Spark ( Book 3: Stronger Series )

13. Routine

For the next week, I spent nearly every waking moment with Holly, except for the occasional mealtime with Darren whenever he had the chance. With Holly's happy-go-lucky attitude, it was hard for me not to punch her in the face again, but I was still grateful for her company. I had to give it to her—she was fantastic at physical therapy. In a week, I had better strength and mobility in my jaw and wrist, and I needed less pain medication for my ribs by the day. I worked my ass off to get there, but Holly really gave me the push I needed.

When we weren't working on my physical therapy, Holly tried to keep me preoccupied with just about everything she could think of. We painted every day after lunch, and though it was mundane and pointless, I did it anyway to make her and Darren happy. I continued to finger paint, preferring to work with my hands instead of the brush. Holly made sure to order paint that was more suitable for my style of painting. The colors of my painting would change from time to time, but they were usually always dark—purples, reds, blues, and a lot of black. Sometimes, I thought I was painting a night sky, but I knew I was only painting the darkness in my head, still trying to find the colors within.

At one point, Holly tried to get me to paint something else—my nails. Ginsby had removed the acrylics a long time ago since no one could maintain them on the island. My nails had remained bare and, to be honest, a little dull. I didn't mind having polish on my nails; I just didn't prefer the extra fake shit.

After lunch, Holly and I sat on the couch in the entertainment room where she put on some lame ass romantic comedy while Hank and Blondie got to stand at the door. Lucky bastards. She then pulled out a huge basket of nail polish and tools. My eyebrows actually shot up. There must have been a hundred colors.

"I thought we could paint our nails and watch a movie while they dry," she practically beamed.

I shrugged. "Sure, why not?" Not like I had anything better to do.

I couldn't remember the last time I had painted my nails, but apparently, I still had some skill. I managed not to get a single drop of the light pink polish on my skin and even successfully created the perfect striped accent nail on my ring fingers with some silver nail tape. I was a little impressed with myself. Holly, on the other hand, was skilled in getting more polish on her skin than her actual nails.

I shook my head at her as she painted on her third uneven coat, and it was driving me nuts.

"Holly, stop," I said and inched closer to her. "You have to paint slowly and gently. Otherwise, it will dry unevenly. Watch how I do it."

I took her brush from her hand, dipped it back into the bottle, and easily laid a perfect coat over her pinky fingernail without adding to the dried polish on her skin.

"See?"

"Wow, that looks great," she beamed, her eyes examining her hand. "Hey, maybe you could do the rest!" she suggested.

I pursed my lips. Dammit, how did I get sucked into that?

"Sure, but I'll have to start over. No offense but your base coat looks like shit."

Son of a fuck, was I really talking about nail polish right now? Ugh!

As I removed the shitty coats of polish from her nails, I found myself getting more and more irritated with the stupid romantic comedy that Holly kept laughing at.

"Okay. I'm sorry, but I can't take this anymore," I said, reaching for the remote and searching through the TV options for the sports channel. "If you really want to pique my entertainment, you've got to walk in my neighborhood."

Eventually, I finally found what I was looking for—UFC title fights. Holly gasped.

"You enjoy this barbaric nonsense?" Holly asked in shock. I laughed.