Page 33 of Cruz

There’s a huge part of me that doesn’t feel that life or death, hair raised on the backs of my arms, shivery gut warning sensation, so maybe that’s why I’m bold enough to tiptoe straight to my living room.

Cruz is on the couch. He’s not grappling with an intruder. He’s bent in half and has both hands grasped around his knee.

His bad, career-ending, SEALs-retiring, surgically repaired knee.

He’s not in so much pain that he doesn’t hear me coming. His head snaps up and his eyes widen when he sees the raised bat. I lower it and then set it down completely.

“Sorry.” My face is probably ten thousand degrees. My breath unspools out of me in a great big rush of relief, but the adrenaline is still hitting hard. “I thought that there might be trouble. I heard a groan.”

“No trouble.” His hair is soaked. Beads of perspiration dot his forehead and roll down his temples. His t-shirt is plastered to his body.

“There’s trouble.” I walk straight to him and drop down to the floor. My hands close over his before I have time to comprehend what I’m doing. “Not the kind I thought it was, but you’re in pain, Cruz.”

“Locked up,” he grunts. “My knee. I’ll be fine.”

“You look like you’re going to hurl all over the floor, or keel over and go unconscious from the pain.”

“No. I don’t faint.”

“You didn’t rule out the hurling.” My hands flex over his, anxiety curdling my stomach. “What can I do? Do you need ice? Heat? A massage? Is it like getting a cramp in your calf muscle in the middle of the night because you didn’t drink enough water? I seriously hate those. It’s like a big rock sewn into your muscle and the only thing you can do is pant and cry and rub it out.” I stop, horrified. I can’t just let that sit. My god, blurting stuff like that proves how old I freaking am. “I… oh my god. Disregard the fact that I just said that.”

“You’re adorable when you get flustered.”

His deep voice, laced through with clear affection despite the pain, warms me and quells my panic and embarrassment. “If it makes you feel better, I’d be willing to go through a whole stand-up comedy routine, but I think that ice or heat would work better. Which one? Or the massage?”

“What were you planning on doing with the baseball bat?” To his credit, he asks that question without looking like he’s mocking me, but I can hear the humor in his tone.

“Brain whoever it was who broke in here.” I stand up and head straight for the kitchen. If he’s not going to pick, he’s getting the ice. “I was trying to save your life. You could show some gratitude,” I say dryly.

Despite the pain, when I come back with a bag of frozen peas, Cruz is still struggling to hide his amusement. I get it. It’s hilarious to even think that I’d be capable of saving a man like him, but then… why not? Stranger things have happened.

“Here. Peas. Put them on your knee.” I toss him the bag and head back into the kitchen to get a chair. I set it down right in front of Cruz, then gather up three throw cushions from around the room and pile them on the seat. I pat the stack and point at his ankle. “Let’s get it elevated. I think that’s supposed to help, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, if you’re bleeding out.”

I huff and leave the room, but only long enough to get my phone and consult the experts, AKA the internet, about this. As I thought, the first few sites say to raise the leg up and ice the knee.

I head back to the living room, probably with way too smug a look, only to find Cruz doing exactly what he should be doing. Maybe he didn’t want me to watch. I cross my arms and give him the stink eye. “Performance anxiety or what?”

He snorts. Then shrugs. “Depends on what we’re talking about.”

“Do you want some lo-fi beats on to help you relax?” I wave my phone in the air, hoping to distract him from my flaming hot face. “You look tense.”

What he really looks like is a man in a lot of pain. If I can tell, then it must be bad. I don’t imagine that a guy like Cruz is all about the little aches and pains. His leg would probably need to snap clean off before he’d confess to needing help.

He shakes his head and goes quiet. I go quiet too. It takes a few minutes and then I point at his knee. “Does this happen often?”

“No.”

“When it does, it gets bad?” He doesn’t respond, likely because the answer is yes. “How long does it last for? What does it feel like? I thought you’d had surgery and rehabbed it properly. You train guys for a job. How can you do that with your knee bothering you? Is that even safe for it?”

It’s too many questions. If Cruz didn’t answer one, he’s not going to go all in and give me his life story. Although—he sort of did that in the café a week ago. And then he kissed me and my life hasn’t been the same since.

I’m cautious when I walk over and sit down on the other side of the couch. Cruz has his phone out on the cushion beside him. Even when he was gasping for breath and groaning in pain, he was still watching the cameras. My heart squeezes. I know he thinks that our safety is his job because his Prez told him it was. I know that he has the training to do this. He was a freaking SEAL. Old habits and all that. I know all of that, but my brain doesn’t want to be rational. It wants to send warm tingles all throughout my body.

I didn’t see myself doing a future with someone at my side, but on the off chance I used to think about it, in the extreme abstract, I wished it could be someone who had my back. Always. Someone unafraid to be there for me and who allowed me to be there for him too. Someone smart, compassionate, salt of the earth. Someone who isn’t afraid to cuddle and be sweet. Mostly, I wanted someone who would see me and treasure me and wouldn’t end up hurting me. Since I was pretty sure that type of person didn’t exist because that wish list is entirely idealistic, I pretty much just stashed all hope of finding someone and whipped myself into decent enough shape to go it alone.

“Cruz?” I edge over a few inches on the couch.