AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I thought for a second. “Nineteen fifteen.”
“I love this area, all these old buildings. Although in another city they probably wouldn’t even be remarkable. Phoenix doesn’t have too many historic buildings. When I was in college, I took a tour of that old Victorian house down the block. Beautiful place.”
“Humph,” I grunted. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I needed to focus before I started making holes in the wall. I wished Melanie would retreat to the office where she belonged. I’d made peace with the fact that she was going to be around, but now that she was standing three feet away in all her innocent, sexy glory, I realized staying focused on the job in front of me might be a tall order.
“Have you been there?” she asked. “To the Rosson House? I had a long chat with the docent when I visited. It’s kind of amazing when you think about all the changes that house has witnessed in the last century. The number of fireplaces struck me as strange, though, considering Phoenix rarely has fireplace weather. But I suppose maybe it was an architectural feature.”
What the hell was she talking about? Frankly I was too tired to care. I turned on the hand drill, figuring the noise would at least get her to stop babbling.
Once I had the nails secured in the wall, I was ready to put the picture up. I’d picked it up years ago at Goodwill and just kind of kept around because I didn’t have enough wall space anywhere to hang it properly. The thing was a monster; heavy wood frame, fifty inches wide.
“Oh hey, that’s New York City,” said Melanie. For some reason she figured it was a good idea to stand directly behind me as I carefully hoisted the picture up. “I’ve never been there, although it’s definitely on my bucket list. My mom had this old handbook for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I used to look through it all the time. Dominic, do you need help with that?”
“No,” I growled.
In the next second a combination of things conspired against me:
The exhaustion that comes from averaging three hours of sleep a night caused a brief hiccup in my ability to focus.
My left foot found a mislaid paintbrush to step on.
The bulky picture frame slipped a few inches in my hands, triggering a shift in momentum that ended with me tripping on the aforementioned paintbrush.
Gravity, that unforgiving wretch, took advantage of the situation and yanked the heavy object out of my hands completely. It fell to the floor, where the glass shattered into six hundred thousand pieces. And I went down like a ton of bricks on top of the whole mess.
“Oh my god! Dominic, are you okay?” Melanie was suddenly right there, glass crunching underneath her white tennis shoes as she crouched at my side.
For a second I was sure the only injury was to my pride, but then Melanie gasped, “You’re bleeding!”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than a belated stab of pain shot through the palm of my right hand.
“Shit,” I muttered when I saw the stream of red. I pulled a thin shard of glass out of the meat of my palm and then realized Melanie was actually trying to haul me out of my bed of glass.
“Let me help you,” she said, grunting with exertion as she tried to pick me up by my elbow. If I hadn’t been so dazed, I would have laughed at the absurdity of this little high maintenance chick trying to lift my two-hundred-pound carcass off the floor. And yet in the middle of the blood and the glass and the futility of Melanie’s effort, I still managed to notice that her hair smelled like wild oranges.
“I’m all right,” I muttered, waving her away before carefully rolling off the broken glass and getting to my feet.
While I flexed my torn-up hand and watched the blood leak out, Melanie suddenly scampered away like a frightened rabbit. Maybe she had a phobia of blood. But no, five seconds later she was back, waving a roll of toilet paper that she must have grabbed from the bathroom.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” she announced before she took my hand and pressed the entire freaking roll of toilet paper against the wound.
I tried to take my hand back. “I got it. Thanks.”
Melanie ignored me. She stared intently as the toilet paper turned red. “Looks like it’s slowing.” She whipped her head around, slapping me under the chin with her ponytail. “Where’s my bag? Ah, there it is. Dominic, you need to keep this against the wound to staunch the flow of blood.”
She left me alone with the toilet paper and darted over to the laptop bag that she must have dropped on the floor when she came rushing to my aid. There were drops of blood on her white Esposito’s shirt.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
Melanie rummaged in her bag. “Don’t panic. I’m just getting my keys.”
“I’m not panicking for god’s sake.”
“It’ll be okay, Dominic. The hospital is only a few miles away. Do you feel dizzy at all?”
“No, Melanie, I don’t feel dizzy from losing about three tablespoons of blood.”
“Okay, good.” She could really move quickly when she wanted to. She was back at my side and trying once more to gingerly lead me by the elbow. “Come on, I’ll help you.”
