He gave me a light kiss. “Let’s get you a hot shower, some ibuprofen and we’l go to bed.”
I nodded.
“Then you can erase my day,” he told me, turning and tucking me into his side, his arm around my shoulders.
We started walking to the bedroom.
“Maybe you should erase my night,” I told him.
“No, I’m thinkin’ you should erase my day.”
“My night was worse than your day,” I said.
“I had a ful shitty day, you just had a half a shitty night.” This was true.
“Okay, I’l erase your day,” I said.
He hit the lights as we walked out of the kitchen.
Chapter Eighteen
Tangerine and Chocolate Wedding
I was lying on my bel y, my arms around a pil ow, fast asleep, when I felt the sheet slide down my back, low, lower, lowest, to come to rest at the top of my behind.
I twisted my head around sleepily and looked at Hank’s shadow in the dark.
“Whisky?” I cal ed, stil groggy.
“Quiet, sweetheart. I want to check something.” Then the light went on.
I blinked at him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else. His eyes were on my back.
“That’s a new one,” he muttered to my back.
I looked over my shoulder. I couldn’t see much of anything.
“What is it?” I asked.
His hand came out and his finger traced something that ran across my lower back. “You were movin’ like you were tender last night. Now I know why. The mark hadn’t formed then but now you’ve got another bruise.”
“Oh,” I turned around, snuggled back into the pil ow and explained. “Bil y dropped me when Indy jumped him on the stairs. I landed funny.”
I closed my eyes, thinking that was that and deciding I’d catch a bit more shut-eye.
Hank had different thoughts.
He tagged me at the waist, gently moved me around and then slid me across the bed, pul ing me upright. I was sitting, facing him, the side of my hip against his.
I brought the sheet with me and I pul ed it up to cover my br**sts.
“What?” I asked when I looked at him.
“Don’t get used to this shit. This isn’t your life. After this is over, you go back to normal,” he replied.
I watched him and felt my gut twist. It was time to begin to show him what he would not be missing when I went away.
“Hank,” I said quietly. “I don’t have a ‘normal’. I’ve been with Bil y for seven years.”