Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,27
“Is that good?” She looked over at him.
He gulped. “Thank you.”
“Okay. I’ll go get the ice.”
She raced from the room, and Vlad clunked his head against the headboard. He wasn’t going to survive this. Five minutes at home with her, and his mind was already occupied with thoughts of things that would definitely not help him heal.
In his leg or his heart.
She returned a moment later, panting as if she’d bounded up the stairs two at a time. She carried a plastic bag full of ice cubes and a thin kitchen towel. “Do we just put the ice on the brace, or on the skin?”
“On the skin,” he said, sitting up. “I can open the brace—”
She waved his hands away. “I can do it. I need to learn how.”
“Icing my leg probably won’t be one of the things I need help with.” He tried to inject some levity to his tone but failed. It came out stressed.
She straightened and apologized. Again. “You’re right. I’m being annoying, aren’t I?”
“No.” Vlad took the ice and set it beside his hip. “Elena, listen.”
She gulped and crossed her arms across her chest in that same protective pose that she’d adopted yesterday at the hospital, as if she were afraid of what he was about to say. He couldn’t blame her. He’d been an asshole yesterday.
“You don’t have to do every little thing for me.”
“Okay. Right. I’m sorry.”
“And you don’t have to apologize all the time.”
“Right.” She laughed with a nervous little puff of air.
“And you have to promise to tell me if this becomes too much work.”
“I will. But it won’t.” Beaming confidently again, she nodded in the general direction of the door. “I’m going to bring the rest of your stuff in from the car. Do you need anything else for the next few minutes?”
“No, I’m—I’m fine.”
He didn’t exhale until he heard her open the front door. He’d either made the biggest mistake of his life or . . . there wasn’t an or. He’d just made the biggest mistake of his life.
The ice was quickly numbing his hip, so he leaned forward to open up his brace and rest the baggie on top of the incision. The movement was just enough to remind him that he’d gone way too long without a shower, and there was no way he was going to ask her to help him with that. He was putting his foot down—the good one—on that.
His phone was on the nightstand, and though he dreaded making this call, it had to be done. Colton answered on the first ring. “Holy fuck, dude. The guys and I are going nuts. You send us one text, and that’s it?”
“I am sorry, but—”
“We’ve had to get all our information from ESPN, for fuck’s sake. I was just on the phone with Mack. We were about to storm the damn hospital.”
“I am not there anymore.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Home.”
“Who took you home? Someone from the team? Jesus, man. We would’ve done that.”
“It was not someone from the team.”
“Why the hell do you keep cutting us out like this?”
“Colton, please—”
“You can’t just ghost us like this anymore, man. We’re your family, and we know you need us, so why are you—”
“Because Elena is here!”
Silence. The deafening kind.
Colton made a dramatic play of clearing his throat. “I— What did you say?”
Vlad puffed out his cheeks and let the air seep out. “Elena is here. She came to help. She is the one who drove me home.”
“Like, she’s here for the day, or . . . ?”
“She is going to stay for a while and take care of me.”
This time, in the silence that followed, Vlad could almost hear the gears turning in Colton’s brain and his lips curling into a grin that meant he was already reading way too much into it. “Well, well, well.”
“It is only temporary.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. But I still need your help with something.”
Downstairs, the front door opened and closed again. He didn’t have much time before she came back upstairs.
“Anything, man,” Colton said. “Just name it.”
“Can you give me a bath?”
Colton laughed and then sobered. “I’m sorry, but it sounded like you said you need help taking a bath.”
Vlad groaned and leaned back against his pillows. “That is what I said, yes.”
“But I thought your wife was there.”
She was, and from the sound of it, she was in the kitchen now. “I cannot ask Elena to do it.”
“Why not?”
“You know why!”
“Because of the divorce? I hardly think she’s going