“You don’t have to be embarrassed.” I place my hand on her shoulder and squeeze gently. “Honestly, I went home and looked in the mirror to ask myself if I was pretty. Men don’t get called pretty most of the time, so I was questioning things a bit.”
“I called you ‘pretty?’” She asks, covering her mouth with a look of shock filling her eyes.
“Only a few times.”
Her gaze floats upward toward the starlit sky. “Oh my God.”
“Did you know that my eyes are the color of that there moon,” I point to the sky.
“No, no, no, no,” she groans.
“Scarlett, it’s fine. You were adorable.” I immediately realize I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t be flirting with patients. Not that I hadn’t already crossed a line by giving her my number, but she didn’t call, which means she didn’t take the bait, and now I’m probably treading on thin ice.
She breaks her stare away from the sky to look back at me. “Adorable? Please. I know I was rude to you the day before that, and it wasn’t necessary. My drama wasn’t your fault and shouldn’t have been your problem.”
“I didn’t see it like that,” I tell her.
“Well, thank you for helping me and taking care of my arm. I appreciate it, and I’m sorry for being inappropriate.” She turns around, to look for Brendan, I assume. I can see Brendan is having a good time laughing with Clara and Daisy, though, so decide to take my chances and try to buy myself a little more time with this mysterious, tightly wound-up woman.
“I can take you back to Brendan if you want,” I offer. “Or—”
“Sure, yeah, I’m going to head back over there,” she says.
She’s not interested in me, and it’s best that way. It would just be another failed attempt at an almost relationship, so I need to brush it off. I put my hand on her back and walk toward the others. “Austin?” she says.
“What’s up?”
“You know how they say, drunk words are sober thoughts?” she asks.
“I’ve heard that before, yeah.”
“Do you think it’s the same thing when a person is drugged?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?” I’m not pushing this. I need to know what she’s thinking, especially being the caretaker in this situation.
“I think it’s the same, but that would make things weird since I don’t know a thing about you.” She places her good hand in her back pocket and flips her hair over her shoulders. The scent of her hair blasts me in the face once again, and I might crumble in a minute. Man, chicks stopped having this effect on me years ago when I gave up the thought of finding someone who could put up with me and my life, so I’m not sure why I’m feeling like this around someone who is complicated and high maintenance like Scarlett.
“The only thing you really focused on was me being pretty. You don’t have to know someone all that well to make comments like that. You’re good.” I’ll leave out the part where she asked me if I loved her and asked if I were her “luvah.”
“Youarekind of pretty,” she says with a smirk.
“You are too. So there. We’re even, and both sober.” Scarlett looks over at me, and her smirk is still in place. “Tell me, Austin, what are southern guys like? Is the whole gentleman thing I’ve heard about just a farce?”
A farce. That’s funny. I don’t know how northern men are, but if they talk about us as being gentleman down here, I have to assume there’s a bunch of assholes up there. “Depends on the guy, I guess. I can’t really call myself a gentleman though … sorry.”
“Whose standards determine that?” she asks.
“Mine.”
She holds her hands up as in defense. “Fair enough.” When she holds her casted hand up, I notice that her fingers are swollen.
“Hey.” I take her hand gently and take a little closer at her fingers. “Come here for a second.” We move a few feet so we’re directly under one of the park lights. “How long have your fingers had a bluish tint to them?”
“A day or two. I figured it was because of the constriction.”
“You’re right, but the constriction should never cause your fingers to turn blue.” I carefully release her hand and jog over to Brendan, Daisy, and Clara. “Guys, I have to get Scarlett to the hospital. She has swelling and her fingers are turning blue. We have to get that cast off.”
“Do you want me to come too?” Clara offers.
