I assumed she was addressing me again, so I held him up with one arm while I gripped the gauze with the other.
She prepared the needle and thread then came back to his arm. She grabbed the bloody towel and tossed it onto the table before she got to work, quickly poking the needle through his skin and bringing the thread taut across the wound before she closed that part of the gash. “What happened?” she asked as she worked, her eyes focused on her needle.
“He grabbed the wrong crate and dropped it.”
“Why was he moving crates in the warehouse?”
“To keep me company.”
She continued her work and asked no further questions, stitching him up like she’d done this a hundred times,brushing away a strand of her hair and getting some blood on her cheek.
I almost wiped it away but thought better of it.
If I’d known the best way to get alone time with her was with an injury, I would have shot myself in the arm on my first day.
She finished the last suture then dumped alcohol over the cut, cleaning it again before she wrapped it in gauze and secured it.
“He’ll be alright?”
The kitchen staff had left the room, probably to avoid the blood that had gotten all over the table and the floor. All the food on the counter was now contaminated, so they’d have to toss it.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” she said. “He didn’t lose enough blood. Nothing to faint over.” She secured the gauze in place with tape then grabbed his face and gave him a gentle shake. “A little pathetic.”
“Men ain’t shit, huh?” I asked with a smirk.
It was the first time she looked at me, and the swatch of blood on her cheek somehow heightened her goddess-like beauty. Her emerald eyes took me in with a sudden sharpness, as if perhaps she hadn’t realized I was the onestanding next to her because she’d been focused on Salvatore. “Some—not all.”
“I think most.”
“Does that apply to you?”
I smirked. “We’ll find out next time I get shot.”
“Next time?”
“Oh, I get shot a lot.”
“Then you must not be very good at your job.”
My grin widened because she was just as sassy as I’d hoped she’d be. “If that’s the case, you’re going to be seeing a lot of me.”
For a split second, she seemed to be lost in thought, as if she didn’t catch what I’d said because she’d been distracted by how hard I stared at her. She brushed it off a second later by rising to her feet and collecting the bloody trash from Salvatore’s sutures. She tossed everything in the bin then went to the sink to wash her hands.
I gently let go of Salvatore, and he remained balanced in the chair like he wasn’t going to tilt sideways then break his head open on the tile floor and give Frankie an even bigger mess to clean up.
I stared at her back as she scrubbed her hands andunderneath the nails, which were painted a brilliant blue.
“So, you’re a doctor.”
“A nurse,” she corrected.
“Salvatore called you doctor.”
“Because these idiots don’t know the difference.” She turned off the faucet then dried her hands with the colorful towel and turned back to me.
I was right beside her, leaning against the counter and seeing the way the light struck her face through the open window directly over the sink. “Wolfe.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine. “Frankie.”
