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“You have quite a scrape here, and I can see a bruise forming. We’ll let it dry a bit before I bandage it.” The warmth of his hands was comforting and thrilling at the same time. He then reached up with a clean corner of his damp cloth and gently wiped the mascara from my face.
“Oh, I must look a mess.”
“Nothing that a little water won’t fix,” he assured me. “Besides, all that black gunk is covering up this pretty face.”
I blushed. “Thank you, this is really sweet of you.”
“Well, unlike you, I’ve had a terrific day. Maybe it will rub off.” He looked at me and smiled. “The name’s Will, Will Kozak.”
“Alex Morgan.”
We replaced a handshake with another deep gaze into each other’s eyes. I felt him look beyond the tear-stained sadness to the something in me that needed comfort beyond the simple cleansing of a scraped knee. I was as nervous as a school girl in the presence of her first crush. The blush deepened on my cheeks.
“I live in 210. You just move in?” I asked.
“Last week, how come I haven’t seen you?”
“I guess we come and go at different times.”
My awkwardness was apparent, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“So, what’s a beautiful woman like you doing, crying in the stairwell?”
I blushed again, this time so much that I could feel my ears burning. “If you continue to call me beautiful, you’ll get most anything from me.” He’d made me smile.
I suddenly remembered how I was dressed, the short skirt, t-shirt. I was immediately self-conscious, thinking he’d notice the difference in the woman I looked like, and what was really there.
“Well, I’m up for a good story,” he prodded.
“It’s nothing really. I’m sure you don’t want to hear my sad tale of woe.”
“And why would you assume that?”
I looked at him for an eternity, taking in the freshness, the life in his smile, the energetic eyes, the power that poured from him. An invisible circle seemed to wind around us like a magic spell. I didn’t struggle against it. I found it calming. At the same time, I was tired, and I didn’t care if I impressed him or not.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t really feel like bantering back and forth with you about inconsequential things.”
“Good, then you can tell me what’s really bothering you.”
Oh geez, he wouldn’t give up!
He finished dabbing my knee and placed a neat bandage on the tiny cut. “There, now that I’ve bandaged your leg we can get to know each other.”
He moved to his refrigerator and brought out a bottle of wine, pouring two glasses.
“It’s kinda late for wine, don’t you think?”
“Not for me. You want a cup of coffee?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” I said.
I followed him into the living room and sat down on the red sofa. The energy between us was almost palpable as he waited for me to speak.
“Thanks for helping me out tonight. It’s been a strangely amazing day, in fact, a whole, amazing month. I’m really confused about a lot of things, and tonight I found out that a really good friend is leaving town, and generally, I’m just miserable.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“No,” I shook my head. It almost startled me that he should think that. “A girlfriend,” I clarified, though there was no way I’d tell him everything about my night.
