss on my wet brow. “No, I didn’t forget about you. Not for a single second.” Leaning back, she nudges my head until I go back to staring away so she can continue washing my hair. “I was out because Mia needed help. I was in a club because my boss is an idiot who can’t figure out why her desperate attempts to trap a man aren’t resulting in declarations of love. I was sitting at home, staring at my stupid phone, waiting for you to forgive me, but when it rang, it was her. She was drunk, spewing.” She exhales so hard, I feel it on the back of my neck. “She was crying, so I went to help her before some predator did. Then you called.” She yanks my head back and hurts my gut more than I’ll ever admit. “You called, then you hung up! I didn’t hear from you again until I walked into a hospital room and found you like…”

“Like what, Dee?” I lift a brow when her eyes go to my legs. “Say it. Say cripple.”

“Cripple?” She moves around the front of my chair and leans forward until both hands rest on my legs. “Jesus. Is that what you think I see when I look at you?” When I don’t argue, she grunts like I frustrate her. “You aren’t crippled! You’re missing half a leg. Not even half! More like, twenty percent of a leg. Or one whole foot, and twelve percent of a leg.”

“You done?”

“Not until you listen to me and stop with the pity party. You’re not crippled! You can get up by yourself, you can pull your crutches out and do whatever the hell you want. And if your stubborn ass goes to your appointment on Monday, you can get a new leg and ditch the crutches. You think I haven’t had this conversation before? Do you forget Timmy, the stubborn coot who refused to help himself until his wife was ready to murder him? She brought his stubborn ass to me, and I got him up again. If you think for one damn second I won’t work a thousand times harder for you, then you don’t know shit about me. Being an amputee is not being a cripple, Riley Cruz, it’s different, and you have the chance to get up and walk again. Stephen Hawking was a paraplegic. The real Superman was a paraplegic. Fr–”

“Christopher Reeve.”

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m yelling! Franklin D Roosevelt! Colt Wynn!” She throws her hand toward the doorway for some asinine reason, as though she has these men sitting in the bedroom waiting to prove her point. “These people were paraplegics. They had real fucking problems. You? You’re missing five toes and a fuckin’ ankle. Get the hell over your pity party and becomemysuperman!” She grabs my face and squeezes. “I’m standing right here,beggingfor you to have me. What more do you want? My soul? You got it. My blood? My heart already beats for you. You want me to chop a leg off too, so we can compare how much pain we’re in? I can do whatever you want me to do, but I cannot give up on you!”

“You don’t want me.” I turn away from her; just my head, my eyes, since I can’t fucking get up whenever I want to. “And you’re ruining this cripple’s shower. It’s the first one I’ve had in weeks, so if you don’t mind…”

“I do mind! You know what I haven’t had in weeks? A decent fucking sleep! An appetite. Someone to hug me. Some to share a meal with. Someone to return my feelings, because it hurts that I love you, that I’m taking a chance on something really fucking scary, and it’s almost like you’d step in front of a bullet and use that as an excuse not to be with me. Am Ithatrepulsive?Thatannoying? Am I only good enough to fuck, but not worth taking home to your sweet momma?”

“You’re being ridiculous!”

“Andyou’rebeing ridiculous. We were made for each other.”

“I asked you to meet my mom!” I feel like a genius for a microsecond. Just. One. Single. Microsecond.

“And I was scared, so I ran. I can own the fact that I ran. But that doesn’t deserve a lifetime of unhappiness, not when the man I love is right here!”

“You don’t love me. You don’t know what that means.”

She drops to her knees, but her hands remain on my face. “It means I’d rather die than give up on you. It means you giving up on yourself pisses me the hell off. It means sleeping in airports, quitting jobs, becoming homeless, and taking the biggest leap of my life on a man that has told me for a week straight he can’t fucking stand me. It means barging into an old folks home with lies about our upcoming nuptials, just to gain entrance to see a woman I expected better of. I was so fucking pissed she left you to rot. I went in there with a fake diamond on my finger and a plan to tear the woman apart limb by limb, only to fall in love with another Cruz.”

“You saw my mom?” Tears burn my eyes, because pathetically, I miss my mom more than any full grown man should. I miss Andi. I miss freedom. I miss the happiness that only Andi can bring me. “You didn’t actually yell at her, did you? Please tell me you didn’t hurt my mom.”

“No! I brought her cupcakes, and hugs, and my pet pig. We hung out and discussed soap operas, then we discussedyou, because she was so fucking sure you were coming to see her. You’ve been out of the hospital for a week, Riley, and I know it might’ve been painful, I know it wouldn’t be easy, but I’m still disappointed in you that you’ve left her waiting.”

“I can’t let her see me like this! It would break her heart.”

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