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“It is not fine. You don’t know what’s in that nasty water,” she argued. “Rayelle, where do you keep your first aid supplies? I didn’t get him warmed up in a panic only for him to get some nasty infection.”
Rayelle grinned from her recliner. “Bathroom cabinet.”
“Take off your shirt, I’ll be right back.”
Samantha returned a few minutes later carrying an armful of supplies. She found peroxide, a box of gauze pads, medical tape, and antibiotic cream. She was mostly worried about getting his wounds clean, but she was glad she’d be able to cover some of the larger ones if she needed to. She went to comment on how well-stocked the medicine cabinet was but found Rayelle’s chair empty.
“Where’d she go?” she asked Bryce, who was waiting with his shirt off as requested.
“Said she had to make a phone call,” he answered with a smirk.
Their friend was giving them privacy. She was stealthy about making herself scarce, and if Samantha didn’t know any better, she’d think she might be trying to play matchmaker. For the second time that evening, she focused her attention on Bryce’s upper body. He was fit in a way that came from physical labor, not a gym. His chest was covered by a thin smattering of hair, and just below that was where most of his cuts and scrapes were. They didn’t seem deep, but they were red and irritated. Furrowing her brow in concentration, she began opening her supplies.
“You really don’t need to do this,” he repeated.
She poured some peroxide onto a gauze pad. “Let me take care of you.”
He flinched when she began to dab at his cuts. Placing a hand on his toned waist, she held him steady and continued to clean him up. When she looked up at him, his eyes were closed, and his jaw was clenched. She finished cleaning the area and then leaned forward to blow it dry. He gasped in surprise, and when she looked back up at him his eyes locked on hers.
“Sorry. My grandma used to do that when I was a kid and scraped my knee. It always helped,” she explained with a shrug.
He leaned forward and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Thank you,” he breathed.
Closing her eyes, she tried to ignore the warmth that spread over her. Such a tender gesture. She couldn’t allow herself to melt just because someone was finally treating her with genuine kindness and respect.
“Your forearm is pretty cut up. It’ll need a bandage,” she said, carefully holding his arm out by his elbow.
She gently cleaned the area on his arm with peroxide then put a thin layer of antibiotic ointment over it before wrapping it in gauze. She ran her hand down his arm and then stopped to squeeze his hand. Reaching out, he grabbed her arm before she could step away to put the unused items back in the cabinet.
“Thank you. I mean it,” he said when she turned to look at him. “I should take Asher and get home. Tonight was fun. Other than the hypothermia part… but even some of that part wasn’t bad.”
“Wait,” Rayelle said from where she had appeared in the room. “At least eat with us first, since that’s why you came over here in the first place. The pizza came while you were out trying to freeze your balls off. It’s in the oven.”
Samantha laughed in surprise. She was still processing the not-so-bad parts that Bryce mentioned when Rayelle had to go and mention his balls. Flustered didn’t begin to cover it. His brain must have been functioning properly during the events in the bathtub after all if he brought it up. She hoped he would stay a little longer.
“Well since you put it that way,” he said with a laugh of his own. “There’s no rush, I guess. What do you think, Asher?”
The dog looked up and wagged his tail like he knew his name.
Chapter 9
The bookstore was slow, as it usually was in the mornings. Ordinarily, Samantha enjoyed the quiet and used it to mentally prepare for the day, but all she could do was replay the events from Rayelle’s house a few days before. Meka needed to come to work and talk to her before she exploded. She was trying her best not to read into anything, but what constituted reading into things?
“Good morning,” Meka greeted her from beside the register.
Samantha was so deep into her spiraling that she hadn’t even heard her come in. But, she was so distracted she didn’t even jump in surprise.
“Meka! I’m so glad you’re here.”
Meka looked around the shop with a puzzled look on her face. After making two slow circles, she turned her attention back to Samantha. “Did I miss a rush of customers? Are you expecting a lot of customers? Because it looks like you’ve got things under control.”
Samantha sat down in her favorite reading chair. “It has nothing to do with work. It’s important. I need you to tell me if I’m crazy or not.”
Meka shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on the hook, shaking her head the entire time. “I assume there’s a story behind your question? We already know you’re crazy in a good way.”
“I need to know if I’m imagining things.”
Meka leaned on the counter and studied Samantha. “Start from the beginning. Remember I haven’t seen you since the funeral and therefore have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you seeing ghosts?”
