Wearing overall shorts and a yellow tube top, her hair in three ridiculous braids, she buzzed into his bedroom—their bedroom—and turned down the bed. “I washed the sheets last night. I wanted everything to be clean so you don’t get an infection.”
“That was sweet of you. Thanks.” He didn’t want to spend the day resting, but his body said otherwise.
He pulled off his T-shirt and crawled carefully into bed, wearing only the shorts she’d brought him and his underwear. His lower legs were heavily bandaged. Doctors had stitched sheets of lab-grown pig skin onto the deepest burns to help them heal—which made wearing pants difficult. His hands and elbows were bandaged, too, but without the temporary skin grafts.
And his face…
His doctor said those burns would heal, but the scars would take time to fade. Brandon didn’t really care. What mattered to him was dashing around the house right now, wearing three silly braids, and fussing over him.
He wouldn’t lie. He liked that.
“I’ll bring you your pain pills and some water.”
“I can get them myself.”
“No, you rest.” She left the room.
He grinned, laid back onto his pillow. He would need to find room for her stuff, clear out space from his closet, on his bookshelves, in the bathroom cabinet.
She reappeared with a glass of ice water in one hand and a bottle of Percocet in the other. “You’re supposed to take your next dose in two hours. I’m going to set the oven timer so you don’t miss it.”
He caught her wrist. “Hey, come here.”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He patted his bare chest. “See any burns here?”
She shook her head, smiled, stretched out carefully beside him, resting her cheek on his chest. “I’ve spent so much time here it already feels like home.”
“That’s good.” Brandon kissed her forehead. “I’ll clear out space for you soon. Where is the stuff you managed to rescue from your house?”
She pointed.
He lifted his head, saw a small suitcase, her TV, and a few plastic garbage bags sitting in the corner of his room. “That’s it?”
Damn.
She nodded. “I only took the important stuff—my record collection, my beer bottles, my nail polish, my TV and computer, my sex toys, some clothes.”
“Vinyl, beer bottles, electronics, nail polish, and sex toys.” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “You’ve got your priorities straight.”
“Some.” She raised herself onto her elbow, looked down at him. “I took that stupid music box—the one my dad gave me before he disappeared. I don’t know why.”
“It must mean something to you.”
He’d thought a lot about what she’d told him—the violence and abandonment she’d experienced as a kid. That kind of pain cut deep. It was bound to affect their relationship again and again. But he would rather spend his life on a rollercoaster with Libby than walk a smooth, straight path with anyone else.
He loved her. It was as simple as that.
Her lips curved in a little smile. “The plastic bag holding my sex toys broke on the way out to my car. The Deputy US Marshal who helped me evacuate was standing right there when it happened. He saweverything. I had to run inside and get the suitcase. Then these other two guys walked up—”
Brandon couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing, the mental image of Libby scrambling to pick up vibrators, dildos, and cock rings under the supervision of a deputy US marshal more than he could handle.
“You think that’s funny?”
Brandon was laughing too hard to answer.
Libby stood, peeled off her overalls, pulled the tube top over her head, freeing her breasts. “I think I need to test them to see whether any were broken.”