Bad Apple (Part 1) by Kristina Weaver Read Free Book Online Page B

call Urkel with a balding head and coke-bottle glasses, “he started complaining! Complaining as if we don’t have the right to let our injured friend take two lousy days off to recover from an injury!” she yells. Loudly.
    I cringe and scan the crowd of rapt customers, throwing Urkel an apologetic smile before slinking to the back to get started on rescuing my regulars from Tat’s horrifying baking skills.
    The creaming has my eyes tearing, but I persevere through the pain and finally get a batch of cupcakes into the oven before looking up and freezing.
    Uh-oh.
    “You’re working.”
    Oh damn.
    “Hi?” I choke, the icing bag in my hands shaking when he pushes off the doorframe and stalks forward.
    “We had a deal, angel.”
    “No, we did not.” I laugh huskily, shaking my head at his gall. “You told me rather imperiously to stay in bed all day and that Greta, your housekeeper, would see to me. There was no deal.”
    The man is frustrating as hell. He orders, makes demands, and generally throws his weight around at any given moment, telling me what I can and can’t do.
    Just last night I almost died of embarrassment when he sidled into the bathroom in nothing but boxers, gloriously tight white boxers, and started washing my hair because he didn’t want me to wrench my shoulder or swan around with a “greasy mop.”
    I stopped yelling only when it registered that he didn’t have a hard-on and spent the next ten tortuous minutes sulking silently as he lathered, rinsed, and conditioned me.
    Talk about demoralizing. Apparently my fat ass lying down is all kinds of hot, but when I’m upright and gravity joins the party, it’s a no-brainer.
    Stupid pride.
    Which I now admit is one of the main reasons I pulled a runner this morning. I can’t take another night of him cuddled up on the sofa with me, watching TV without a care while my vagina tries to abandon ship and slide right onto him.
    I had to leave but now the object of my affections, as unwilling as they are, is now standing over me scowling at my exposed left arm and my bare foot.
    “We are friends?” He leans into my back and breathes into my ear, sending shivers of pure want through me.
    “Y-yes.”
    His chest scrapes over my back as he reaches his arms around me and takes the piping bag out of my hands.
    “Then as your friend, I want you to know that this is stupid. You’re still injured and in pain, and the bloody doctor specifically warned you not to use your left arm for anything strenuous.”
    He lifts me and gently sets me on the table.
    “No butts on the work space.”
    His hands come down on either side of me and he leans down so we’re eye level, his face a mask of disapproval.
    “You have no care for yourself, angel.”
    “I do, I just need to be here, Misha. Please understand. I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me, and I will forever be grateful that the three hyenas out front didn’t find me in that position, but I have to be here. This is my place, my baby, and I can’t let it go downhill because I hurt myself going…well I just can’t,” I plead, willing him to understand.
    He looks deep into my eyes for a long time, just taking me in before his shoulders drop and his head hangs down.
    “You will let me bring in someone to help you for the rest of the week. You can coordinate and supervise, but the sling goes back on and you plant your sweet ass on this stool, all day when I am not here to take you to lunch or take you home.”
    “But—”
    “And you will take the pain killers the doctor gave you.”
    “But—”
    “Or I will not only call Mama, but I will phone your parents as well and let you explain to them why you’re neglecting your health,” he finishes, leaving me gaping and downright fuming by the time he raises his head and glares at me.
    “You—”
    “Eh,” he warns, his finger landing on my lips as he stands to his full height, gazing down at me. “You agree to my terms or I will call