I swallow, and it drags on my jaw, the joint tight and angry. Talking is worse. I try anyway.
My mouth barely opens. It feels like my teeth are glued together.
Her eyes snap to my face.
I give up and just lift my hand and point toward the stairs. The motion pulls through my shoulder and lights it up.
I point at myself and then indicate the towel on my waist.
“Your…” She furrows her brows. “Bathroom?”
I nod, relieved I won’t have to do more.
“Okay,” she says, and then she’s gone.
I lean my head back and close my eyes. One is swollen and hot, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. My cheek feels tight where the cut is, dried and split, and the air on it stings.
She’s never been to my bedroom, so hopefully she finds it quickly. There’s a first aid kit down here, too, but the one upstairs is better and has the really good pain pills.
I hear her footsteps as she comes running back down the stairs. I open my good eye and notice how she looks in the robe.
It’s huge on her. The sleeves swallow her hands, and the hem hits her mid-calf. The belt is tied tight at her waist, but it still hangs loose everywhere else, soft and oversized and completely wrong for her.
And completely right.
Even through my one good eye, she looks… adorable.
A ridiculous thought to be having right now.
Erica sets the kit on the coffee table with a clack and drops to her knees in front of it. She flips it open and starts sorting through it, hands steady now that she has a task.
Her gaze flicks up to me.
“You can’t talk,” she says, like she’s stating a fact to herself as much as to me. “Your jaw first. Do you know what it needs?”
I breathe out slowly through my nose.
Warmth, I try to say.
It comes out like a grunt.
Erica watches my face, searching.
“One more time,” she says gently.
“Warmth,” I grit out between my teeth.
It doesn’t sound right, but I think she understands this time.
“Like a compress?” she says, already digging through the kit. She pulls a package out and snaps it the way you’re supposed to, kneading it until it starts to heat.
She rises and walks to me, eyes flicking to the cut on my cheek.
“Not on the cut,” she murmurs. “We’ll do that next.”
Carefully, like I might break if she touches me wrong, she presses the warm compress to the hinge of my jaw, just in front of my ear. The heat seeps in immediately.
I breathe out again, and the sound is rough but relieved.
