She tried to see it, hands on my face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. It was instinct, and I didn’t hear you behind me and—”
“What do you have in that bag? Christ.” I wasn’t bleeding, but it hurt more than the elbow wound.
“It was made with a bit of metal—God, I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s good,” I managed out, knowing the skin around the area was already growing red. “It happens. I would have gotten hurt one way or another; it’s fairly normal.”
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” I removed my hand from my nose, blinking my vision clear. “Lo siento,” I apologized. “For earlier, I did not mean for you to leave… I am just—I am having a very bad day, and I did not want you to see me like that.”
Her gaze softened. “You were okay yesterday…”
“Yes, I was. But I don’t know. It happens like this… sometimes.”
She nodded. “You want to go somewhere to talk about it?”
I eyed her. “Where?”
“I may or may not have reserved a spot for us at a restaurant. For your birthday, in case you wanted to leave the house?”
The pain in my nose had subsided a little; thankfully it wasn’t serious. “You had a day planned for us?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“It’s your birthday,” she answered. “Birthdays are special, and from the looks of it, you don’t really celebrate.”
“I never have,” I confessed. “That cake on the counter is the first I have ever received. In my entire life. So, if I acted weird about it, you know why.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Well,” she said quietly. “Now you have me to show you why having a birthday cake is normal. Most especially one made with so much…” Something swirled in her eyes, and she raised herself, pressing her lips to mine in a light kiss, before pulling away, her pretty eyes looking between mine as she completed her sentence. “So much… care.”
Somehow, I could materialize a smile from the chaos in my head.
“I rented a car. A better one this time, and you’re driving us to the restaurant; we’ll eat and talk and fill your stomach and get you back in a good mood; what do you say?”
“All right, okay, yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Elio
About an hour later, the woman I considered my partner was taking too much pleasure in my awful day. I’d already concluded that she had terrible table manners, and it didn’t bother me anymore. The glare I sent her didn’t have any weight as she tried to stifle her laughter, her eyes going red with the efforts she was making to hold it in.
“I really don’t know why I like you,” I stated, shaking my head as she raised a hand as if she were stopping the laughter, but when she tried to speak, laughter was all that came out.
“I’m sorry,” she wheezed, her face red. “I’m sorry, I’m just—I’m just trying to picture it. You”—laugh—“falling from”—more laughter—“the bathtub”—a wheeze. “It’s so—it’s so not—I can’t picture it.”
“People fall, Zahra. People fall all the time. And mine was almost fatal; you should not be laughing. I could have died.”
She sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m glad you didn’t, but—do you happen to have a—a camera in the bathroom? I just—I gotta see that shit for myself.”
“You are a very terrible person,” I pointed out.
She busted out laughing again, drawing attention from people around us.
She blew out a breath in an attempt to calm herself. “What? People falling is—there’s just something about it that—I don’t know—especially you? Mr. Never-careless-always-careful-and-proper.”
