Stop it, Avery.
“You apologized to me last week, and I was a dick.” His hand grazed my thigh, and his gaze followed its path up to my hip, lingering on the four-inch scar peeking out from my tank top. His other eyebrow twitched with curiosity, but he didn’t ask about it.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, soaking up his touch like a flower starving for water.
He worked his jaw, angry with himself, and then his brown irises found mine again. “No, it’s not.”
I nodded and smiled, trying to seem unaffected by his touch. “You were kind of a dick.”
“Kind of?” His eyebrows crinkled into a frown. He winced at the brief pain from the movement.
“We both were,” I added.
Another stitch done.
He wet his bottom lip, smiling down at where his hand remained. He was enjoying watching me squirm. A moment later, his face slowly fell, and his eyes met mine once more. “I’m really sorry, Avery. For all of it. I mean it. I know you and I have had…some differences, but you didn’t deserve that for trying to be sincere.”
I closed my eyes as his hand moved up at an agonizingly slow pace. It was such a gentle touch that I could barely feel his fingers, but the trail left behind a fiery path.
Distraction—check!
“Avery?” Liam’s hand paused.
Was I floating?
“Av? Are you all right?”
My eyes crept open, and a pair of warm eyes greeted me, inches from my face.
“Mmhmm,” was all I could manage as I carefully went back to looping the thread around my forceps. I opted for the simple, interrupted suture method I’d mastered in class, but it usually didn’t take me this long.
And then I swayed. Or the earth’s axis shifted. Probably the latter because there was no way I was passing out in front of Liam.
Both his hands folded over my hips and steadied me. “No, you’re not. You’re pale as a ghost. Look at you.”
“I’m almost done. Hold still,” I insisted, thrusting my needle through his brow one final time.
“Avery…”
“One last knot,” I argued, ignoring the lightness in my head. I tried to picture myself back in the lab, using my synthetic skin pad and not sewing up two pieces of skin that had been ripped open on a man’s face. And then the cold sweat spread across my skin, and I knew it was too late.
As soon as I cut the last suture, Liam spun me around and swapped places with me. He landed on his knees, between my legs, cupping my face. “Hey. You’re okay.”
I was sure he was using this as a way to distract me, but I didn’t know if it was out of obligation because I had just sewn up his face and he was grateful not to have a safety pin through his eyebrow or if seeing me like this was entertaining to him and he wanted to wait around longer to see if I hurled.
I held on to his forearms for stability, heat snaking up my spine.
“You’re okay,” he repeated.
I most definitely wasnotokay.
14
Liam
“Iguess being around me really does make your upchuck reflex higher.” I chuckled.
Spotting the bloodied towel on the floor, she inhaled sharply.
