“Of course,” I responded automatically, even as his words sliced through my chest.
“Are you, though?” Sam asked. “Are you done?”
I pressed my lips together, thinking about the earnestness of his texts. I shook my head.
“Then wait to see if he gets the surgery,” Sam said, gripping my hand. “Because you know he’d do just about anything to avoid it.”
I let out a dry laugh, then dabbed at my eyes with my napkin. “Is it wrong to blackmail him into getting what he needs?”
Sam made a funny face as he gestured with his palms face up. “Depends on whether you want him to be in pain.”
Desi smacked his arm, and they both laughed.
I rubbed my chest. “I hate the idea of him being in pain way more than I hate all of the bullshit surrounding us.”
And that was the truth. Even if we couldn’t be together, I never wanted to see Kit in pain again.
21
KIT
I was limpingfrom my house to the main office when I recognized Rowdy’s truck coming up the drive.
Dammit.
I’d forgotten he was coming out to look at the exotics today. A couple antelope had stopped eating, and I hadn’t been able to figure out what was going on.
I stood there, willing the muscles in my legs to loosen up a bit and maybe stop pulling on the poor knee, but no relief was in sight. Plus, it was the first time I was seeing him after he’d walked in on us all those weeks ago, so this was about to get all kinds of awkward.
Rowdy hopped out of his truck and was careful in his approach. “Hey, Kit. How’s it going today?”
“Well, let’s head over to the exotics enclosure and see if we can figure that out.”
He sent me a thumbs up, grabbed a bag from behind the front seat, then joined me as we hit the walkway to the enclosure.
“That knee still giving you trouble?”
“Yes, it is,” I said, trying to avoid sounding so grumpy. I don’t think I was successful.
“You ever gonna let Skylar take care of that for you?”
“Already got the MRI, as you no doubt have heard, and surgery’s scheduled in a coupla weeks. And before you ask, no, I haven’t canceled it yet,” I groused.
Rowdy chuckled, ignoring my bad attitude. “That’s progress, I guess.”
He was quiet the rest of the walk over to the enclosure, giving me plenty of time to come up with several nightmare scenarios, from Rowdy gently mocking me to him waiting until we were alone in the shed so he could bury me in expensive wildlife feed.
Might as well get it over with.
“Go ahead, Rowdy. Do your worst.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, not entirely convincing.
I was about to tell him to stop acting like he didn’t know what I was talking about, but then he went to the fence to say hello to one of the antelopes who wasn’t eating. The antelope, a real jerk named Todd, nuzzled Rowdy’s head and they had a small reunion, with Rowdy murmuring in baby talk before Todd wandered off to harass the giraffes, I assumed.
Alright, then. Fine.
Just as I figured he preferred to stay quiet about the whole thing, Rowdy turned to me with a pained expression.
