Page 57 of Mace
I glance down at my wrist that is twice the size it usually is. “What? No, it’s fine. I can wiggle my fingers, and it only hurts if I lift something.”
“How did you fall?”
That’s a long story.
“I just don’t know where my own feet are.” I hate lyingto him, but what choice do I have? I can’t divulge my broken life to him.
“I thought you were avoiding me, and all this time, you’ve been hurtin’.”
He seems upset by this, and I don’t like that he is. I’m not sure what possesses me to do it, but I reach out and cup the side of his face. His eyes lock to mine, and it’s hard to breathe for a moment.
“I’m fine, Mace, and I’m not avoiding you. I would never do that.”
“I’d never allow it,” he assures me, and it should freak me out, but secretly, I like it. “You need to have your wrist X-rayed.”
“There’s no need.” I carefully pull my arm back from him and cover the bruises with my sleeve. “It already feels better. A few more days and I’ll be right as rain.”
He stares at me for so long, I’m certain he’s seeing through all my lies. Just as I’m about to try and explain more, he speaks. “Have breakfast with me.”
That was not what I thought was going to come out of his mouth. “I… what?”
“Have breakfast with me,” he repeats, and my stomach somersaults.
There is no part of my brain that can fathom why this beautifully attractive man wants to do this, but internally, I’m squealing that he does. I’m not the girl who gets the guy. I’m the nerdy best friend who is forever a side character.
And yet the way he’s looking at me burns me like fire. “Why?” It’s not what I mean to say, but it slips out anyway.
“Because I’m hungry and I don’t like to eat alone.”
“You don’t have friends you can eat with?”Why in the fuck did I ask that?
He snorts. “I have plenty of friends, but none of them are you. You’re acting like you’ve never been asked out for breakfast.”
If my mother hadn’t died, if I hadn’t been left to raise my siblings, I probably would have dated. Who knows, maybe there would have been a line of previous boyfriends and broken hearts, a history of the most mind-blowing sex of my life, but that’s just not how things went for me. Instead of raunchy kisses in the back of the cinema or dinner dates for anniversaries, my life was homework, and up until recently, school runs and drop-offs.
Mace is… more than that, and standing in front of him, I feel like a naïve, stupid little girl.What the hell could he possibly see in someone like me?
I wrap my arms around myself, as if I can guard my heart from the pain I’m about to inflict on it. Mace is the first man who has ever shown any interest in me in my entire fucking life, and he’s the first man who has ever quickened my pulse like this. But how can I embark on anything with him, given the crap going on in my personal life?
Oh, shit. I don’t want to do this, but what choice do I have? I won’t drag him into my disastrous mess. This is going to hurt, and I brace myself for the pain.
“I can’t.”
His brows climb up his forehead. “Can’t or don’t want to? Because those are two different answers, sweetheart.”
I know I should lie and say I don’t want to. It would make this problem disappear pretty fast, because Mace doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would push oncehe’s given a no, but I’m already lying enough in my life as it is. “I… I can’t.”
It makes my chest ache to say those words, to give up on something I have wanted for so long, but Ivy needs me.
He opens his mouth to say something, but I never find out what because the door to the side of us swings open and a very sleepy-looking Toby steps out, rubbing at his neck as he yawns. “I can’t find any milk in the frid?—”
He breaks off the moment his head lifts. Highly aware that Mace is still bracketing my body with his against the wall, heat rises in my cheeks. I can only imagine how this looks, and from the bemused expression on my little brother’s face, I’m going to have to do some quick talking to explain.
I slip out from beneath Mace’s huge frame, completely ignoring him as he straightens. I’m hyperaware of his presence behind me, but all I want to do is get my brother back inside the flat.
“Go and play your game. I’ll sort the milk situation in a moment.”
I try to steer him back so I can close the front door, but Toby is no longer a scrawny little kid. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still growing, but when he digs his heels in, he’s surprisingly strong.