Ready For It (MacAteer Brothers #2) - M.L. Nystrom Page 0,9

to hide, eventually.

“Either he drives you or I drive you.” Connor’s declaration was both irritating and endearing. I liked that he was concerned about me, but I was used to being on my own.

“I can handle it. I’ve been sick by myself before and lived to tell the tale.”

“You’re not by yourself anymore. You’re a capable woman, but I’d feel better if you’d let one of them take you home.” Bevvie’s logic kicked in and defused my temper before it flared.

“Owen, then.” At least he won’t ask a lot of questions.

The giant man grunted once, plucked the keys from my hand, turned, and walked out the door.

Well, fuck, I guess I’m leaving now.

I hugged Bevvie. “Thank you for the soup and stuff. You’re my favorite person, even if you do get bossy.”

“And you’re my favorite PITA.”

I shot her the bird by scratching the side of my nose with my middle finger before I followed Owen’s retreating back.

“I guess you’ll take an Uber back here?” I said to the behemoth next to me. He had to be over six feet tall. I was five foot eight, and he towered over me. Broad back, broad shoulders, short buzz cut, close beard. Bear. The man was a bear.

“Yeah.”

He may be a bear, but definitely not the cuddly type. More like a grizzly in a bad mood. I supposed being folded up in a sports car wouldn’t make anyone his size very happy.

The drive to my condo took the longest fifteen minutes of my life. The only words spoken came from me as I gave directions. By the time we pulled up to my place, I was so ready for him to be gone and me to be on my couch with a bottle of wine and Netflix. Scratch that. No more wine. Chicken soup and bananas. Uh, yummy? Not!

The condos were in sets of four to a building, and mine was the one on the upper left. It took two sets of stairs to get to my unit. The architect had designed these condos in accordance with the topography of the mountainside. They were built at odd angles to each other and the driveways were a bitch to get into. I loved the beautiful view of the city, but someday my knees would ask why I couldn’t have picked a home that had an elevator.

“I’m up there.” I pointed to my cozy condo. “You want to come up while you call an Uber?”

I didn’t particularly want Owen in my space, but it was the right thing to do. He did drive me home, even if he didn’t want to talk to me.

He grunted, which seemed to be his major form of communication. Lovely.

Truthfully, it was good to have him there. I worked out at the complex gym regularly and had a Stairmaster machine in my bedroom that I actually used for daily cardio workouts and not as a handy clothes hanger. Normally, climbing these stairs didn’t faze me at all, but after a day of fasting and vomiting, the task became laborious. By the time I got to my front door, I was huffing and puffing and slightly dizzy. Owen carried the bag of soup and crackers, as I couldn’t even lift that bit of weight. He probably would have carried me if I’d let him. He still had my keys and opened the door with a deft twist.

I flopped on my overstuffed plush sofa, breathing hard and watching the room spin. “Do what you gotta do, O-man. I need a minute.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes with every intention of just resting. Sometime later, I woke up to Owen’s concerned face. He leaned over me with one hand on my shoulder and a tray of soup, crackers, and a banana in the other. It looked like he’d made himself at home in my kitchen.

Anyone else going through my stuff uninvited would have pissed me off. For some reason, Owen’s exploration didn’t bother me. Probably because he was trying to feed and take care of me. I could count on one hand the number of people who did this in my life and still have fingers leftover.

I sat up and took the tray from his hand and set it on the glass coffee table in front of me. “Thank you. That’s so sweet.”

He nodded and lowered his wide frame into one of the low-slung matching chairs. I flashed a picture in my head of him settling into an oversized