Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(58)

His uninjured eyebrow cocked up at me in question, although he was smiling at my request.

“Your shirt is getting ruined by your stupid face bleeding all over it,” I replied, to his cocky look.

“It’s already red, who cares?” he asked, but he reached behind his neck to take it off anyway. I loved the way he dragged his shirts over his head.

It took every ounce in me to stop myself from sliding my hands up his abs and around his neck. I wanted to put my lips on that tattoo hugging his right shoulder.

“Are you going to tell me why half your face is busted?”

“Are you going to talk to me without running away?”

“Touché. I’ll talk,” I replied, leaning in quietly and inspecting his eyebrow. “You should probably get stitches.”

“Hell no, I don’t need stitches, just slap a bandage on it.” He grabbed my hips and placed me in his lap with my legs wrapped around him. I instinctively grabbed his bare shoulders to steady myself.

When I gave him a questioning look, he shrugged. “Just so you can get a closer look, Nurse Emerson.” I watched as a smile broke out across his face. Playful Jaxon was hard to resist.

I tapped his forehead above his gash as to remind him he had some explaining to do first.

“I was in the parking lot coming to find you when that idiot Cole came blazing down the lot yelling at me. He f*cking just started wailing on my face. He was pissed,” he let out a small laugh. “I knew he had a right to be, so I didn’t stop him. Jace jumped in there after a few good ones though. I’m almost f*cking positive he could have stopped him sooner, but I think he’s pissed at me too.”

“Cole did this?” I hollered at him.

This cut was really deep; I had no doubt that he needed stitches. One time I had opened the kitchen cabinet and a glass cup came flying down at my face from the top shelf. It sliced a cut across my cheek right under my eye. The ER doctor didn’t want to place stitches so close to my eye, so he sent me home with a box of butterfly stitch bandages. I still had a couple left over that I could use on his eyebrow to hold the cut closed; hopefully it would heal without a scar or infection.

“Yeah, I guess he was finally tired of me ruining things with Quinn for him, because she got pissed at him for not telling you about Audrey. Man, don’t get in the way of that guy and his girl.”

I groaned, “They just got started and we keep spoiling it for them. I’m an awful friend.” I continued wiping up all the blood and trying gently to scrub off the areas that had already dried to his skin. When it was all clean, I smoothed some ointment across it. He continued to sit there quietly, watching my face while I worked. Every once in a while, we would make eye contact and I had to force myself to break it before I started something up with him I wouldn’t be able to stop. I needed to know who Audrey was and what he hadn’t told me yet.

He was still staring into my eyes as I pushed his cut together and applied the bandage so it would hold the skin firmly in place. When I was done, I dropped my hands into my lap.

“I’m not married, Emerson.” I slowly let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. “I used to be though.”

The breath I had just released was sucked right back in. He laid his forehead down onto my shoulder, I’m assuming so he didn’t have to look at my shocked face.

“I told you I had no room to judge anyone. I was a moron.” He lifted his head back up to look at me. His face appeared sad and guilt-stricken. I gently tried to smooth away the lines across his face, carefully avoiding his cut. “I went a little crazy in high school and I started dating Audrey. My senior year, right after I turned eighteen, she got pregnant. She was so pissed at me and pressured me to do something to make it right. I couldn’t tell anyone; I was disappointed in myself. I didn’t tell my Mom or even Jace. I snuck off with her to get married since we both were eighteen. I thought that was the right thing to do if she was going to have my kid.” He laid his forehead back down on my shoulder.