Page 29 of Tied Over

“No,” I said, glancing up at Bodhi, who was now the one smirking at me. “You can’t make me do that.”

“You haven’t had a vacation since you transferred here, Jed, so now you are mandatorily taking one with your partner to look out for you.”

“Fine, I’ll take the week, but I don’t have to go with Bodhi to—”

“You do,” Ian assured me. “You can’t be alone, and there’s only your partner, unless there’s someone else who should be listed on your emergency form.”

You could hear a pin drop in the room as Ian waited for me to speak.

“I could visit my sister.”

“On her livestock sanctuary,” Ian said, nodding. “Yeah. Sounds restful.”

It did not, in fact, sound the least bit restful.

“And she’ll have so much time to keep an eye on you between everything the animals require and her two sons,” he said sarcastically.

“I don’t need watching. All I need to do is sit.”

“Bodhi called your sister, by the way, because all this made national news and he didn’t want her to worry.”

“You did?” I asked, looking up at him.

He glared at me. “Of course I did. And for your information, she and her husband and all the hands on their ranch are busy moving the cattle out to pasture for the summer. The bulls join the cows, yearlings, and the calves in late June, which this is, and they also have to get ready for winter.”

“She still has cattle?”

“It’s a sanctuary and a ranch in one.”

“That doesn’t seem likely.”

“Well, it is. Nothing dies on her place.”

“Why do you know all that?”

“Because I’ve asked her questions.”

I groaned. “Yeah, but—”

“I told her she didn’t need to come here—which she was going to do, leaving her family—because I was going to look after you.”

Fuck.

“She was very thankful,” he stressed. “She expects a call from you today, and I told her I’d let her know precisely what was happening with your recovery since, as we all know, you are shit with details.”

“I’m not shit with—”

“You suck at relaying important facts,” he told me loudly.

Ian, that ass, was chuckling.

“Listen,” I said to Ian, needing him to see reason. “Bodhi is going to Seattle to spend time with his fiancé’s family and—”

“I understand they have a mansion on a lake or some shit,” Ian said with a yawn. “It sounds like a great place to convalesce.”

My body might heal, but my heart would be eviscerated. “I can’t do that. I’ll be spoiling the Fourth for everyone, and it’s not right to—”

“It’s done, Jed,” Bodhi told me. “You have to meet everyone anyway, so it works out great. Just let it be.”