I reached for her hand and pulled her toward me. “You saved my life. If you hadn’t taken those two guys out, they would’ve taken me out.”
Nodding, she forced a smile. “Let me clean you up.”
When she pressed the disinfectant-soaked gauze to my arm, I hissed.
“Sorry!” She flinched. “Does it hurt really bad?”
“Not the worst thing I’ve felt today.”
Her eyes flicked up and she gave me that tiny, watery almost-laugh people made when they were right on the edge of crying, but trying not to. Her fingers brushed my skin carefully as she cleaned the wound. Each touch was soft, slow, almost reverent — as if she were terrified of hurting me more, or maybe terrified of acknowledging how close she had come to losing me.
I examined the wound after she was done cleaning it. “Gonna need stitches.”
“I can do it. I practiced on an orange in health class a few times.”
I snorted, arching a brow. “An orange?”
“Yeah, the teacher said an orange peel mimics skin.”
I chuckled. “Never learned that in my EMT classes.”
“When was that, the dark ages?”
I frowned. “Just sterilize the needle and let’s get this over with.”
She fought a smile, but did as I asked. Then, she threaded the needle and knotted the end before turning her attention to my arm. “Ready?”
I nodded, bracing myself for the pain. “Yep.”
Gia stitched me up slow and careful, her hands growing steadier with each pass of the needle. Every time she tugged the thread through my skin, her breath hitched — like she felt every ounce of the pain with me.
When she was finished, she wrapped a bandage around my arm slowly, the fabric brushing lightly over my skin, her hands lingering longer than necessary. When she tied the knot, she rested her fingers there, just for a second.
Then she noticed the bruising at my ribs.
“Oh, God. Lift your arm.”
“Gia—”
“Lift. Your. Arm.”
I lifted it.
She palpated gently along my side, checking for breaks. Her thumbs barely pressed, but the warmth of her touch sent a different kind of ache through me — not pain, but something heavier.
“You’re going to be so sore tomorrow,” she murmured. “We need ice.”
“Gia.” I closed my hand around her wrist — light, but enough to make her look up. “Slow down.”
She froze.
“You’re shaking,” I observed.
Now that she had stopped moving, I could see it. Her breath trembled, her eyes glassed over, and she swallowed hard, trying to fight the emotion back down. “I’m fine,” she lied.
“No, you’re not.”
The dam broke.
