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CHAPTER SEVEN
MELANIE
When I was a kid, I used to have this thing about pretending I was different famous people. After a third-grade living history project, I stayed fixated on Clara Barton, American nursing pioneer. For about a month I wore a floor-length dress in a nod to nineteenth century fashion and carried around a fanny pack filled with Band-Aids, antiseptic, and surgical scissors, even though I was just wandering the Tucson suburbs. Lucy used to get annoyed, muttering to her friends about “weird Mel,” but my parents indulged me. Although now that I was remembering things, I realized I never did receive the requested amputation kit that Christmas.
It must have been that brief infatuation with Ms.Barton that sparked the nursing bug. Unfortunately my medical career was cut short when I failed to pass college biology. Instead I changed directions and switched my major to business. Still, now and then I couldn’t help but wonder if I missed my calling when an emergency unfolded right in front of me, even if the sight of real blood did make me feel a little queasy.
Despite the fact that Dominic had ordered me not to clean up the mess on the floor, I did anyway. I swept up the glass, carefully salvaged the large print of the Manhattan skyline, and located a mop to clean up a few smears of blood. While I worked I thought about the shock of that fall. A feeling almost like tenderness had welled inside of me for him. I had just wanted to help. But something I’d already guessed about Dominic Esposito became even more apparent today. He didn’t want my help. He didn’t want anyone’s help.
“‘Stay here,’”I grumbled, mopping with vigor as I mimicked Dominic’s tone. “‘Stay here’ so I can play the macho man and bleed heroically all over shit while plowing through downtown Phoenix with one hand.”
After listening to myself complain awhile, I looked around guiltily, as if I might have been overheard in the empty restaurant. Luckily only the mop was in earshot, and it probably wasn’t even listening. Once I was satisfied with the condition of the floor, I carried the mop to the sink and rinsed it out. I shouldn’t have been so bothered by the fact that my offer of help had been refused. Sitting around at the hospital and waiting for my cranky boss to get his hand stitched up wasn’t the happiest way to kill a few hours anyway.
I noticed a few more drops of blood in the hallway past the kitchen and sighed, pulling the mop back into action. When I reached the door to the men’s room, my pulse quickened and I paused in my maid duties, staring at the closed door and thinking about things that were better off left alone.
I hadn’t meant to collide with Dominic. I hadn’t even realized I’d been leaning against the door, waiting for him to emerge. Frankly, tumbling into the arms of my bleeding employer wasn’t one of my finer moments. When his hand shot out toward my chest to prevent me from falling, I knew he wasn’t making a grab for the goods. But the goods are what he got. That wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that accidental erotic touch was the most action I’d seen since ... since ...
My god, how long has it been?
I set the mop against the wall and thought back. An uptight financial advisor named Kyle Kapinski came to mind. We hadn’t lasted long, maybe two months. Whenever we screwed around, he left his black trouser socks on. One of our last dates had been a Labor Day party at his friend’s house where there was a lot of arguing about climate change, and someone suffered an asthma attack. Since we were in the middle of another hot September, the math was easy to do.
“A year,” I complained to the mop. “A year with no sex.”
A Year with No Sexmight sound like the title of a quirky indie film, but in reality it was a sad and lonely truth, one punctuated only with daydreams and lots (and lots) of batteries. It sounded even worse when spoken out loud in an empty restaurant with only a limp mop for company.
With a sigh I turned my thoughts away from sex and back to work. Work was a much less frustrating way to pass the time. Work didn’t have broad shoulders, strong hands, and dark, penetrating eyes that left me secretly quivering in places that had been neglected for far too long.
By early afternoon I’d long since retreated to the office and made some headway sorting through boxes and filing cabinets.
Eventually my stomach rumbled with hunger. However, Dominic hadn’t left me a key, and I didn’t want to leave the place wide open while I took off to get some lunch. Luckily an online search uncovered a local sandwich shop that delivered. Twenty minutes later a knock on the door announced a skinny young man with my sandwich.
As I chewed thoughtfully, I looked over my notes. Gio had asked me to start drafting a marketing plan for the grand opening. In this new downtown location, the brothers were looking to appeal to a more diverse crowd than the college kids who typically frequented Espo 1. I was in the middle of jotting down some ideas the old-fashioned way, using pen and paper, when Dominic returned.
He didn’t call out “Hey, Melanie” or give any verbal sign of his arrival. But I heard the door open, and I recognized the heavy thud of his work boots. After waiting a few seconds to see if he’d bother to acknowledge me, I gave up and went to him.
“You’re still here,” Dominic said when he saw me. He seemed slightly surprised.
I nodded. “Yes. I work here.” I pointed to the bandage on his hand. “I see you got all patched up.”
He looked down at the bandage and scowled. “Yeah. Seventeen goddamn stitches.” He let out an exasperated hiss of air. “That’ll make it tough to do heavy lifting for the next week or two.”
“Oh. Then I guess you’ll just have to bite the bullet and trust someone else to do the work.” The words carried more of a sarcastic sting than I’d intended.
Dominic didn’t argue with me, though. He looked around and scratched at his beard. It wasn’t a true beard. It looked more like negligent shaving habits than anything else. Unfortunately it also made him look even more gorgeous than usual.
“Told you not to clean up,” he finally said. “This wasn’t your mess.”
I shrugged. “I wanted to help. Isn’t that what you pay me for?”
He looked at me, and then a slow smile crawled across his face. “Look, I’m not very good at saying thank you.”
“Really?” I drawled. “I wouldn’t have guessed that about you.”
“Thank you, Melanie,” he said without a hint of mockery. “Really, I appreciate it.”
I lowered my head. I had to. I could feel myself blushing under his gaze. “You’re welcome.” I gestured to the counter. “I set the print over there. The frame was broken in three places, so I ditched it. But the picture itself seems okay. Just a few scratches on the upper right edge.”
Dominic walked over and took a look. He placed his uninjured hand on the black-and-white city scene. “I’ll get a new frame for it,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically hushed.
