Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(7)

The woman is here to help your sick ass, and all you can do is wonder why she didn’t hot herself up for you? Blackburn, you are a dick of epic proportions.

The minuscule voice of his former, non-asshole self that he hadn’t been able to stomp to smithereens over the past year wasn’t wrong. That didn’t mean he was going to listen, though, because the sooner he could get Fallon out of his house the better. The whole idea of having someone in his space made him more uncomfortable than a jockstrap full of itching powder.

“Is this what you wear all the time?” he asked with more growl than he’d meant, but any memories of his parents tended to do that to him.

Good thing he only thought about them when he looked at the nearly empty house he couldn’t afford to furnish, each time he laced up his skates to play the game they’d ruined for him, and basically every time he fucking inhaled.

Fallon paused mid-march—because the woman did not walk, she attacked—from the kitchen island to the card table where he sat on the one chair. She glanced down at her outfit. “You mean clothes?”

The woman was annoyingly obtuse. “What do you wear out on dates?”

“Why?” she asked, setting a bowl in front of him filled with soup that smelled like heaven, a massive endorsement deal, and the best orgasm of his life. “Are you asking?”

It took a second for his brain to make sense of her words. The soup really did smell that good. He wasn’t asking. He didn’t ask. He hadn’t asked since before he’d gotten a four-year ride at Michigan. The women just sort of appeared by his side when it was time to leave the bar or asked him to go out. The idea of having to ask a woman out on a date was almost as weird as actually going out on one. He didn’t do that. He hooked up.

Still… “Would you go?”

“Do I look like I have a head injury?” She rolled her eyes and marched back to the island, where her own bowl waited. “Hell, no.”

The fuck? Sure, he was an asshole, but in his experience, that didn’t stop people from wanting to be close to him. Turned out that was because they wanted something from him—money, their name in bold letters on a gossip site, bragging rights for having banged a pro hockey player—but a hard no was basically unheard of.

He sat up straighter on the folding chair. “Why not?”

She didn’t even bother to look up from her bowl. “You’re not my type,” she said before putting a spoonful of soup in her mouth.

“What is your type?” And why did he care? Damned if he could answer either one.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re annoying when you aren’t throwing up?” she asked.

He shrugged and had his first spoonful of the soup she’d made from a can and some random veggies she’d found in his fridge. Damn, it was good. “Do you really think there’s an insult that hasn’t been lobbed my way?”

Those pale-pink lips of hers curled into a smile. “Probably not.”

The woman was as cold as the ice he usually skated on. “If I had feelings, they’d be hurt right now.”

“Uh-huh. I’m very worried,” she said, putting down her spoon and giving him an assessing look before walking back over to him at the card table. “Okay, let me feel your cheek just to make sure the food poisoning is just that. I still don’t understand how you don’t have a thermometer.”

“Any preference on which set of cheeks?” The words were out before he could stop them—even if he wanted to. His goal was, after all, to get this woman out of his house.

“Do you know how many times patients have said things like that to me? Or worse? Or accidentally let their paper gown slip? You’d think someone being injured enough to go to the emergency room would impede their wandering hands. You’d be wrong.”

By the time she’d finished, a red splotch had appeared at the base of her throat. Zach was beyond used to being the goat in any situation. He asked for it. He relished it. He craved it as a kind of defiant defensiveness. Usually, any evidence of a verbal bomb’s direct hit loosened some of the tension stringing him tight—at least for a few moments. But with Fallon? It kinda felt like kicking a puppy—one that was a snarling, snipping cur, sure, but a puppy all the same.

“I’m sorry,” he said before shoving another spoonful of soup in his mouth and swallowing as soon as the hot brew hit his tongue, so that it burned all the way down his throat. “Won’t happen again.”

“Good,” she said, her voice curt. “Now, let me feel your cheek.”

Grudgingly, he turned his face to the side and upward. There wasn’t a reason why he was holding his breath, but he was as she pressed the back of her hand against his cheek. It wasn’t that no one touched him. That puck bunny from the club had touched him a lot before leaving him a basket of adulterated muffins. Trainers had their hands on him, checking out a tweaked ankle or easing sore muscles. This was different, though, more intimate. She didn’t care about how quickly he could get out on the ice or how he could get her name in the paper or how much he could line her pockets. And that made it awkward. Everyone always wanted something from him. If there was one thing he could count on in life, it was that. From his parents to agents to fans to puck bunnies, everyone just wanted to use him for their own benefit.

She moved her hand to his forehead, her touch reassuring, and he let out the breath he’d been holding.