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He nodded stiffly. “Don’t stop.”
Racking my brain for something to say, I let my gaze roam over him, absorbing every groove and hard edge until settling on the hand wrapped in mine.
His hand was big and masculine, his knuckles an odd shape from what I presumed was years’ worth of roughhousing. His fingers were long, his nails were cut short, and he had a long scar running across the back of his left hand.
I raised a brow at that.
Grazing my fingertips over the jagged line on the back of his hand, I asked, “What happened here?”
“Boot studs,” he explained, staring down at our joined hands. “Illegal hand stamp in a ruck during a club semifinal two years ago, resulting in seven stitches and a tetanus.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
He expelled a harsh breath. “Yeah.”
“Have you more?”
“I’ve a few,” he replied, eyeing me curiously.
“Can I see?”
Johnny watched me for a long moment before nodding slowly. “If you want to.”
“I do,” I replied, wanting to keep his mind occupied while he waited for the ambulance to come.
“I’ve broken this more times than I remember,” Johnny told me, pointing to his nose. “The worst time was last summer.” He grimaced before adding, “They had to file the bone and rebreak it to set in back in place.”
My eyes widened. “Back into place?”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “I was walking around the place with my nose touching my cheek.”
“God,” I groaned, stomach turning. “That’s barbaric.”
“That’s rugby.” He laughed and then grunted loudly, flinching in pain.
“What else?” I hurried to ask.
Releasing a pained sigh, Johnny gave me a detailed rundown on his appendix bursting when he was thirteen and then his stomach turning inside out when he was in recovery, resulting in another procedure before treating me to an up-close-and-personal interaction with his belly scar.
Belly was a stupid word to use when describing him. It was too soft, too innocent a term to describe what he possessed.
Boys had bellies. It was quite clear that Johnny was no longer a boy. Those abs and that dark trail of hair under his navel attributed to that.
Johnny leaned forward and pointed to a disgusting-looking piece of frayed skin above his right knee. “This one put me on my ass for an entire summer.”
“What happened?” I squeaked. “Rugby?”
“For once, no. This one happened off the pitch when I was ten,” he replied. “A few of the older lads at my school dared me to jump off the cliff at Sander’s Point—”
“Sander’s Point?”
“It’s a fifty-foot diving spot we used to hang around at back home,” Johnny explained. “I was a mad little bastard back then, taking on the big lads, thinking I was the Incredible fucking Hulk.” He shook his head and smiled fondly. “Turns out I wasn’t, and I have the X-rays and a week in the hospital to prove it.”
“Jesus,” I strangled out. “You were only ten! You could’ve died.”
“I’m bigger now.” He smiled sadly. “Harder to break.”
“Yes.” I squeezed his hand tightly. “You are.”
