“I’ll do it.” Another voice entered the chat. We both turned, and it was that fucking guy from earlier that everyone iced out of conversations. The same one that had been leering at our table all night. I forgot his name.
“It’s fine, Theo. The bartender saw Donovan already. Don’t worry about it.”
“But I always worry about you,” he replied.
She gave him a funny look, shook her head slightly, and walked towards the bathroom. As I turned to glare at this fucker trying to infringe on … whatever was happening here, the bartender appeared again, giving me the first aid stuff.
“Hey, what can I do for your girl, man? Drinks are obviously on the house, but what can I grab her first? She was a pro out there. I knew she could play darts, but do this too? That’s a keeper right there,” he joked with me.
“Yeah, her name is Audra, and she’s a PICU nurse at Southshore. And she’s not my girl, so I’m not exactly sure what her favorite things are … yet.” This place didn’t have whatever cosmic lemonade she was sipping and raving about on Waterlily Lane the other night.
Once again, Theo had to open his damn mouth. “Your pear mules are her favorite. Those or the espresso martinis that the blond bartender makes,” he said, pointing to the girl behind the bar, showing off how well he knew Audra. This had to be an ex or something. The smugness in his voice had me roiling. Looking at me again with a self-satisfied grin, I’m sure he thought he won some kind of pissing match.
I had no ground to stand on here, no reason to feel possessive or irritated that I didn’t know her favorite drinks, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to punch this guy’s face in because he was being a fucker. The bartender looked between us, and I bet he was sizing up whether he was going to be stopping a bar fight on the heels of that cocaine seizure.
Before things got any worse, Audra returned and touched my arm. The spark from the touch pulled my attention away from Theo to her. I took a closer look at her face. She really was exceptionally stunning. I wondered if she knew it. There was the slightest smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose that I’d never noticed, not even the other night, but it was dark, and that led me to look at her eyes. There was the slightest glassiness to them that seemed different from before. An observation I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I weren’t so close. Had she been crying? I held up the Band-Aids and Neosporin but quietly said, “Are you ok? Is it your ankle?”
She gave me a small smile and opened her mouth to speak, but before she got the words out, Theo spoke for her. “She was bleeding, of course, she’s not ok.”
My shoulders shrugged up, and I stretched my neck as I took a deep breath in. Ages had passed since I last felt so on edge; where I felt the urge to feel the sensation of poundingsomeone. After Tommy died, I spent some time in boxing gyms and underground fight nights getting well acquainted with physical contact. There was something about it that quelled the beast. I hadn’t seen a boxing gym since landing here, but I was about to get back in the ring with this fucker. I had to take another grounding breath.
“Theo, I’m fine. Just go back with your crew. It’s just a minor cut.” She turned her back to him, effectively cutting him off, looked at me, and gestured her head in a let’s go motion. And for the second time that night, I followed this woman without question or hesitation.
“Holy shit, Audra, you really are superwoman,” Jules said when we sat down.
“Hardly,” she retorted. “I just happened to know what to do when someone goes down like that.”
“Just accept the compliment, Audra. You’re amazing.” Her friend smiled at her. The slightest blush ran up her neck. I was in ‘close enough to see freckle’ territory, so I’m not sure if anyone else saw the red creep up, and that made me feel oddly satisfied. My eyes searched hers again, and I said low enough so only she could hear, “You sure you’re ok?” She nodded her head, so I spoke in a regular volume again. “I know you’re exponentially more qualified than I am, but do you want me to patch you up, nurse?” I could feel a flirty half smirk on my lips, and I knew it made my dimples pop out. Did I do it on purpose? Yup. Even after all this time, I still knew how to be charming.
I caught her glance at them and then beam. “I think I can handle it, thank you.”
“But what if I want to?” I retorted. She tilted her head again, and the edge of her bottom lip slipped slightly between her teeth. “We can’t let the dart league bar champion turnedemergency hero patch herself up. Bad press and all. Besides, I think we make one hell of a first-response team. I’ll handle all phone-related services like timing and calling, and you … you can do literally everything else.” That brought that laugh back out of her. It was the same radiant laugh she had when we were first talking.
“By all means, then, please patch away, Doctor Donovan.”
21
AUDRA
Ican’t remember the last time someone did something so lovingly insignificant for me, like apply a Band-Aid, and the tiny act of service was doing things to my insides. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him handling me with such care. It wasn’t a huge deal. Some shards of glass from the broken bottle must have found their way to my ankle bone. I didn’t even feel it, but it bled a lot more than I’d expected it to. Worse was the fact that my wedges were trashed by whatever wet sludge was on the floor. Pretty sure these white shoes were irrevocably stained. Donovan was almost reverent as he squatted down and did the first aid. I felt like I was almost holding my breath as he did it, watching every move. When it was all done, he held my leg up and asked, “You can’t salvage these, can you?”
“Eh, I’ll give it my best shot, but my Magic 8 Ball says all signs point to no.”
He looked taken aback, and then a childlike grin spread across his face. “Do you know that was my favorite toy when I was younger?”
Those dimples were going to kill me. But it’d be a hell of away to go. Death by Donovan’s Dimples. I’d seen them plenty recently, so I’m not sure why dart night is when they were really making me take notice.
“You don’t come across as a person who leaves things to chance or up for interpretation,” I stated.
That coaxed a belly laugh out of him as he held my leg. “At one point, a Magic 8 Ball decided all my life’s burning questions. Dare I ask for ice cream after dinner? Am I going to get a hit at my baseball game? Will the nanny want to play my favorite board game? Maybe I should bring that strategy back.” I could imagine a little Donovan Wright and his dimples on his bed asking his Magic 8 Ball about the chance for ice cream.
“So, what happened? How do you make decisions now?”
“A mix of trusting my gut, reading people, and research.” He gently put my foot back on the stool rung and stood up. I was expecting a silly answer in the same vein as the Magic 8 Ball, but that was a pretty serious response. Definitely one that Sir Donovan, the businessman, would give.
“Well, I think you have it down because things seem to be working out for you.”
He was about to say something when the bartender brought over a pear mule. “I hear these are a favorite,” he smiled at me. “Then after this, you have an espresso martini with your name on it, plus anything else you’d like, just say the word. Thanks again, Audra. It was impressive how you just swooped in and took control of that.” Then he handed Donovan a tumbler of amber-colored liquid. “And this is for your help, too. Thought you looked like a Weller guy.”
