Alone, I stared at myself in the mirror, taking in the tousled hair, the dried blood on my lip and chin, the split in my lip that still shone with fresh blood whenever it moved, and the wild look in my eyes still from the fight.
I looked away, carefully adding some soap to my hands to clean out the wounds.
Harrison was back quickly, setting down the first aid kit, then grabbing a towel to put around both my hands before pushing me down on the tub deck.
I turned on the tap and scrubbed my feet together to clean off the dirt from stepping out of my shoes before turning back to Harrison.
He worked on my hands first, squatting down with a tweezers to pick out any small pieces of gravel, squeezing some saline on the wounds, swiping on some triple antibiotic, then wrapping them loosely with nonstick gauze.
When his gaze slid up to mine, the look had impact, a little punch to the gut that knocked out my air.
“It’s not bad,” I said to the tender look in his eye. “I’ve had worse scrapping with my cousins. Mygirlcousins,” I added, making his lips twitch.
He wet some gauze with saline and wiped the blood off my skin before gently pressing a fresh wet gauze to my lip and holding it there until it stopped coming away wet.
“I can’t put anything on this,” he said, “or you’ll be eating it.”
“It’ll heal fast if I don’t do too much smiling.”
“Guess we’re lucky that you don’t usually smile much around me.”
I was sure when he was thinking it, he meant it as a sarcastic throwaway comment. But when it came out, there was a heaviness in his voice that made my chest feel weighted too.
“Did John rat me out?” I asked as he started to clean up the supplies.
“Rat you out?”
“Tell you where I was going,” I clarified.
“Yes. But not, I don’t think, on purpose. Don’t hold it against him. He just mentioned that he’d offered to set you up with a driver in LA, but you’d turned him down.”
“I’m not mad at him. He’s a nice guy. Though it’s ridiculous that you made him stay at the hotel for three days waiting for me.”
“He didn’t have to. I offered to send my driver over to do shifts so he could go home. He’s very… dedicated.”
“He’s veryincentivized,you mean,” I clarified.
“There’s that,” he agreed, zipping the first aid kit closed. “Want some coffee?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Iced?” he asked. “A straw might be easier with that lip.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, reaching out to give my knee a squeeze before standing.
Alone, I told myself that I would just wait for him to get back with my coffee, then I was going to get a ride-share back to my hotel.
But, well, he took a while.
And the couch was a lot more comfortable than I’d been anticipating.
Before I knew it, I was drifting off.
Only to wake up with a belly-dropping sensation as I was lifted up.
“You’re okay,” Harrison said, holding me tightly to his chest. “I’m just moving you to the bed.”
