Page 24 of The Honor Society

One thirty in the morning.

I promised Charlie cookies.

Instead, I’m going to ask her to glue my stitches.

Nice.

I drop Jenner off at his place and call in one of the Honor Society doctors. He’ll make sure he’s taken care of while I go meet Charlie.

If she’s asleep, I’ll sneak in, steal a cookie, then leave. Yeah, because that wouldn’t freak her out, then again, it’s not like I’m loud. How many times did I sneak into her room just to make sure she was okay? And how many times did I convince myself it wasn’t creepy as hell?

I knock softly on her door and then shoot her a quick text.

The door opens before the text makes the send noise. Her hairs piled high onto her head in a messy bun, she blinks blurry eyes at me covers her mouth with a hand while she yawns. “Sorry.”

“It’s late.” I lean against the door. “But someone did promise cookies and I figured⁠—”

“—Holy shit!” She looks at my shirt. “What the hell did you do?”

Holy shit is right. In all my excitement over cookies I forgot my black shirt was soaked through with blood. Whoops.

“Late night frisbee golfing.” I winced. “Do not recommend. Apparently running into trees is hazardous to your health?”

“Were you the frisbee then?” She gently pulls me into the apartment and flicks on the kitchen lights. “We don’t have to be quiet, Lilah went to Jude’s, I think they’re going to spend the entire night making up.”

“Nice visual.” I groan. “Someone should get the cookies.”

“Funny.” She gets out the first aid kid. “Take off your shirt.”

“Finally. The day has arrived to lose my virginity. Always knew it would happen like this. With a girl I like, early in the morning, soaked in blood, talking about frisbee and cookies.”

“Romantic.” She pokes my shoulder. “Off seriously.”

With jerky movements, I unbutton my shirt and slide it off my body.

Charlie stares me down. From my many tattoos to the knife wounds sliced across my stomach, and then the stitches from the gunshot in both my shoulder and lower abdomen.

She gulps and stares at the messed up stitches. I reach into my pocket and hand her the glue. “Just push the skin back together.”

“Glue?” She takes it. “You’re gluing yourself?”

“No.” I laugh. “You’re gluing me. Big difference, just clean off the blood, and use your gentle hands. All I really remember is kissing you, a lot, and you were always very aggressive with your hands so don’t manhandle me, it’s not the time or place for your aggressive animal tendencies, mmm kay?”

She glares. “If anyone was aggressive in this relationship, it was you, we broke your bed.”

I grin at the memory. “Tell me in graphic detail, I need a distraction.”

“You thought you were taking Tylenol PM you took erectile dysfunction drugs, never seen a man hard for that long. I almost took you to the hospital.”

“I just needed to spend some hard time somewhere warm and wet.” I wink. “Tell me I’m right.”

“Sexual intercourse should not go on for six hours.” She cleans both wounds and then dries me off. “Alright, as for the glue.”

“Nice subject change.” I wince when she puts the glue on my first wound and then holds it together. I reach for a bandage and hand it to her. She puts it over the glued spot and shakes her head. “What?”

“Will this really work?” She moves to the next wound, we repeat the process and then her warm hand is leaving me. I hate it. I grab her wrist and tug her back. “I have one more thing I need from you.”

“Other than cookies and gluing you back together?” She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes.