‘I’ll take you to the hospital.’
Jaz withdrew her arm and clutched it to her chest. ‘I’m not going to a hospital,’ she said shaking her head. ‘I don’t care how much it’s bleeding.’
Ryan was taken aback. ‘Jaz, it won’t hurt that much I promise.’
Jaz laughed. ‘No, it’s not that. I can’t tell Mum about this or she will freak. I don’t need no hospital lady calling her up. Mum would hit the fan and I’d never be allowed back to the gym again, let alone allowed to walk by myself.’
‘Come on, Jaz.’
‘No, I’m dead serious. You don’t know my mother. She’s paranoid as it is. I used to play soccer until one day I went off with someone’s dad for ice-cream without telling her, she freaked out and never let me go back. I can’t go to a hospital. Can’t you just give me a few bandaids and we’ll call it even?’
‘I’m afraid it might need more than that.’ He bit his lip as he thought. ‘How about I take you to my place and we get you cleaned up and take a better look at it?’
Jaz let out a long breath. ‘Yes, I’d like that heaps better. Thanks.’ But after she said that she wondered if she wasn’t putting herself at more risk. Ah, what did it matter, Ryan had just saved her life, he couldn’t be that bad.
‘Okay.’ He turned off the interior light and drove back onto the quiet road.
The interior light may have been off but as each streetlight flashed past she got a glimpse of his upper body.
‘You know, you were awesome back there. Thanks for saving me.’ What else could she say? No other words could express just how fast and methodical he’d been. It was amazing. Now she knew why he looked like he did. He was a bad-ass fighting machine. He was her new super hero.
‘No worries,’ he said. ‘You weren’t bad yourself.’
Despite bleeding, aching and realising just how close she’d come to something scary, Jaz smiled. The adrenaline coursing through her was topped off with Ryan beside her, giving her the best feeling ever. What a night.
Chapter 13
‘What are you trying to do?’ asked Ryan as they pulled up outside a big roller door.
‘Text one-handed.’ Jaz attempted a smile but it was weak, she suddenly felt tired. ‘I’m just letting Mum know I’m staying at Anna’s for dinner and then letting Anna know that I’m at her place in case Mum calls.’
‘I see.’ A smile tugged on the corner of his lips.
Jaz put her phone back in her pocket. ‘So this is your place?’ There was not much to see except for a big fence out the front.
Ryan pressed a button on his key ring and the roller door begun to move up. He drove his car along a short paved driveway into the open shed.
Without a word, they got out and he led her through a side door.
A security light flicked on and Ryan rattled his keys and pushed open the door on his house. Jaz followed his half-naked body closely down a hallway, past a kitchen and through the lounge room, down another tiled hallway and into a bathroom. One thing she noticed on her travels through his house was how tidy it was. Almost to the point that it looked like a house out of one of those magazines, so bloody spotless as if no one must live there. She couldn’t see any books lying around or coffee cups, no pictures on the walls, just some artwork and ornaments that looked like they came from Africa. Crap, her room looked like a bombsite in comparison.
His bathroom was nice; white with a charcoal grey theme through it. It had a large bench with a sink in the middle and hardly any personal items.
‘Do you even live here?’ she asked. Without warning, Ryan picked her up and plonked her on top of the bench. She was almost eye-to-eye with him. It would help to keep her eyes above his neck and not on his very naked and glorious chest.
‘Like where is your toothbrush and stuff?’
‘In these things called drawers.’ As if to prove he had some, he pulled one open. Jaz saw his toothbrush, deodorant and shaving gear in there. It was neat and clean, not jumbled up like everything in her drawers.
‘Hmm, you’re very tidy. Don’t come to my house unannounced, will you?’
Ryan grabbed the bottom of her jumper and began to lift it up. At this point Jaz was too shaken up to care and lifted her arms like an obedient toddler. He managed to get it off without moving his makeshift bandage. It was when her jumper was a bloody heap on the floor that she realised what she had on underneath. Her hair was still dripping from the rain and it was seeping further into her white singlet. Oh, dear, now she wished her singlet wasn’t so tight.