“You don’t have to feel vulnerable around me.” I clear my throat. “I’m not important enough for that.”
Feeling brave again, he dips his fingertips into my water and draws patterns into the surface. “I’m not so sure about that. You look tiny and breakable, but for some reason, it matters to me that you don’t think poorly of me. Well…” He chuckles. “I mean, you can think alittlepoorly of me, like how I swear and stuff. But I don’t like that you ran out tonight. I don’t like that you missed out on that delicious catered meal, or the wedding cake, or the dancing. I don’t like that you left because of me, when all you had to do was slide your ass back into your chair and ignore me all night.”
Can mountains blush? I think maybe they can. He at least comes close to it as he says, “It would have been horrible punishment for me if you’d come back and literally talked to everyone but me. To have you so close, but publicly snubbing me so everyone knew I was a dick; that would have stung.”
“I didn’t want to come back,” I admit on a shaky breath. “Laine knew what we… And all of the people at our table were your friends. They would have teased us, which would have made me cry.” I reach up and swipe moisture from my cheek. “I’m one of those weird, emotional people, so if something is overwhelming, or I’m feeling vulnerable, I cry. I would have cried at that table, in public, which would have been way worse and turned into ugly sobbing, which would have perpetuated the situation until the whole reception stopped, and Jessie would have felt the need to comfort me.”
“She would kick my ass,” he chuckles. “If the wedding reception stopped because I made you ugly cry, and Jess was forced to come over and comfort you, nine months pregnant or not, she’d straight up mop the floor with me. Then everyone at my table would laugh atmebecause I was crying.”
“I doubt you’ve ever cried.” I wait for his eyes. “Right?”
Smiling, he nods and glances back to the water. My bubbles are receding fast, so now my thigh is visible, and his eyes latch onto a long-ago healed scar. “Right. I don’t remember ever crying in my adult life. I’m more of a swearer. If somebody pisses me off–”
He pauses when I wrinkle my nose.
“If somebodyannoysme,” he amends, “I tend to go into fight mode. With my fists, with weapons, and when I’m feeling extra, with my wit and mean words. But I don’t cry.”
“You’re lucky,” I grumble. “It’s horrible being a crier, because it’s not always when I have hurt feelings. Sometimes I cry just because I’m overwhelmed, sometimes I cry when I’m angry. And if I’m angry and ready to fight, but tears come instead of something cool like a well-timed insult, then I look like I lost that bout, even if I didn’t really.”
“Well-timed insult,” he chuckles. “Have you ever zinged someone with something good? And I don’t mean using words like ‘coconuts’ or ‘zoinks’. Calling someone a poo-poo head doesn’t count, either.”
“No.”
I hold my towel tight when his finger reaches out and touches my thigh. “What’s this from?” His eyes move along my side and stop on my arm. “And this one?” My bicep is pressed to my side, which means he must’ve seen that scar another time. “What happened here?”
“I had surgery a long time ago. When I was young.”
“In both places?”
“No. The one on my leg was from falling off my bike when I was ten.”
“And the one on your arm?”
I fix my towel to better cover me up. “Long time ago. What happened here?” I reach out and touch his cheek, and when our eyes meet and his soften, I realize that I’m touching him.
I must be out of my dang mind.
I snatch my hand back and cross it over my stomach. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Smiling, he reaches out and breaks my hand away from its iron grip across my torso. Bringing my arm up and separating my fingers, he brings my pointer to his cheek and pauses. “This was from a knife fight.”
“Knife?” I gasp. “Someone had a knife this close to your face?”
He snorts. “They had their knifeinmy face. Drunk dude got a little mad at me, so he swung out and sliced me open like warm bread. Do you know how much face and head injuries bleed, Abigail?”
When I nod despite his question being rhetorical, he chuckles.
“I swear, blood exploded everywhere. It looked like a massacre. He swiped out so his dirty blade got me in one swoop, then he came back for another, but by then, I’d lifted my arm.” He continues to hold my hand to his face, so the pad of my finger strokes the smooth scar. But he lifts his left arm and shows a scar that runs from one side to the other. “He swung out again, and his blade cut right down to the bone. Through the muscle, through the nerves, right down to nick the bone.”
I’m sure my face turns green, because he stops and grins.
“Sorry. That’s just to say he got me good.”
He releases my hand and reaches down to his ankle. I don’t move away from his face, because I’m intrigued as all get out and don’t want to lose this opportunity to touch him. But when his hand comes back with a heavy knife with a silver and wooden handle, I snap my arm back.
“I got his knife, though. He never cut anybody ever again.”
“You took his knife,” I squeak. “Oh my gosh, you carry the knife that cut your face like it’s a button in your pocket.”