P.S. You're Intolerable (The Harder They Fall, #3)(31)

I crossed my arms under my breasts, thinking better of it when his gaze homed in on my propped-up cleavage.

My fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, and I gripped the edge of the door. I wasn’t afraid of Elliot. It was the situation. I hadn’t prepared myself to see him. “I’ll go find them. It might take me some time since everything’s sort of a mess right now.”

Understatement. But he didn’t need to know about the hellhole on the other side of the door.

“I can wait,” he said.

“Great.”

I moved back to close the door in his face, but Elliot stepped inside, taking it as an opening. Then he took the door from me and shut it behind him.

Instant panic climbed up my throat. This was my shame. If he saw it, he’d know I’d let myself be taken in—that I’d been so desperate for a friend, someone to call my family, I’d trusted someone I shouldn’t have. Someone who was so unworthy of it, a blind person would have seen that.

“What are you doing?” I squeezed out.

“Waiting.”

“You should wait outside, I’m—”

He was already walking past me into the barren living room where I’d left Joey on her play mat.

Joey and I had spent a lot of time holed away in her room or mine, but I’d been going a little stir-crazy today, so I’d brought some blankets down to pad the rough subflooring and her mat for her to play on.

Today, of all freaking days.

Elliot crouched down beside my daughter, peering at her as she windmilled her arms and kicked her feet. He hadn’t said anything, so maybe the sight of my gorgeous daughter had blinded him to the wreckage surrounding her.

“Hello, Josephine,” he said softly. “Fancy seeing you here.”

I moved around them so I could see what he was doing. She clutched his index finger in her little fist, and he didn’t seem in a hurry to rip his hand away from her. Joey was a curious little creature, but she was gazing up at Elliot, her eyes wider than I’d ever seen them.

“She doesn’t see many people,” I explained. “You’re like a shiny new toy.”

“That’s understandable. Everything’s brand new for her.” He glanced at me. “She has an impressive grip for such a small person.”

“Everything she does is impressive.”

His brow winged. “Aren’t you a little biased?”

“More than a little.”

His mouth hitched at the corner. “Fair enough.” He jerked his chin. “Go find the schematics.”

I hesitated to leave them alone. I’d have to go upstairs and wouldn’t be able to see them.

His head tilted. “You can leave her with me. I’m not going to steal her. What would I do with a baby?”

“I—” I had nothing. There was no reason not to trust that Elliot wouldn’t abscond with Joey, and if she cried, I’d hear her. Besides, she was happy as a clam, and he didn’t seem to mind hanging out with her. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

“No need to rush,” he called as I raced up the stairs.

Oh, I’d be rushing. The longest I’d spent away from Joey was when we were both asleep and Raymond stole her on our handful of coffee dates. I also couldn’t imagine Elliot would know what to do if she started to cry. Granted, it was rare. She was generally a cheerful kind of gal unless she got hangry.

In my haste, I forgot I’d taken my shoes off while sitting on the blankets with Joey. I wasn’t a shoes-in-the-house kind of person. In this house, though, I’d become one since all my floors were basically raw wood.

My bare foot came into contact with a sharp shard of wood, slicing through my skin like butter. The immediate pain took my breath away. It was the only reason I didn’t howl like a dying wolf.

“Shit, motherclucking clucker.” I hobbled down the hall to the bathroom and collapsed on the side of the tub to examine the damage.

Blood seeped from the sole of my foot, and I could have wept. This was adding insult to injury. Too much on top of the mountains I was buried under. Why hadn’t I taken the time to put on my flip-flops?

I cleaned my foot with a washcloth. It hadn’t stopped bleeding, but I didn’t think I’d need stitches. A pile of bandages would do.

I opened the medicine cabinet, managing to only find a small one meant for a paper cut—not a stabbing.

“Why?” I hit the hollow box against my forehead and groaned. “Why, why, why?”

What kind of mother didn’t have Band-Aids? Not that Joey would ever get hurt, but I should have been prepared for everything. I was useless. Poor thing had been born to a mom who couldn’t even patch herself up. Hell, I couldn’t even provide my baby with real floors.

If it weren’t for Joey, I would have curled up on the floor and given up for a while. God, that sounded enticing. Getting up from the side of the tub seemed much too big right now, but I had to. My boss was downstairs, expecting me to be a functioning human being even though I was hanging on by a fraying thread.

Sucking it up, I slapped on the tiny bandage, then wrapped my foot in toilet paper and carefully slipped on a sock to keep it all in place.

My first step made me hiss with pain, but I kept going. If I stopped, I might not have been able to convince myself to start again. The very last thing I needed was Elliot discovering me slumped in my hallway, bleeding out from a flesh wound.