I made his decision easy. “That one will work,” I said, pointing to the couch against the picture window that looked somewhat less distressed and more “hygienic” than the other.
He cringed, looking around as if wanting to find a blanket he could spread over it before setting me down. “You’re as brave as you are beautiful,” he said, arranging me on the couch.
Knowing what I did of my beauty—and how it’s lack thereof would be just as obvious to him—he must think of me as the cowardly lion.
“Do you mind if I take a look,” he asked, eyeing my head anxiously.
“Be my guest.” I couldn’t feel the warmth of new blood running down my face any longer, but I could only imagine how I looked. Blood drying and cracking like zebra lines down my face, and I was positive my impossible hair looked like a bomb had exploded in it.
As if reading my mind, he went over to the sink, pulling a piece of cloth from his back pocket. Was that a handkerchief? Did guys still carry those around? The last time I’d seen one had been when my great-grandpa offered one to me after I’d fallen from the tree house in the large sycamore out back when I was five.
Even then, disaster prone.
He adjusted the temperature of the water before running the cloth through it. Given everything else about him, I don’t know why I couldn’t do anything but stare at his hands—lined with blue veins, canyons of flesh set between mountains of bone—but they were the most intriguing pair I’d seen. Hands that were strong and flawless, but also weary and aged.
He hurried back to me, kneeling beside me as he dabbed at my face with the damp cloth. He finished with my lips, pressing them clean before removing the cloth. His eyes stayed fixed on my mouth, which naturally gave me heart palpitations.
He looked up, his eyes telling that he hadn’t meant for me to notice him so fixated. He sucked in a breath through his freshly parted lips, closing the distance between us at an agonizingly slow pace. So slow I had time to think, oh my gosh, this is it. The night my lips will finally update their status to non-virginal.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice that was acid called out behind us.
William’s head snapped around, the moment shattering into a million pieces.
“Nice timing,” I said under my breath. William shot me a sideway’s smile.
“Here’s your bag of crap,” Paul said, chucking a black leather bag at William’s face. “I thought first aid kits were little white plastic boxes filled with bandages and gauze. A little excessive wouldn’t you say?” he eyed the bag William was sorting through, pulling items from it like he’d done it a thousand times.
“Doesn’t seem excessive given our current situation does it?” he replied back, not sounding the least bit antagonizing.
Paul just puffed his chest out and crossed his arms.
I eyed over the contents of William’s bag, trying not to look like a child staring wide-eyed at a hypodermic needle.
He looked up, noting my stare. “I’ll be quick, I promise.” He clasped his hand just above my knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I felt an injection of calm enter me, dulling my unease. He climbed up on the couch and hitched a leg over my head, situating himself on the back of the couch where I sat agreeably positioned between his legs.
His fingers scrolled around my head, no doubt inspecting the damage. “It’s not so bad,” he said finally, jolting me from the lull I’d succumbed to from his touch. “I’ve seen much worse.”
So had I.
“I didn’t realize we were in the presence of an MD,” Paul said, reminding me or his presence. “How lucky for us.”
I heard the smile in William’s voice as he replied, “You’d be amazed what you learn in boyscouts.”
Paul leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “So who is this tool?” he asked, looking hard at me, as if the subject of his comment wasn’t ten feet in front of him.
“Tool,” William said, as if to himself, contemplating. “As in a device to perform or facilitate mechanical or manual labor?”
Paul tilted his head against the wall and chuckled. “That’s right Encyclopedia Britannica. Or in layman’s terms: screwdriver, hammer—”
“How about a wrench,” William interrupted, his voice too level not to be up to something.
“You’ve got a quick learner on your hands, Bryn,” Paul said to me, clapping his hands. “Sure, wrench works just fine as well,” he said, his eyes narrowing on William. “Whatever blows your skirt up buddy.”
I felt the chill of iodine drenched cotton balls circle around, soft and methodical. “Well a wrench would come in handy right now,” William mused. “Because you definitely have a couple screws loose.”
Paul shoved off the wall, and from his expression you would have guessed William had given him the most unthinkable insult known to man. “I take that back. You’re not a tool,” he seethed, his turquoise eyes growing stormy. “You’re way worse, something that hasn’t been given a name. You’re that guy who preys on innocent young women, and you know what, you’re going to be doing the same thing fifty years from now. You’re going to be that old dude in the bar with the designer jeans and seedy smile who thinks he’s still got it, not realizing everyone’s laughing at the sorry old geezer. You could have five more lifetimes and you’d still end up alone.”