Page 102
“Give me your hand,” she orders.
I extend my right hand, palm up. The knuckles are split open, the skin ragged. It’s not that deep, blood just always makes wounds look worse than they are. Kira ignores me when I try to tell her that, though.
Taking my hand in both of hers, she turns it over and examines the damage with the concentration of someone reading a map. Her thumbs brush the edge of the broken skin, feather-light, and something in my chest tightens.
She pours antiseptic onto a cotton pad and presses it to my knuckles without warning. I don’t flinch, but my fingers curl involuntarily around hers.
“Sorry,” she murmurs.
“Don’t be.”
She works in silence. The cotton moves across each knuckle in slow, careful strokes. Her head is bent, her dark hair falling forward to curtain her face, and I can’t see her expression. Just the line of her jaw, tight with concentration, and the way her lower lip disappears between her teeth when she focuses.
The gauze comes next. She wraps it around my hand with more skill than I expected, folding the edges neatly, securing it with medical tape that she tears with her teeth. Her fingers are warm against my skin, and the contrast between her careful touch and the violence these hands dealt not too long ago sits in my chest like something I can’t name.
“Let me see the other one,” she murmurs.
I give her my left hand. The knuckles here are bruised, but the skin’s intact. She cleans them anyway, her thumb tracing the ridges of bone beneath the skin, and I let her because I understand what this is.
She’s anchoring herself. One bandage at a time, one square inch of skin at a time, she’s building something she can hold on to. And I’m the thing she’s holding.
When she’s done, she caps the antiseptic and puts everything back in the kit with the same careful precision. Her hands have stopped shaking, and that’s something.
Cupping her cheek, I murmur, “Thank you.”
When she called me, I had hoped she was somewhat back to herself. Stupid and wishful thinking. But still. So yeah, it sucked to walk into the apartment and have her almost be the same numb version of herself.
But my Kira’s still in there. It’s obvious in the way she just cleaned my injuries, and the small glances she shoots me from beneath her lashes.
Instead of answering, she sets the kit on the counter and looks at my bandaged hand like she’s not entirely sure what to do with it now that it’s fixed.
The towel slips lower on my hips as I stand, and Kira’s eyes follow the movement before darting away. I grab a pair of boxer briefs from the drawer and step into them, then reach for a clean shirt.
“Have you eaten while I was gone?” I ask, pulling the shirt over my head.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
She shrugs. The blanket slips from one shoulder, and she doesn’t bother pulling it back up.
I look at her and see the woman who called me home because the penthouse felt wrong without me in it. Something’s shifted. I don’t know what yet, but I can feel it in the air between us, thin and charged like the moment before lightning.
“Come on,” I say, and take her hand. “We’ll both get something to eat.”
The kitchen lights are dim, and I leave them that way. Brightness feels wrong tonight, like turning on a spotlight in a room where someone’s trying to hide.
I pull containers from the refrigerator—leftovers Donna made yesterday, something with chicken and rice that smells delicious enough. I dish it onto two plates, nuke them both for ninety seconds, and set one in front of Kira, where she’s sitting at the island.
She looks at the food as if it’s written in a language she doesn’t speak.
“Eat,” I order as I sit beside her.
She picks up her fork and makes a show of pushing rice around the plate. Then she takes one bite, chews it a million times before finally giving her teeth and jaw a rest as she swallows. But at least she’s eating. And every time she pauses, I give her a stern look.
“Where did you go?” she asks when she’s cleared half her plate.
“Are you sure you’re up for hearing the truth?”
