Charming as Puck(91)
“Why?” I ask, and she laughs, that uninhibited smile brightening the room even more.
“I just can’t help myself.” She giggles and licks her thumb, then rubs something off my face. “Crazy man. You’re still wearing dick glitter.”
“You like it? I’ll wear it every day. Or you can be the glitter on my dick. Shit. That wasn’t supposed to come out. Not of my mouth. I—”
She silences me with a finger while she laughs so hard her face scrunches up.
There’s nothing better in all the world than the sight of Kami laughing. She’s cookies and cream ice cream on triple fudge caramel brownies. She’s winning the Cup all over again every hour of my life. She’s the only person in the world I’d trust with my heart.
“You make me so happy,” she says with that huge smile. “Just by being you.”
“I really am this big of a dumbass,” I warn her.
“Everyone has their moments. But not everyone makes up for them the way you do.”
I can’t stop touching her. Her face. Her hair. Her hands. Her neck. Everywhere. I need to touch her everywhere. “I thought—you were hurt. Somewhere.”
Her smile fades. “My phone’s battery—I usually charge it here during the day, but Mom took the charger to her conference, and then Muffy showed up, and I got so busy—”
“I’m getting you a new phone.”
She looks like she’s going to argue, so I pull a don’t even try it face.
“One phone,” she says sternly. “Small enough to fit my hands. None of this bigger-is-better stuff.”
Now I’m grinning, because if she thinks those parameters will stop me from going overboard in other ways, she’s clearly forgotten who she’s talking to. But she’s not arguing over me getting her a new phone, so we’re making progress.
“And one phone case, and it cannot have your picture on it, and I do not want anything about my phone plan switched or upgraded, regardless of who you think is paying for it, though I’ll take three chargers, fine, if they’re different from my current chargers, but no fancy earbuds. I prefer the way the cheap ones fit in my ears, and I’ve tested them, so don’t try me. And no adding any apps to the phone, and I’ll consent to a battery pack, but only one, and it can’t have your picture on it either.”
Huh.
That’ll make it a little harder.
And all the more rewarding when I still manage to make it the best fucking phone package ever.
“Dr. Oakley?” a voice says behind me. “We have everything under control here. Why don’t you go home?”
She frowns. “But Muffy—”
“I’m off tomorrow. I’ll stay with her as long as she wants to stay with Rufus. You go on. We’ll call you—ah, if you get your phone plugged in, I mean.”
“Call me if you need her,” I tell her. I grab a business card off Kami’s desk, scribble my number on the back, and hand it to her assistant person. What’s she called?
The tech. Right.
She needs a nametag, because the only name I can remember at the moment is Kami. Come to think of it, everyone in the entire universe needs nametags.
I don’t know my own fucking name at the moment
The tech stares at me for a minute, then the card, then she glances at Kami, who’s rustling behind the desk.
“S-sure. Thanks. Did you—did you kick some Indies ass tonight?”
I stare at her blankly for longer than necessary even to hit the awkward stage, because fuck. I forgot I played a hockey game tonight.
“Did you?” Kami echoes.
All of it comes rushing back, but mostly just the four empty seats.
Which were empty because Kami was saving a life.
I give her the ol’ Nick Murphy grin. “Yeah.”
“Good.” She slides a hand under my arm and tugs, because I’m still squatting on the floor. “C’mon, you troublemaker,” she teases. “Take me home.”
Home?
More of my week comes flooding back, and now I’m grinning even bigger than my normal grin.
She wants to go home.
I’m going to do one better than that.
Forty-Eight
Kami
Nick doesn’t let go of my hand once we’re both in the Jeep, and I’m starting to think he forgot where he’s going, because he’s making every wrong turn known to man on the way to my house.
We’re not going to his parents’ house either.
But now that the color’s coming back to his face, he’s quit looking at me like he’s making sure I’m still in one piece. I try to ask him questions about the game, but he ignores me to ask about Muffy’s cat.
Oddly, answering him is settling my own anxiety levels too.
There’s nothing as terrifying as a family member banging on the door with a limp cat shrieking about a button battery.
I didn’t think Rufus was going to make it.
But he pulled through surgery, probably because he’s just as stubborn as he is stupid, and any cat that eats a button battery is stupid, I don’t care how cute it is or how relieved I am that he’s going to be okay.
He’s also damn lucky Muffy realized so quickly what he’d eaten.