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‘Let me help you,’ I said, hearing my words as they came out a little thicker than normal, muffled by exhaustion and too much alcohol. I was dying for a drink of water, but I needed some steri-strips first. ‘Wait there,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a first aid kit somewhere around here.’
I rummaged in a few kitchen cabinets, finally finding the kit under the sink. I grabbed it and turned back to John, noticing where his eyes had been – squarely on my ass. It was nice to feel wanted without any strings attached. Nice to feel desired. I tried to push that away, my nipples hard enough to cut glass as I thought of the last time John and I had been together. The way he’d made me cry out beneath him.
Jesus, woman. Get a grip. He’ll have bled to death from this cut by the time you get your shit together.
‘Sit down,’ I said, patting the stool. ‘So I can reach better.’
He did, and I got to work, washing my hands with alcohol sanitiser, before setting up my tools – gauze, steri-strips, cotton balls and alcohol solution. The strip club was dirty. If you shone one of those luma-lights down there, it’d light up like a fucking Christmas tree in Times Square, all body fluids and blood from old fights.
‘I’m not used to people helping me,’ John said, keeping perfectly still as I dabbed the alcohol solution around his cut.
‘This is deep, John,’ I said, trying to focus but suddenly aware that if I was just a tiny bit closer, I could rub one of my nipples against his lips. Stop. Fix him first, and then figure out a way to screw him without getting killed.
‘That’s what she said.’ That glint in his eye, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
‘I’m serious. You need stitches.’ I’m serious. Deep sounds exactly like what I’ll say when you ask me how I want it.
‘No time for stitches,’ he said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Unless you’ve got a needle and thread?’
‘A needle and thread,’ I repeated, taking a steri-strip and closing his wound as best I could. ‘You’ll have a scar on your head the size of Tennessee. I mean, I’ll love you anyway, even if you’re horribly disfigured.’
‘What?’ He sucked in a breath, and my chest tightened.
‘I was kidding,’ I said, pressing another steri-strip to his cut. ‘You won’t be disfigured. It’ll be a little line.’
His hand shot out, fingers wrapping around my wrist and squeezing. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
Oh.
‘You . . . love me?’ He said the words like they were in another language and he wasn’t quite sure how they fit together in a sentence.
I stopped what I was doing, meeting his gaze. ‘Of course I love you, you idiot,’ I replied. ‘You think I’d risk my head for somebody I just kind of thought was okay?’
He smiled, teeth and all, and it was like the sun was beaming directly onto my face. I felt blood rise in my cheeks as we digested that reality together. Had I really never told him that I loved him? Had he never told me? It was just something that I knew, at a cellular level, something that I didn’t ever have to question, not after that first night we’d spent together. I loved him as ferociously as I had ever loved anyone.
‘You hungry?’
I nodded. I wasn’t offended that he hadn’t said it back. I wasn’t a teenage girl with stars in her eyes. John loved me, whether he said it or not. He’d risked everything for me, more than once. The way he stared at me when he thought I wasn’t looking was not the stare of casual affection. He loved me so much, I was afraid when we had to associate with each other in front of other human beings, because couldn’t they see how bright we burned for each other?
‘Come on. I’m taking you out. He can hardly be suspicious if I take you out for the birthday he forgot.’
I glanced at the clock. It was almost 2 a.m. ‘It isn’t my birthday anymore.’
John shrugged. ‘And?’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Give me a minute.’
I changed into a tank top and a skirt that hung loose over my hips. You know, just in case we stopped off on the way. It’s not like we were going to fuck in a restaurant.
We went to Denny’s, over in Burbank, where nobody would spot us. I was already experiencing the hangover from hell, and I ordered the biggest cup of coffee they had. Strong. Black. When it arrived I dumped my body weight in sugar into it, gave it a stir and mainlined it as quickly as I could.
I had waffles and bacon. John had eggs. ‘Next time I’ll take you somewhere a little more upmarket,’ he said, drinking his coffee.
I shrugged. ‘I love diners,’ I said, stabbing a piece of waffle with my fork and drizzling maple syrup all over it.
John laughed, his eyebrows raised in that adorable way. ‘You love diners,’ he repeated dubiously.
I winced as I saw the gauze on his forehead redden. ‘Don’t smile,’ I said, gesturing to his wound with my fork. ‘In fact, no facial expressions from now on, okay? Or I will take you to the hospital and make you get stitches.’
