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"Can't bullshit me," he said, drawing my attention as I pushed him to sit on the lid of the toilet. "You were looking sad."
He was right.
I always wore my feelings right on my sleeve.
He was better at seeing them than anyone else.
"I was just thinking it was wrong of me to take Nugget from you," I told him, shrugging, as I dug through the cabinet drawers for first aid supplies.
"He's your dog."
"He was our dog," I corrected, a little hurt that he didn't think so as well. "You don't have any witch hazel," I said, wincing when the words came out like an accusation.
"Got peroxide."
"Which eats away at the skin," I told him, like I'd told him many times in the past. "It will work this one time, but don't use it again when you clean the wounds out."
"I'm fine," he told me, but I'd heard the way he'd hissed when he'd lowered down.
"You hurt your back," I corrected.
"I'll toss back a handful of ibuprofen and be fine."
Ignoring that, I wet a cotton pad with the peroxide, moving in front of him, wincing down at the cut on his temple that maybe should have gotten some stitches, but knowing I'd have to settle for butterfly sutures.
"Sorry sorry sorry sorry," I said when I pressed the pad down on his skin, feeling my stomach tighten.
"Think this is hurting you more than me," he told me, gaze lowered, refusing to look at me.
"I'm better with animals," I admitted. "I nearly fainted when my mom sliced her finger with the garden shears that summer before I left for college. But I barely flinched at the poor dog on the side of the road with a leg bone sticking out. Plus, you know, you're never supposed to work on someone you..." I trailed off, not wanting to say the words when he'd made it clear he didn't want to hear them.
"Okay. I am going to put like five sutures on this," I told him, turning to do just that, making short work of it so I didn't have to look too closely at the wound for too long before moving on to inspect the other minor cuts, tracing the one that sliced his lower lip, a motion that made his gaze flicker up to mine.
I couldn't tell you why, but the look I saw on his face then made my belly flutter, a strange, unfamiliar sensation.
"Okay, stand up," I demanded, voice strangely husky, taking a somewhat frantic step backward, giving him room. Or, more accurately, giving myself some room. "Can you lift your arms over your head?" I asked, watching him grit his teeth and do so, trying not to show how much it was clearly hurting him. That ego of his could be frustrating, but it was working in my favor this time.
Moving forward, my hands grabbed the hem of his shirt, starting to lift.
"The fuck are you doing?" he asked, voice a strange, airless, harsh sound. It landed almost like a slap, making me suck in my breath.
"I'm taking off your shirt. I need to see your ribs and back," I told him, lifting the material, going up on my tiptoes to pull it off from his arms, tossing the sweaty, bloody thing in the general direction of the hamper. "Put your arms down," I reminded him, feeling the warmth of his skin even through my dress, a warmth I found I wanted to move closer to. But just because I was cold. There was no other possible explanation.
I should have packed a sweater.
I took two big steps back as he lowered his arms back down.
I'd seen Niro without his shirt hundreds of times from infancy right up through the early days of college. I'd always known he was fit thanks to the training he did with his father all through his childhood and teens, chiseling muscles out of the soft flesh the rest of the guys our age had.
That said, he'd put on a lot more bulk. His muscles etched deeper, swelled larger. And there were tattoos over his chest, upper arms, and back I'd never seen before. There was the expected Henchmen logo and the one he'd gotten for his mom that I did know of. The others, though, seemed to make no sense at all. There was no rhyme or reason to them.
There were what looked like a list of geographical coordinates over his heart, a flower on his arm, a clock with a broken face with the time frozen in place, and at least four others that I found myself trying to make sense of.
"Oh, God, Niro," I said as my gaze slipped down to his ribs, seeing the ugly smattering of bruises. Bruises on top of bruises, more like. There was the purple and red of new ones forming, but they were layered over yellow and green ones that were older, already healing.
