Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [98]
My heart felt like it was trembling. Although I knew we both felt it, we’d never said it. The impact of what he’d just said colored his face. I touched his cheek with the back of my hand gently, as he had done to me countless times before.
“I love you,” I whispered. Brendan sighed my name so quietly, I could barely hear him. He leaned down and kissed me softly, a slow, longing kiss that smoldered and burned against my lips. When we broke away, we were both a little flushed.
“Well, I guess I’m going to meet your aunt sooner than I expected,” he said with a self-conscious smile. Seeing my confused face, Brendan added, “I’m not sending you back to your aunt with bloody hands and an injured ankle. Not without explaining what happened.”
I started to protest but realized that he had a point.
“Fine,” I conceded. I began hobbling toward the sub way.
“Why don’t we take a cab home,” he suggested, eyeing my ankle.
“No way, I’m fabulous,” I called as I hobbled along. “Check out my pimp walk!”
Brendan laughed, but still hailed a cab and pulled me into it. I hated the idea of springing Brendan on Aunt Christine—or worse, her not being home and coming in to find Brendan in the apartment—but she wasn’t answering the phone.
Brendan helped me into the building just as my ankle began to really throb. I put the key in the lock to Christine’s apartment and heard the TV inside—so she was home, after all. I got the door open to find my aunt sitting on the couch, watching World’s Wildest Police Videos on her DVR. Once I showed her how to use the DVR, my proper aunt became addicted to the trashiest kind of reality TV. I thought it was kind of awesome.
“Mrs. Considine,” Brendan said, keeping his left arm around me and extending his right hand to greet my aunt. “We tried calling to let you know we were coming. I’m sorry to keep meeting you under these uncomfortable circumstances but um, Emma had a little accident.”
“Oh, you make it sound like I wet myself,” I complained crabbily as I limped. My ankle was starting to seriously hurt. “I just fell.”
I held up my scabbing-over palms and shrugged. Christine’s jaw dropped when she saw me, and she flew into the bathroom, pulling out the peroxide and bandages as I hobbled through the living room.
“Honestly, it’s not that bad,” I called to her as Brendan helped me follow her into the pink-tiled bathroom. “Really, it just looks bad,” I said again, but within seconds, my aunt was holding peroxide-saturated cotton balls against my palms.
“I can do it, really,” I protested, holding a soaked cotton ball against my scrapes. “Aunt Christine, really. It could have been a lot worse. Brendan pulled me out of the way—a cab came racing down the street and would have hit me if Brendan didn’t see it and grab me.”
Aunt Christine handed me the bottle of peroxide, and I poured it on my palms, turning my face away from them so they wouldn’t see me grimace.
“Those cabs are a menace,” Christine huffed. “One almost mowed me down outside of Barneys last Christmas.”
I gave Brendan a pointed look, as if to say, “See?” He ignored me.
“I’m just lucky Brendan was there,” I said. Reminded we weren’t alone, Christine turned to regard Brendan, who was standing in the hallway, peering over Christine’s shoulder anxiously.
“Yes, Brendan.” Christine stepped out of the bathroom to shake Brendan’s hand again. “Nice to meet you under, well, under different circumstances. Thank you for taking good care of my niece here.”
“Yes, ma’am. You’re very welcome. Thank you for allowing Emma to spend the day with me, and go to the dance on Friday with me,” he said with a winsome smile. Brendan was quite charismatic when he turned on the charm. Then he looked at me, and his smile faded into a frown when he noticed I had taken off my boot and sock—and my ankle was blossoming into more shades of indigo than Picasso had used during his blue period.
“Oh, Em, that looks so painful,” Brendan said, striding into the bathroom and kneeling next to me as I sat on the fuzzy pink toilet seat. He slid his left arm around