When I open my eyes to daylight, Micha’s already awake, with my mom’s journal on his lap with the photo of her beside his leg. He’s leaning against the headboard with his boxers on and he’s shirtless so I can see his lean muscles and wisps of his hair dangling across his forehead. There’s an intense look on his face as he reads the pages but when I move to sit up, my head and cheek pulsating in protest, he closes the journal, the intensity shifting to ease.

“Anything good in there?” I ask, clutching the blanket over my bare chest.

He shrugs, but by his frown I can tell he hasn’t found anything that’s happy. He tucks the photo into the journal, marking the page before he puts it aside, and then reaches over to stroke my puffy, tender cheekbone. “We should have put some ice on that last night,” he says. “Seriously, Ella, it looks like it hurts like hell.”

I place my hand over his. “It does hurt like hell.”

“Do you want to tell me how it really happened?” he asks, and when I tense he adds, “I know when you’re lying, Ella May, so don’t try to tell me some girl hit you because I could tell last night that you were full of shit.”

“Then why didn’t you call me out on it?”

“Because I was thinking with my dick and nothing else.”

I smile, thinking about how he pushed me up against the wall and slammed into me so hard I could feel it through my entire body. “My legs actually hurt a little from last night,” I divulge as I move the blankets off me and massage my thighs.

He looks down at my legs with intensity in his eyes. “I could say I feel bad, but I don’t.”

I cover myself back up with the blanket and lie down on the bed. He lies down with me and props his elbow on the pillow and rests his head against his hand.

“I’ll tell you,” I say as his finger strokes my cheek, “but you have to promise me that you won’t do anything about it. No going looking for a fight.”

He stops moving his fingers. “I won’t promise that.”

“Then I won’t tell you.”

“Ella May—”

I cover his mouth with my hand and cut him off. “Don’t ‘Ella May’ me. The last thing I need is a husband who either gets charges pressed against him or ends up seriously injured.”

He pauses and then his lips curve upward beneath my hand. “Say it again.”

“Only if you promise.”

“Fine.” He sighs and my hand leaves his mouth. “I won’t go looking for a fight as long as you’ll tell me what happened and call me your husband again.” He gets this goofy grin on his face that makes me smile.