Roly blinks at the comment, regret starting to color his features. We’re still standing in my doorway, and I wonder if he’s finally putting together what an absolute shithead he’d been. Slipping his phone from his back pocket, he taps the screen a few times and asks, “Do you happen to have a protein I can use for the meal?”
Ignoring his question, I ask, “Roly, why are you doing this?”
His shoulders rise and fall on a big inhale and exhale. “I have to make this up to you somehow. And I thought that maybe an apology meal would be nice.”
“One that requires me to provide you with the protein.”
His shoulders slump, and defeat mars his friendly face. “Sorry. It was a stupid idea.” He starts to pick up the bags and… goddammit.
I can’t be an asshole to him.
“Fine. It’s fine,” I say begrudgingly, letting him into the entryway and pointing him in the direction of the kitchen. He passes the living room and waves at the puppies, who have their noses pressed against the sliding glass door.
I grab a large salmon filet from the freezer and go about getting it thawed out, which won’t take too long. While I’m doing that, Roly toes off his sneakers and leaves them by the entrance to the kitchen, then checks the app and pulls out enough food for a small village.
The countertop by the stove is butcher block, so after washing the vegetables, I have him set up there. He settles in, humming to himself as he slices and dices, and I have to admit that his knife work is pretty impressive. Once he’s done with that, he finds my cast-iron skillet and adds butter, oil, garlic, and onion, letting them cook down for a few minutes.
I keep trying to figure out how I feel about having this man in my kitchen, and it’s the same fuck him or beat him conundrum I’d had in high school. Still, it’s clear that he really wants to make amends, and watching him slide from one end of my kitchen to the other on his socks is not a hardship. He’s concentrating so carefully with the food, following the recipe app on his phone, checking it two and three times to make sure he’s doing things correctly. I will admit that when his little tongue darts out at a particularly complex part of the recipe, I find him almost charming.
While waiting for the garlic and onion to brown nicely, he pulls out a couple of tomatoes and begins to cut them into chunks. I don’t know where he’s going with the recipe, but I have very strong opinions on the matter and don’t want him transferring those tomatoes into my perfectly seasoned skillet. I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Roly, I’m—ohfuck.”
Roly startles and hits the handle, tipping the heavy cast-iron skillet forward, coating the front of his clothes with the hot butter mixture. He throws his arms out to avoid getting scalded, this time knocking the skillet to the floor.
I move quickly to avoid having the skillet land on my toes, which it does anyway, but not before my foot hits the butter mixture. I start to slip as the skillet glances off my big toe, and I grab the first thing I see, which happens to be Roly. We both end up ass over teakettle on the floor just as the microwave dings, letting us know that the salmon has finally defrosted.
It’s ri-fucking-diculous.
There’s a solid minute of cursing and agony and ripping off Roly’s scalding clothes. My toe feels like it’s going to throb right off my body, and an unprotected spot on Roly’s forearm is turning bright red.
We’re going to need a mop, a splint, and some salve.
Not wanting to go back to the ER for a simple broken toe, I call Scout’s old sports doc for advice. Despite my protests, Jonathan insists on coming over, so while we wait for him, I gently wash the oil from Roly’s burn and find robes for us to wear. I pull on my robe and ignore the hunger in his eyes when he sees my bare chest and belly. He gingerly pulls on the white terry cloth robe lined in pink gingham that I’ve given him and snorts. “Seriously? You’re giving me one of Lily’s robes?”
“All of my robes are big on me; they’d fall right off of you.” Of course, they’d have also covered him better, and giving him a robe that only comes down about midthigh on him is… probably a mistake. I carefully roll the sleeve away from the angry-looking burn, and while the robe doestechnicallyclose in the front, it’s impossible to miss the flashes of his chest and strong thighs with every step. Just bein’ truthful here, but in thefuck or fightdebate, this robe puts a big damn check mark in the fuck column. I’ll clearly have to burn it and hope my daughter doesn’t notice, because she’s never wearing it again.
Just as I decide I should bring him one of my robes, Jonathan shows up and sets a genuine black leather doctor’s bag on my kitchen table. He raises his eyebrow at both of us, a smile creating happy lines near his eyes. With his strong, lean build and dark skin contrasted against a bright shock of salt-and-pepper coils shorn close to the scalp, Jonathan is a striking man. And a total smart-ass.
“Now, I’ve been called out to take care of sex injuries before, but I do believe that this is the first time I’ve seen both parties requiring medical care.”
Roly laughs, but I shake my head, cutting short the joyful sound. “Jonathan, it’s not like that. Forgive me for saying this, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in bed with that man.”
Jonathan’s eyes slide between the two of us, not buying it. “Okay then. Talk to me about your injuries and how you got them.”
I explain the chain of events that led to all of our injuries, with Roly adding color commentary while the ridiculously tiny robe reveals more of his incredible body with each exaggerated gesture. Very quickly Jonathan is lost to laughter. “Oh my god, that is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard. You should both be bubble wrapped and required to maintain a distance of at least fifty feet away from each other at all times.”
“Wouldn’t be a hardship for me.” I say, grinning. I mean, the guy did show up uninvited, amiright? I turn to Roly, thinking he’ll agree with me, but when I see that all-too-familiar look of hurt-but-trying-to-hide-it, I feel a little sick to my stomach.
I mean, he pulls himself back together really quickly, but I saw what I saw.
Call me petty, but I’m super annoyed that I can’t even enjoy hurting the man the way he hurt me. Worse? I kinda want to pull him into my lap to place kisses on his head.
That was… oddly specific.
Anyway.
I feel a little less bad when Jonathan starts to go to work. He gave Roly a good numbing ointment for his burn, but when he brings my foot out of my shoe, I have to concentrate on not hitting him. “Yeowch.”
“Sorry, my friend. Doesn’t look like any fun.” Jonathan palpates everything, which hurts like a mother trucker, then tilts his head a bit side to side. “You’ll probably still want to get this imaged, but it doesn’t feel like the bone is broken. You might have a hairline fracture, and all anyone would ever do is to tell you to ice it and then as soon as you can stand it, tape your toes together.”
