Taking care of people wasn’t something new for me.
But taking care of a cranky, irritable superbeing who seemed like he could barely deal with my presence for no good reason was a totally different fucking beast.
I might respect him, but I didn’t love him, and with love, you could do anything.
But when you didn’t love someone, it was harder not to want to wring their fucking necks when they got on your nerves.
And oh, the son of a bitch got on my nerves.
The other night, we had sat next to each other for hours, looking through every site with any detail of The Centurion’s recent appearance. It was like he was hoping to find… something. Some mention. I wasn’t positive of what, because he wouldn’t tell me shit.
Was he worried about them? Did he think that what had happened to him would happen to them? What was their relationship even like? Were they friends? Family? Had they been raised in a government facility together?
There were so many questions I wasn’t going to ask but I wanted to. Oh, did I want to.
The problem was that I had the balls—mostly because I had the curiosity—but I had the brains to know that I better not.
Some people could handle the truth. I guess I wasn’t one of them.
Anyway, I read him everything we came across. One article after another, even though most of them were the exact same with the difference of a sentence or two. Eventually, he’d finally fallen asleep without another word.
While he’d slept, I worked like I always did and, fortunately, none of my students mentioned me looking like I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. I’d gotten a small job translating a manual from English to Portuguese, and that had kept my thoughts on things other than superbeings and having my limbs rendered.
I’d also started eyeing my belongings so I could decide what to do with the few extra pieces of furniture I’d bought. It was a good thing I wasn’t attached to anything. My grandma had taught me to use my sharpest imaginary scissors and cut the cords on the stuff I knew would be too big or too much trouble to take. At least that’s what I was telling myself.
Because no matter how reasonable I tried to be, I still felt weird. My chest heavy. My stomach off.
My time was running out, and I was fed up with doing this shit.
It was days later, in the afternoon, that my temporary roommate who could snap my neck in half woke up while I was in the kitchen making lunch and rang the little bell again.
I fed him lying down and watched him carefully. No sooner had he finished eating the olla de carne I’d made the night before, he’d leveled those unreal eyes at me—not glowing at least—and muttered, sounding pissy, “What?”
Was I that obvious?
I eyed the dark hair on the pillow as he lay there and let out another one of those shaky exhales that hurt my soul. Should I have lied? Should I have pretended like I didn’t know he was picking up on my emotions? Probably but… “Not to sound rude, but how much longer do you think you’re going to be here? Ballpark. No rush.”
I’d totally failed on the not sounding rude part. Fantastic.
But being rude apparently didn’t bother him too much because he didn’t miss a single beat as he grumbled, “Do you think… I have a calendar?”
Did I? I blinked, more surprised than offended at his comeback. “Okay, I didn’t mean to ask it like that. What I meant was, I’m worried about how much pain you’re still in—”
“I’m… not,” he cut me off.
I swear it took everything in me not to roll my eyes. Fucking liar, liar, pants on fire. What? Did he think I’d exploit him if he admitted it? That was dumb. Patience, patienceee. “Okay.” I didn’t sound patient at all, and I knew it. “I’m concerned you’re not healing. That whatever your injury is, isn’t getting better. I’ve seen The Centurion dive into the ocean from like miles high. If I fell from a hundred feet, I would die. He shot back out of the water like a missile. Whatever you are… is unreal, and from what you said when you did that Hercules shit, you should be better, shouldn’t you?”
He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then two. It didn’t get awkward until the third. But that’s when he said, in a grudging, tight voice that definitely sounded irritated as shit, “I should… be.”
I knew it! Not that I was glad to hear that.
I waited, keeping my face even, like him actually talking to me wasn’t still kind of a fucked-up miracle.
“I’ve never been… like this. Weak…” He trailed off and flicked those curly lashes at me. “This is… the longest it’s ever… taken me to heal.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he gritted those pristine, white teeth. “I don’t… like it.”
It was just as bad, if not worse than I’d imagined.
I rubbed my face and tried to think. There was only one option. Two, but I really wouldn’t leave him here alone while I ran away. “Are you sure I can’t take you somewhere? Is there some place that can help you heal?” Please say yes, please say yes.
His “no” was instant and sharp enough that I knew for sure I shouldn’t ask again.
Of course not. Why would he want to leave my double-sized bed in the middle of nowhere? I rubbed my face some more. “Okay, all right. No need to get your panties in a wad.” I side-eyed him. Did he wear underwear?
The Defender glared like he knew I was thinking about his undies.
Which I was, but that was beside the point. This was where he wanted to stay while he recovered… because he would recover. I was getting his ass out of here, and he was going to go back to being the incredible being he was, saving the planet and people’s lives. It was going to be my one amazing deed of my life. Sure, no one but us would ever know it had happened, but I would, and that was all that mattered. That I would know I had done something good.
That mattered to me. That mattered to me a hell of a lot more than I wanted it to, because I knew I needed to go and wouldn’t. Not until he was ready.
So I told him the truth, or at least part of it. “I just want you to feel better. To get better. That’s all.”
That got me a grunt that had me eyeing his T-shirt.
I was so busy thinking about what he had on that I almost missed his grumbled-out question. “Why don’t… you… have friends?”
Of all the things in the world I could have expected him to ask, that was the last.
How many words had he said to me in weeks? And now all of a sudden, here he was asking something personal. Not just a little personal either but really personal.
Or maybe I was just sensitive about it. Chances were that was it.
But honestly, it felt like a sucker punch with his strength right in the kidney.
Of all the things…
He didn’t even know my name! I hadn’t brought it up, and he hadn’t asked. He had no clue what town we were even in.
“Shouldn’t you… have friends? Family?… Boyfriend?” he asked, his face suddenly suspicious. “No one… ever calls you.”
Yeah, a punch to the kidneys. Maybe the face too while we were at it.
How the hell did he know that?
He must have sensed the question I was shooting him because he said, “You think… I would leave… myself vulnerable? I’m not… completely… unaware of… my surroundings.”