Lead(8)

He winked.

“Right. Sit on the edge of the bathtub,” I instructed, taking charge.

Jimmy sat, inspecting the dark red stains on the front of his shirt. “This is ruined.”

“You’ve got others.”

“I had this made especially at Saville Road in London. You have any idea what something like that costs?”

Please. The man had more money than god. “You hitting me up for a loan?”

He snorted.

“Because honestly, I don’t know if I like you enough for that.”

“Wasn’t aware you liked me at all,” he said, smoothing down his shirt as if that would help matters. He was right, the thing deserved a one-way ticket to the ragbag.

“Hmm. You’re not so bad. I’ve met much, much worse.” And we didn’t really need to get into that anytime this decade. I snapped my mouth shut and pushed up my glasses, got busy digging in the medicine chest. “What have we’ve got here.”

“Listen, Lena, about today …”

I waited for him to finish. And waited. “What?”

He scowled at the wall, avoiding my eyes completely. “I just … I just wanted to say, ah …”

“Yes-s-s?”

“Well, that um, you were useful.”

“I was useful?” My brows rise to dangerous heights, I could feel them. After everything we’d been through today, useful was as good as it got?

A shrug. “Yeah, mostly.”

“Mostly? I was mostly useful.” Slowly, I shook my head, biting back an incredulous grin. Lucky my sense of self-worth wasn’t dependent on him or it’d be a sad, shriveled wreck hiding out in the corner by now. This man, he did my head in. It seemed only fair to repay the favor in kind. “I think that’s just about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Mr. Ferris. It was just beautiful, like poetry. I’ll never think of the word useful the same way ever again.”

He sniffed disdainfully, giving me a dour look. “Great. And it was mostly useful.”

“Yes, sorry, mostly useful. Wow. I just don’t know how to thank you.”

“Less talk’d be a good start. Let’s get this over with.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” I stopped short of saluting, but only just.

Down the hallway drifted various noises as the wake slowly started winding down. There was the clink of plates and cutlery being gathered. I could hear Mal saying goodbye to someone followed by the hair-raising bang of the front door. It must have been caught by the wind. Some old Bob Dylan tune played low beneath it all.

“You’re welcome by the way,” I said, softening my voice, cutting him a break. His day, after all, had been far worse than mine. Plus, it obviously wasn’t easy for him to say thank you. Not that he’d exactly managed to. “I’m glad I was here to help.”

He looked up at me, eyes unguarded. At least, they weren’t cold and hard for a change.

“Me too,” he said quietly.

For a moment, I actually forgot myself. We just stared at each other in near silence, like we were waiting for something or trying to figure something out. I don’t know. It was weird.

Then he turned away.

“Lena, hello?” He pointed to his cheek. “I’m still bleeding here.”

“Right,” I ripped into a fresh pad of gauze, then got busy wrestling with the lid on the disinfectant. Stupid childproof locks. “Let’s see if we can’t fix you.” When I sneaked a look he was staring off into infinity again, I’d apparently been tuned out.

“This’ll sting,” I said, liberally dousing the gauze. “Who knows how dirty her nails were. We need to clean it really well.”

He wrinkled his nose at the smell. “Don’t pretend you’re not going to enjoy it.”

“You wound me. As if I’d ever enjoy causing you mild pain or discomfort.” I couldn’t quite keep the smile off my face. Of course, I didn’t quite bother. Verbally sparring with Jimmy was fast becoming more fun than I’d had with most other men naked. Which was sad.

Real sad.

Carefully, I started cleaning him up, wiping the blood from his cheek. I was trying not to overthink things but my mind refused to slow down. We’d now touched more in one day than I’d ever imagined possible. Judging by my ongoing heart condition, this was not good. I scrunched up my face, concentrating. This new heightened awareness of him was driving me insane. We hadn’t connected, not really. It was just because of today being so overemotional and everything. There’d been more drama, highs and lows, than I’d experienced in ages and putting it all into perspective would take some time. Tomorrow we’d head back to Portland and things would revert to normal with Jimmy largely ignoring my existence. There was no need to freak out.

At any rate, I couldn’t quit on the guy right now. Talk about kicking someone when they were down.

He winced. “Ouch.”

“Don’t be such a baby.”

If only my stupid hands would stop trembling, giving me away. Happily, Jimmy didn’t seem to notice. The more I tended to his face, the madder I got. Honestly, what an absolute shit of a day. Mal lost a wonderful mother while Jimmy and David suffered via their very alive and deeply crappy one. Where the hell was the justice in that?

Several packets of gauze and a sea of disinfectant later, we were done. If the bitch had scarred him I’d do worse than push her on her ass next time. Just to be safe, I smeared enough antibiotic cream on the ragged wounds to turn the side of his face snowman white.

“I wish I’d hit her harder,” I said. “I’m sorry, I know she’s your mother, but …”

“Don’t pull that shit again,” he said. “She’s not rational, Lena. You could have gotten hurt.”

“Ha. Then you’d have to listen to me bitch.”

“Like hell.”

“You wouldn’t play Nurse Jimmy for me? How sad.” I laughed softly. If I could just keep things light and easy everything would be okay. Or at least, as light and easy as things ever got between us. The air of misery around him, however, made it impossible to keep a distance.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.

He turned away, hands tight around the first aid kit making it creak again. “Finished?”

Carefully, I kept rubbing the cream in. The main problem with me is my mouth. In that I have one and use it far more than I probably should. It’s especially irritating when its hell-bent on bringing forth information that only serves to make me look dumb. “I dated this guy once who sold my car to score weed.”

Jimmy leaned back, away from my fingers. “Lotta weed.”

“Yeah.” I braced my palms on my hips, keeping my greasy fingers away from my body. “Sometimes you have to cut people loose for your own good.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice.

“Out there, you couldn’t bring yourself to hit her,” I said. “But she needed to leave. Seemed the least I could do was give her a shove in the right direction. And I don’t regret it.”

“Next time, stay out of it.”

“Is there going to be a next time?”

“I hope not.” The pain in his eyes was heart breaking. Oh my god, he was killing me. It had to stop.

“You’re all good,” I pronounced, turning to wash my hands at the basin. More than enough with the touching. It was feeding this ridiculous notion that Jimmy and I were close, like we were friends or something. We weren’t, I needed to shake it off. History dictated once foolish enough to grow feelings for a guy, my heart stayed stuck till the bitter end. My collection of idiot exes was epic. When it came to mixing penises with emotions, I couldn’t be trusted. He was my just my boss, no more, no less.

Jimmy stood and stretched behind me. “Bastard of a day.”

“Yeah.”

“Be glad when it’s over and we can head home.”

He studied himself in the mirror over my shoulder. “Lena, I can’t go out there like this! Christ.”

“There isn’t a big enough bandage in the box to cover your cheek. I did the best I could with what I had.”

“I look ridiculous.”

“You look fine.” I scoffed.

He mumbled expletives.

“Would you calm down?”

“Wasn’t talking to you,” he grumped.

He leaned in and I leaned forward, only there was no room, nowhere for me to go. Any contact between his front and my back must be avoided at all costs. It’s basically impossible, however, to suck in your ass successfully. Trust me, I’ve tried. So I settled for grinding my hips into the edge of the bathroom cabinet, trying to stay out of his way. It was highly unlikely I managed to reduce myself any but a girl could always dream.

Behind me, he started prodding at his cheek, pulling weird faces.

“Stop it,” I said. “You’ll make it start bleeding again.”

Icy blue eyes narrowed on me in the mirror.

“Why don’t I go ask Mr. Ericson if he has a shirt you can borrow?”

He jerked his chin in agreement. Nine times out of ten this was Jimmy’s preferred method of communication. So much more effective than wasting time on actual words.

“Um, Jimmy? If you could stop looking at yourself in the mirror for just one minute …”