New Beginnings {ACM}

Chapter 25

I smirked and ducked out of his reach. "Don't even try hugging me right now."

"Why not?"

"Because you're covered in water!"

Austin turned to Lucy. "Your mom is being mean to me."

Lucy tilted her head at him and made a little, "Eh?" sound.

I smiled. "You still have Lucy's play room to clean. Go before I cave in to your advances."

"My advances?" he smirked, raising an eyebrow. "Will you quite possibly cave in to them tonight?" He wiggled his eyebrows.

I rolled my eyes and shoved him in the shoulder. "Fine."

He grinned. "Cool." He left the room again and I bent to pick up another one of Lucy's toys.

"Lucy, you have way too many toys," I told her. "They're everywhere. It's like we run a toy shop."

She giggled and looked up at me from her bouncer. "You think that's funny? What happens if somebody-"

As I was talking, I was walking towards the TV to wipe it down, and apparently, I had forgotten to pick up her squeaky puppy. So you can imagine what happened when I took a step and landed on the toy. There goes my ankle.

"Ow!" I yelled as I fell on my knees.

I heard footsteps running in the hallway and Austin appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. "What happened?" He asked as he ran over to me.

"I just stepped on Lucy's damn puppy!" I exclaimed.

"Can you walk?" he said, going to help me.

I waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." I got up and as I took a step, pain shot through my ankle. "Okay, I'm not fine!" Austin caught me under my armpits as I lost my balance.

"Here, let's get you to the couch." He put his arms around me and supported me as I hopped to the couch and lied down. He kneeled in front of me. "Here, let me see it."

I started laughing. "What's so funny?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, but I can't take you seriously right now while you're wearing that outfit. Especially with that sweat band around your head."

He pulled the apron and gloves off and ripped the sweat band off his head. "Better?"

I nodded. He was still wearing the rubber boots, but whatever, it wasn't as ridiculous. "Good. Now show me your ankle."

I stuck my left foot out at him and he carefully pushed the bottom of my skinny jeans up from my ankle and winced. "Emily, that doesn't look good at all."

"What are you talking about?" I went to look. "I'm sure it's- oooh, yeah, you're right." I tilted my head. "I don't think it's supposed to be that big."

"I think you might have broken it, Ems. We should get you to the doctor. Like now."

I groaned. "Ugh, do we have to?"

"Yes! Just hold on." Austin stood up and left the room. He came back with an icepack and a couple towels. He wrapped the icepack in one towel and set it on my ankle before wrapping the other towel around it to hold it in place. "There, that's all we can do for now." He then went over to Lucy, hauling her out of her bouncer. "Alright, princess, time to take mommy to the doctor." He bent to wrap his free arm around me and helped me stand up. He turned around. "Get on my back."

"I can't get on your back when you're holding Lucy!"

He set Lucy on the couch. "Get on my back now."