Page 12 of Dirty Pool

She knew why, too.

The pain in her arm.

The blood dribbling to the floor.

Feck.

Blood always made her—

Everything went dark.

THREE

“Here, lad, a blanket.”

Michel took the item from the Irishman lingering near the doorway, and used it to act as a pillow. “Grazie, and you are …?”

The guy, whether it was the fact Michel thanked him in Italian, or asked his name, tipped his chin up a bit. Almost like he wasn’t going to reply to Michel’s question at all, but then he did, muttering, “Aidan Casey.”

Casey.

That name sounded familiar, but it wasn’t really bringing anything to the surface for Michel. It felt like something he should know—if this was New York, he’d already know who the fuck the guy was just because he had to if someone was important. He wasn’t as accustomed to those rules in Detroit.

“He’s me annoying cousin,” Gabbie mumbled.

Michel’s attention went back to where it was needed, and honestly, where he wanted it to be the most. Gabbie, just waking up from her spill, blinked up at Michel. With her head elevated on the blanket, she was now angled just enough to stare straight at him.

He smiled.

“Your what, again?” he asked.

Just to see …

“Me cousin, you wagon.”

Michel’s smirk deepened a bit—he’d been insulted before, but he couldn’t remember a time when he’d been insulted by a beautiful woman, who was also Irish, in a slang he didn’t understand for the life of him. “You know your accent gets a little deeper when you’re confused, right?”

Gabbie’s brow dipped in the sweetest way, and her green eyes lifted to meet his again. “Probably. I’m not thinking about it as much then.”

“Blood makes you pass out, huh?”

A small sigh passed her lips, and she made sure to avoid looking at anywhere but her arm. “Maybe it does when it’s my blood, yeah.”

“Maybe,” Michel joked. Over his shoulder, he said to the cousin in the doorway, “There’s a first aid kit somewhere in this place, I imagine. Could you find it for me?”

“Aye, mate.”

Gabbie blinked up at the ceiling and then turned her head a bit to stare sideways at the line of stalls with narrowed eyes. “You brought me into the bathroom?”

“Apparently, someone was getting the shit beat out of him in the office, if what it sounded like was to be trusted,” he replied, trying not to grin at how disgusted she looked at the idea of being on a bathroom floor. “And this was just cleaned, so it seemed better than leaving you out on the crowded floor for everyone to stare at you once you woke up.”

Her pixie-like, button nose scrunched up before her gaze came back to him. It kind of struck him how delicate her features were. From the soft line of her chin, to her cheekbones. The spattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks continued down her throat, and disappeared below the plunging neckline of her dress.

He had the strangest urge to find out if those freckles just … kept going everywhere. He bet that would be a game of Connect the Dots that would not soon be forgotten.

“I figured the bathroom was the right choice, all things considered.”

Gabbie frowned. “That’s fair.”