“Stupid woman,” I murmur. “Coulda gone to the ER and had it fixed in an hour. Coulda gone home and rubbed antiseptic on it and had it fixed in half that time.”
“I can hear you.”
“Good. I don’t like subtleties.” Picking up the needle, I set the sutures and meet her eyes. “Get the belt, just in case. Are you ready?”
“No!” Clumsily, she shoves the leather between her teeth and scrunches her eyes closed.
It almost feels like a sin, piercing this woman’s beautiful flesh, but when I push the needle through and she doesn’t flinch, I release the breath I was holding.
Jesus fucking Christ, I’m a million times less nervous when I’m doing my own than I am right now. “Okay, first one’s in. Didn’t hurt. The Lidocaine did its job.”
She spits the belt out and swipes away an errant tear. From taut and panicked, to a lazy passivity, she lies on her side and plays with a single loose thread in my bedspread.
It’s weird, the anxiety that crawls through my gut at the sight of that thread. In my father’s house, it would’ve gotten my ass kicked.
Tying off each stitch, I work hard to get her skin together as neatly as possible, but I’m not a doctor. I don’t have plastic surgery credentials. “This will scar. I’m sorry.”
She shrugs and plays with that thread like it’s her only lifeline in a really shitty fucking storm. “It’s okay. It’ll be hidden by my clothes, so it’s not a big deal.”
“These stitches will eventually just dissolve, so you don’t have to do anything. Just keep them clean and dry for a few days.”
“How do I shower?”
Naked.“Just gotta contort your body, I guess. Bend, keep ‘em dry.” I count out each stitch as I go. Each time I slide the needle through her flesh, I hold my breath and pray the Lidocaine hasn’t worn off yet.
What I thought wasn’t a bad cut turns into twelve stitches. Twelve ugly knots, like tiny little spiders on her otherwise perfect skin.
Marking her tonight is a far greater sin than slicing Lance’s throat open.
“What were you doing at the club last night?”
With jerky movements, she slides her face around until our eyes meet. Hers are round, larger than they should be. Her pupils dilated. Shock. “Working. Sorta.”
“You’re a lawyer. But you were dressed like a working girl.”
Almost like she’s flying on drugs I didn’t give her, she smiles and extends her legs until her toes point. “It was a nice dress, huh? And those shoes. I spent nearly three-hundred dollars on those shoes.”
“Three-hundred dollars?” I look up from my work. “Are you fuckin’ insane? Why would you spend that much on shoes?”
“Because they were marked down from twelve-hundred. I was practically making money.”
“No, Blondie. You were making a damn mistake.”
Pouting, she forces that tiny V between her eyes. “You didn’t like them?”
Oh, I liked them. I dreamed of them resting over my shoulders.“Three-hundred dollars is too much for shoes. You could get the same thing from the local Payless. No one sees the brand on the heel, anyway. Just you.”
Scoffing, she releases my eyes and goes back to the loose thread. “Whatever, grumpy cheap-shop-boots man. I loved them so much, I was too scared to wear them. They sat in my closet for a year. Untouched. I fought my sister for them more than once. I fought Kari, too. But she’s dating my brother, and no way was I letting her wear them. We all know why she wanted them… and with my brother.” Her nose scrunches. “No way was I letting her ruin my shoes.”
“Kari is your brother’s girlfriend?”
“Yeah. She was my best friend first. I have three best friends. Kari was mine before she was my brother’s. Then he smiled at her, andbam!”My needle jumps when she claps. “Now they’re in love. Which is fine. They can be in love. That means she won’t meet someone else and move away and leave us. But she can’t have my slut shoes. Not allowed.”
“Slut shoes?” Glancing up, I watch her wheeling eyes. She’s officially stoned on shock and adrenaline. “If a man called them slut shoes, he’d get his dick ripped off. But when a woman says it…”
“Well, the slut wearing the slut shoes is allowed to call them slut shoes. But a man says that, and I rip his dick off.”
“I love the double standards of today’s society.”