Page 17 of Work It Out
The big jerk was still laughing when Rayah balled up her fist and punched him in the gut.
“Ow. Damn it!”
“Why’d you go and do that?” He grabbed hold of her forearm as she hopped by him shaking out her hand. “Not only is it rude to hit somebody like that, it’s a good way to break your thumb. Didn’t anybody teach you how to throw a punch?”
Her glare should’ve turned him to ash. “Not sure. Lean down here. I’ll try it on your face.”
“Yeah, hit bone. That’ll go better.” He pulled her injured arm between them to rest against his chest, which meant it stuck way above her head. “Let me see.”
She tugged. “It’s fine.” Now she had a bum hand to go with her old-lady shoulder and her bad ’tude.
His sigh practically parted her hair. “I realize I’m usually the dumbest guy in the room, but I spent a few years as cannon fodder. I can check for broken bones. Hush and let me look at it.”
The ache in his voice—the raw, horrible hurt—knocked her for a loop. “What are you talking about? You’re not dumb. And what the hell do you mean, ‘cannon fodder’?”
He didn’t answer. For a long moment, prodding and poking and grumbling were all that came from his stoic side of what had become a very bizarre fight. “You’re okay,” he said eventually. “It’ll be sore, but nothing feels broken.”
And yet, for some reason, he didn’t let her go. When his gaze finally met hers, the intensity there made her squirm. “I’m sorry, Ray-Ray. I shouldn’t have messed with you like that. It was a dick move.”
“Yeah, it was.” She tried again to pull free so she could step away.
He didn’t seem to notice. His blue eyes were intense as he stared down at her. Again, she had that awful premonition that she wouldn’t like whatever he said next.
“Where have you been staying since Jake took your cabin?”
She hated being right sometimes, she really did.
“Since I what?”
Rayah finally jerked her arm free and spun around as Jake closed in on them. Eight years ago, the fury on his face might’ve made her run. But that girl was long gone. If Jake wanted a fight, so be it.
Chapter Five
September 17
ComicMovieManiacs.com
Confirmed: Phantom Strike is getting his own feature film!
Merciless Comix confirmed today that casting will begin first of the year for this new branch of the Merciless Movie Universe. Inside sources say producers have several ideas about who should fill the Phantom’s leather jacket. Needless to say, more than one of them is named Chris.
The backslide since returning from Sedona left Jake feeling like the Grim Reaper’s leftovers. Eating Pierce’s food again couldn’t be helping, and he wasn’t nearly as fun to flirt with. He missed his sassy, sexy nurse.
“Move your ass, Moloughney!”
“How ’bout…you kiss…my ass…Sullivan?”
Pierce had never been overly endowed with solicitude, but Jake hadn’t known his buddy could be such a dick. Okay, he’d known. He hadn’t known Pierce could be such a dickto him. Today was full of surprises.
“Not even with somebody else’s lips,” Pierce shot back.
They’d been in the gym over an hour, figuring out his baseline and “taking it easy.” Pierce’s words, not Jake’s. If forty-five minutes of calisthenics followed by twenty minutes on the stair climber was “taking it easy,” he really had paid a fortune to die in Hell.
He was stepping off the machine, Pierce’s wrath be damned, when it happened. The telltale flutter in his chest. His heart rate spiked contrary to the accepted laws of medicine just as the edges of his vision began to darken and his body threatened to go on full evac mode.
“Dude, you’re not done. You—” Pierce must’ve seen his face, because he cut himself off. “Don’t hurl on the carpet! Ray’ll kill us both.”
Jake made a break for it. The back door was closer than the restroom. The cool fall air might help calm his system, but the biggest draw was keeping the humiliation factor low. If he could make it outside and around the corner to the bench set along a walking path, he’d be okay.
