Page 54 of Enchanted to Meet You

Rhys’s mouth pulled up in a tiny smile. “We’ll have matching scars.”

“Where’s yours?”

He pulled down the waistband of his shorts slightly to show me his left hip bone, where there was a faint jagged scar. My breath caught in my throat as I stared at it, this new part of Rhys that I’d never seen before.

“It was a couple of years ago,” he said.

Without thinking about it, I leaned forward to take a closer look. There was a faint, light line that started by the dipping V of his abdomen and disappeared into the edge of his waistband. Before I could stop myself, I reached a hand out and brushed the top of it with my thumb. Rhys drew in a sharp breath, and I flicked my gaze up to his.

“Matching scars,” I whispered.

“Now I’ll think of you every time I see it.”

This time, my breath was the one hitching. The way his eyes bored into mine, the way our breaths stalled, the way I felt like we were the only ones in this entire house for a fleeting moment, it was all so new and foreign and I realized I didn’t hate it. Not even one bit. It felt so different to when we were locked in that closet across the hall or in the cramped changing room at the mall. This felt different, better, more intimate.

I leaned in a fraction, my body reacting before my brain could. He mimicked the movement. My heartbeat shot up a fraction.

And then Landon came in through the door.

“Oops,” he said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt the lovebirds.”

I flushed and pulled back completely, while Rhys muttered “shut up, Landon” although there was no heat in his voice. He let go of his swim shorts to grab it. The waistband rolled back up, covering the scar again, and I barely held back a sound of disappointment. Why the heck I was disappointed, I had no idea.

“Here, take over holding the towel,” Rhys told Landon. He waited until Landon’s hand was covering it before he let go and unzipped the first-aid kit to dig through it, pulling out a bottle of something and some bandages. “Is it still bleeding?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Landon asked.

Rhys raised his eyes to look at his friend flatly. “Lifting the towel might be a good first step.”

“It’s fine,” I cut in when Landon looked absolutely disgusted. “I can check.”

“No,” Rhys said, stopping me as I reached out. “The last thing we need is for you to faint at the sight and fall off the counter.”

“You think I’m scared of a little blood?”

“People react badly when it’s their own wounds. I don’t want to have to take you to the hospital and explain to my dad how my girlfriend got concussed at our house. He’ll never let me have people over again.”

Landon seemed convinced by the argument because he lifted the towel to look for himself. His face turned a little green again but he shook his head and said, “Not bleeding.”

Rhys just nodded and pulled my ankle again, this time moving my leg into the sink. He murmured a quick apology and I wasn’t sure why until he ran the water over the cut, making it sting. He followed it by cleaning the wound, while I tried to fight the wave of dizziness that was coming over me because I would not be proving him right by fainting.

Rhys worked in methodical silence after that, his fingers surprisingly gentle despite the firm pressure he applied as he patted the skin around the wound dry with a clean paper towel. He opened a small tube of antibiotic ointment, spreading a thin layer over the length of the cut before peeling the backing off several large, flexible adhesive gauze pads and smoothing them carefully over the span of my skin.

“There,” he murmured, his thumb running along the edge of the tape to ensure it stuck against my damp calf. “You’re survived.”

“Barely,” I muttered, though the sting was already beginning to dull into a manageable throbbing.

Landon leaned against the doorframe, letting out a loud, dramatic sigh of relief as he tossed the bloodied towel into the laundry hamper. “Great. Now that the trauma unit is closed, can we address what we’re going to do about Justin and Kelcey?”

Rhys didn’t answer right away. He stood up from the counter, his hands hovering near my waist for a fraction of a second before he pulled back, closing up the plastic first-aid kit with a sharp snap.

“They can stay out there if they want,” Rhys said, his voice flat. “We’re done anyway.”

“I should probably get going soon,” I said, making a move to slide off the counter, but Rhys immediately put a hand out to stop me, his palm resting against my shoulder.

“You’re not going anywhere yet,” he said firmly. “You just cut your leg open, and your clothes are still wet. Come upstairs.”

Landon waved a hand dismissively as he backed out into the hallway. “I’m going to head out, man. My mom wants me home for dinner anyway. Call me later?”