I glanced at Casey to see if he was picking on me, but he seemed serious. I didn’t know how he could stand there without a coat like it wasn’t freezing out.
“You did apologize. I forgive you.” And fuck, how that had twisted me up in some strange ways.
The small smile he shot my direction sent another tickle through me that wasn’t quite happiness, though it thrilled me all the same. I forgot about my bad hand and winced when I tried to use it to lean against the railing.
“You okay there?” I didn’t know when he’d stopped looking at the sky for peeks of stars through the clouds and started charting me instead. It was odd to have someone focus so much on me. While I would usually run the other way at being the center of attention, I didn’t mind too much—maybe because I’d thought about him a lot all afternoon. Heat hit my cheeks in spite of the cold.
“Yeah. It’s nothing,” I murmured.
“Maybe you should go to the ER,” he said, and it wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.
“No. What’s the point?”
He turned toward me and leaned his hip against the railing. I was struck by how fucking huge he was and it both had my heart hammering faster and made me want to take a step closer to him. He held out his hands, and I only hesitated for a second before I offered up my bad wrist. He was gentle as he held me and leaned down to brush his fingers around the red spots from Dad’s cane. I closed my eyes and fought not to flinch at the stabs of pain his light manipulation of the area caused. “Bones might be cracked.”
“If that’s all, just hairline fractures, they won’t do anything. Just give me a sling. I have one of those somewhere.” I opened my eyes and made myself take deep breaths.
He glanced up and we did the weird silent staring thing again. “You get hurt a lot?”
I said nothing and made myself stop playing with my lip piercing after I gave it one spin.
“It wouldn’t take much time. I’d be happy to drive you and sit with you.” He brushed his fingertips over my knuckles, and I made myself stand still instead of wincing away.
“You would go in with me?”
He nodded. “Not much of a first date, but we’re getting to know each other, right? We can do that anywhere.”
After a minute of considering things, I shook my head. “I don’t want to pay the deductible for nothing.” I tried to bend my wrist and swallowed down a curse when I couldn’t quite do it. My head felt heavy with the stab of pain and took far too long to clear up again, while Casey stared at me like he was worried I would keel over right here.
“Am I not paying you enough?” he asked, and I could tell he was trying to kid around. Maybe. His lips pursed. Okay, maybe he wasn’t joking.
“You are. I’m fine. I just have a lot of things I pay for. Bills.”
He frowned and tugged his coat higher on my shoulders. I tried to help, but he held the cloth in place for me. “Let me take you. I’ll pay the bill.”
“You don’t have to do that.” Embarrassment had me staring at the water instead of him.
“I’m pushing.”
“You are.”
We were quiet for a long time. He didn’t walk away. He didn’t argue. Slowly my stomach unclenched. He brushed his fingers over the tips of my hair.
“This is a pretty color. For a pretty boy.”
I snapped my focus onto him. “I…. That’s…. Um.”
He laughed. “I’m trying to distract you. Is it working?”
“You didn’t mean it?”
“Oh, I did.” His eyes crinkled with his smile, and my insides did a somersault.
“Thank you.”
“This is important, though. Your wrist. I think I need to insist.”
Laughing, I glanced up at him. “What wouldn’t be important enough for you to get your own way?”
