“Tell me if you’re about to pass out,” I said, filling the basin with water and tearing open a pack of sterile gauze.
He almost smiled, but it cracked at the edges. “If I do, just let me bleed out. Less paperwork.”
The phone in his pocket buzzed—once, twice, then a flurry of vibration. I ignored it. He tried to, too, but his jaw clenched every time it started up again. Blood streaked his jeans, but it was old blood—already congealed to a syrupy crust on his knee.
I soaked a washcloth in hot water and pressed it to the worst of the cuts. The heat drew out a grunt, but he didn’t pull away. I cleaned the dirt from his knuckles, picked out the embedded gravel with tweezers from the manicure set, then pressed a butterfly bandage to the tear on his forearm.
The only sound was the running water and, every so often, the click of his dog tags as he shifted. The tags stuck to his chest with a glue of blood and sweat, and when I tried to wipe them clean, he caught my wrist, gentle but absolute.
“Leave those,” he said.
I nodded and let go. He exhaled, slow, like it hurt to take air in.
I finished cleaning the cuts and went to work with the tape. He watched my hands, not meeting my eyes, as if he was memorizing the rhythm of the work. His own handsstayed still, even when I needed to wrap the gauze tight enough to cut off circulation.
The phone started buzzing again. This time, I couldn’t ignore it. “You want to get that?” I asked, voice low.
He shook his head. “It’s just Damron. Or Nitro. They’re probably still at the bar.”
I wiped the last of the blood from his eyebrow, careful not to press on the swelling. “Are you supposed to check in?”
He shrugged, an ugly twist of his shoulder. “I told them I was out for the night.”
I finished the bandage, then sat back on my heels, hands slick with peroxide and the sharp stink of his sweat. I wanted to ask what happened, who he fought, if he won. But I knew the answers already, or enough of them to patch together the story. It would be in the morning police blotter, or the whispers at the dog park.
Instead, I asked, “Did you start it?”
His eyes flicked to mine, blue gone almost black in the bad light. “I finished it,” he said. The words were soft, dangerous.
I nodded. That was good enough.
He let his head drop into his hands, the dog tags clinking as they swung. His breath was rough, but steady. I rinsedmy hands in the sink, then wet a second cloth and pressed it to the side of his face, where the swelling was worst.
“You need to ice this,” I said. “Or you’ll look like a science project in the morning.”
He didn’t move. “Might improve my chances at work.”
The phone vibrated again, angry now. He fished it out, checked the screen, then set it face down on the edge of the sink. I caught the name in the preview: DAMRON, ALL CAPS.
“Do you need to go?” I asked, careful to keep my voice flat.
He wiped his good hand over his face, then looked at me for the first time since he walked in. “Not tonight,” he said. “I just want to stay here.”
I didn’t trust myself to answer. Instead, I helped him out of the ruined shirt, then rummaged in my own dresser for a t-shirt that would fit over the tape and bruises. He shivered when the cool cotton touched his skin, and for a second, I wanted to crawl into his lap and wrap myself around every broken part. But I didn’t. I kept my distance, sitting on the edge of the tub while he splashed cold water on his face.
The hum of the fridge in the kitchen was a steady white noise, punctuated by the rare distant squeal of a tire on wet asphalt. In the silence, the question I hadn’t asked pressed in on us both.
“Did you get what you wanted?” I asked, voice barely above the noise.
He dried his face on the blue towel, then squeezed it in both hands, wringing it hard. “No,” he said. “But it’s a start.”
We sat like that for a long time. The phone vibrated twice more, then stopped. Dean stared at the towel, the threadbare edge fraying in his grip. His hands were still bleeding a little, but the worst of it had been washed away.
He didn’t explain what happened. I didn’t ask. In the end, it was enough that he came here, instead of anywhere else.
I put a hand on his knee and felt the muscle jump under my palm. “If you need to talk,” I said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
He put his own hand over mine, just for a second, then let it drop.
