Fortunately, Erica returned a minute later with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a roll of gauze. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you going to let me patch you up, or are you going to fight me on it?”
I sat on a folding chair next to the Mustang and rolled up my sleeve. “I’ve done enough fighting tonight. Do what you’ve got to do.”
Erica pulled her blonde hair back into a ponytail. Then she coated a cotton swab in hydrogen peroxide, knelt by my side, and gently touched my skin. It simultaneously burned and cooled wherever she touched, tenderly wiping away the blood and cleaning the cut.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Is it broken?”
She laughed at my dumb joke. “It’s just a scrape.”
“I don’t know, doc,” I said in a gritty imitation of a soldier from a movie I had seen a long time ago. “You might need to amputate it.”
She laughed even harder. “That’s almost as funny as you picking a fight with Ralph.”
“Why is that funny?”
“Because he’s like six-foot-six,” she replied. “And he must weigh a hundred pounds more than you.”
“I don’t pick the fights,” I said in that same raspy voice. “The fights pick me.”
“Stop it!” she said while giggling. “You’re making it hard to put the gauze on.”
I dropped the voice and said, “Truthfully, I didn’t realize how big he was when I threatened to smash the glass into his face. Also, I was under the influence.”
She looked at me skeptically. “You didn’t look like you were drunk.”
“How doyouknow what I look like when I’m drunk? I haven’t done a YouTube video while trashed before. Although now that I think about it, that would make for a great April Fools video. Trying to talk about manual transmissions while slurring my words and falling over.”
“You were drunk at the party you threw here,” she replied. “Back in high school.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“This kind of reminds me of that night,” she said while wrapping gauze around my bicep. “You flipped out and fought Derek Offerman at the drop of a hat.”
“Iwasdrunk then,” I said. Why was she bringingthatup? “I barely remember attacking him.”
Erica’s eyes remained focused on my arm while she worked. “And then you showed up at the cookout the next day with his sister, Katie.”
I laughed nervously. “Oh yeah, I guess I did. That was so long ago I haven’t really thought about it.”
Erica tore away the gauze, then used a piece of tape to hold it in place. Her eyes were big and round as she finally looked up at me.
“Why did you bring her that day?” she asked. “Why did you invite Katie?”
26
Erica
I wanted to be angry at Hunter for screwing things up at my job. Even if Ralph deserved it, my boss was pissed that it had happened. Fights were bad for business. The brewery was supposed to be a family-friendly place, not the kind of bar where guys got drunk and threw fists.
But deep down, in a primal way, I was immensely turned on by the way he had defended my honor. Fearlessly doing the right thing even if it meant taking a few punches from someone bigger than him. Even now, two hours later, I was still turned on by the memory of it.
And being in the garage with Hunter reminded me of the day at the cookout, when we finally gave in to our desires.
I want to know the truth.
Hunter shrugged off my question. “I don’t really remember why I invited Katie. I guess I wanted to piss Derek off some more by going out with his sister again.”
I shook my head. I had spent the last five years thinking about those events, and Hunter’s excuse sounded weak to my ears. “Katie told me you called her out of the blue the night before,” I said.