He glanced at his phone again. Seven-fifteen. He tried to quell his rising panic. Hair took a while to color and curl and whatever else she did, right? She wouldn’t have put this much care and compassion into helping him recover if he didn’t mean something to her. Or was he desperate enough to bullshit himself?
Fuck if he knew. He had never had more than the standard ten-minute haircut. And he’d never tried to have a real relationship with a woman. Until he could fucking talk, he still couldn’t.
Eight days. That’s how much longer his jaw would be wired shut. That’s how long he had to wait before he could open his mouth well enough to tell Brea how he felt, kiss her senseless…and hope she reciprocated.
He hoped like hell that she loved him—at least a little—too.
A gentle knock sounded at the door. Brea.
Thank fuck.
Excitement replaced anxiety. His heart started revving, just like it did every time he saw her.
Usually, she let herself in the house. Early in his convalescence, it had taken every bit of strength he possessed simply to get out of bed. Walking downstairs to open the door had been almost impossible and wiped him out for hours. So he’d given her a key. Tonight, despite nagging fatigue and needing a shower he feared would sap him even more, he let her in himself.
“Hey.” He settled for greeting her with a nod, but he’d give anything to lay his lips over hers, get her underneath him, and convince her to ditch Cutter.
She sent him a wry smile and an eye roll as she stepped into the foyer. “Sorry I’m late, and I couldn’t text you back while I was driving. My last appointment was a mess. Mrs. Goodwin thinks her husband is having an affair, and nothing I said would convince her that hair extensions weren’t the answer to her marital woes.”
It wasn’t funny…but it kind of was. “You did them?”
“No. That takes hours, and I didn’t have the product there. So I colored and curled her…and listened to her talk about buying new lingerie. She scheduled the extensions for next week.”
“Eat something?” He shut the door behind her.
With a wrinkle of her nose, she shook her head. “My stomach is unsettled again today. Just…not hungry. What about you? Yogurt? Soup? Smoothie? Did that protein powder you ordered come in?”
He’d love to take her out to dinner, where they could eat together, talk, hold hands, and eye-fuck as they counted the seconds until they were alone. But he kept running into the limitations of his body…and the unspoken hesitation he kept feeling from her.
“Yeah. Surprise me.” The short answers his broken jaw forced him to give were pissing him off, too.
“Okay. Any laundry?”
“I did it.” At the surprise in her expression, he scowled. “You aren’t my maid.”
“No, but that’s a lot for you to tackle. You should be resting. I’m here to help…”
He fucking didn’t want her pity. “I got it.”
When she reared back, he cursed. He must have been growlier than normal. But he felt like a volcano building and building. Every day he woke up, he ran face-first into all the things he still couldn’t do—talk normally, pump serious iron, sleep without nightmares, resume his job, lay his heart on the line and tell Brea how he felt. And without that last part, sex wasn’t happening. He wanted it. Ached for it. Two months was a long time without it, and she was right in front of him every day, somehow looking prettier and more womanly every time he set eyes on her. He thought about her, masturbated to fantasies of her.
He couldn’t keep going like this.
“Sorry. I pushed today. I’m tired.”
Her face softened as she set her purse down, gave his arm a gentle squeeze, then headed to his kitchen. Once there, she threw some juice, a protein drink, and vegetables into his blender. “And you’re frustrated. I know you’re used to being able to do anything and everything.”
He retrieved the protein powder and set it on the counter beside her. Her hair smelled like some flowery fragrance he didn’t have a name for, but it turned him the fuck on. “Yeah. Day felt long.”
She paused while opening the canister and turned with wide eyes. “Oh, that’s right. It was your first day without the home nurse. What was his name?”
One-Mile nodded, glad she’d remembered so he didn’t have to explain while he felt like a cross between a ventriloquist and a drooler. “Stewart.”
“Not too hard, I hope,” she said as she scooped powder into the blender.
“No. Just more computer work.”
Brea tried not to laugh. “I know how much you love that…”
“Not.”
“Did you start making a dent in that Netflix list yet?”
One-Mile didn’t have the heart to tell her no. She had painstakingly compiled that queue shortly after he’d been discharged from the hospital. He’d watched a few documentaries…but didn’t remember much between the naps and the pain meds. In the past two weeks, he’d focused most of his effort and waking hours on rebuilding his strength and stamina.