“Because you are so goddamn selfless and worried about everyone else that you’re going to kill yourself. That’s one of the things I?—”
Shit.
I barely stop myself from saying something really fucking stupid that I can never take back.
It isn’t the first time. Not even the second or third since she woke up in that hospital. The words I’ve wanted to say, that have sat on the tip of my tongue somehow feeling like thousand-pound weights, are still there, though. Somehow kept in when every part of me wants to come clean.
Because that wouldn’t solve anything.
Baring my soul would only result in an even more pissed off Bishop who would fight me harder every fucking step of the way.
At least she’s talking again.
She may be angry.
She may be volatile.
But she’s safe.
That’s what matters.
And I just need to keep reminding myself of that each time my frustration threatens to boil over, like it is now.
I sigh and scrub my hands over my face, then push open my door, step out, and nudge it shut behind me when what I really want to do is slam it.
The cool, damp air and the light drizzle hitting me doesn’t do anything to dampen the heated aggravation coursing through me as I make my way around to the passenger side door and tug it open.
Her inability to see, for even one damn second, that we’re all trying to protect her is going to make the next two weeks…difficult at best.
She stares up at me now, unmoving. That flicker of defiance across her bourbon eyes tells me she is going to resist.
“Don’t make me reach in there and pull you out, Hellcat.” I shake my head, releasing a sigh heavy with all the weariness I’m feeling after the last several days. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
It’s the last thing I ever want to do.
And it kills me that this is hurting her.
Not physically but emotionally.
To her, being kept away from her job after something so catastrophic happened might as well be the same level of torture she warned me about at Sunday family dinner.
She scowls at me. Those lips that are capable of saying such intensely beautiful things and kissing me so fiercely twist in a way that makes me wish I could slam my mouth against hers and wipe it all away, but all I can do right now is wait her out.
The misty rain starts to dampen my hair and clothes and she finally reaches over, unbuckles her seatbelt, and climbs from the car with a defiant huff and a wince she tries to cover by looking down instead of at me.
“Don’t call me that.”
We’re back to that, are we?
It shouldn’t surprise me that she’s thrown those walls right back up, that it feels like we’re back exactly where we started. As far as Bishop is concerned, I’ve betrayed her by suggesting this arrangement and insisting it needs to happen, by ignoring what she wants in favor of what she needs right now.
Bishop slams her door closed, and the sound seems to reverberate around us like a thunderclap. Maybe because we’ve sat in silence for so damn long.
I’ll take loud and angry over silent and angry any day.
“Thank you.” I tug open the back door. “I’ll get the bags.”
I pull out the two large duffels her mother packed for her and brought to the hospital this morning. With them slung over my shoulder, I motion for her to walk toward the shop.
