“Go deep enough so it doesn’t pop right back out,” he says. A snort follows the words. “I didn’t even mean that one.”
“It would behoove you to keep my attention on the task at hand.” I squint, leaning closer to his arm as I pull the thread through. I can see a layer of what I’m guessing is fat, and I throw up a little in my mouth.Just don’t look. Keep going.
“Are you saying that your mind is elsewhere?” he asks.
I tug the thread until the wound closes as well as it can. “No.”
“Well, that’s disappointing.”
“It wouldn’t be if you knew me very well.” I make another stitch. “Can you pull the tape off?”
He grimaces as he gently removes it.
“You look like that hurts worse than the stitching,” I say, teasing him. “Did I miss my calling?”
“What can I say? Having your hands on me distracts me from the pain.”
I don’t know how to follow up on that.Do I say that touching him, even in such a gross situation, turns me on? Do I tell him how wet I am and that if he touched me in just the right way, I might be able to check off a Whimsy List box? Or do I say the heck with the stitching and put my hands where I want to?
“There,” I say, finishing the stitch and snipping off the thread with the scissors. “You’re done.”
“And you said you aren’t a doctor.” He holds up his arm and inspects my work. “It’s kind of crooked, but I’ll live.”
“Hey,” I say, laughing and washing my hands. “I warned you that it wasn’t going to look good.”
I step away as he stands and gathers the bloody towels. I’m not sure what to do with the needle, so I wrap it in tissue and throw it away.
“I’m going to take these home and throw them in the washer,” he says.
“You can use the washer here.”
He grins. “Nope. It’s my mess. I’m not leaving them here for you to clean.” He studies me. “You look pale.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to be stitching anyone up today.”
“Come on,” he says, nodding for me to follow him. “Let me get you juice and a snack.”
I laugh, stepping into the hallway behind him. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. When you give blood, that’s what they do. Juice and a snack.”
“Butyoulost the blood. Not me.”
He shrugs, flashing me a mischievous smile that knocks me sideways. My body is on fire—flames licking every inch of me, and I’m completely off-kilter. I just stitched Brooks Dempsey’s arm, and now, he’s making me a snack.
Who am I?
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Audrey
“Gray usually has better shit than this,” Brooks says, rifling through the pantry. “Where are the cookies? The cakes? The freaking Nutter Butters?”
I watch his back muscles ripple out of the corner of my eye. I’m not sure whether he left his shirt in the bathroom or mixed it up with the towels when he deposited them on the front porch. Either way, I’m not upset about having to look at his half-naked body.
We exist in the same room, bathing in the sunlight streaming through the windows like two people who have done it a hundred times before. There’s a quiet comfort in it, a natural rhythm that surprises me. But I’ve never sewn someone’s body closed, either. Maybe that creates a new type of intimacy.
