Page 45 of Satisfaction Guaranteed

She urges him to keep his head down, a hand steadfast in finding the side of his face. It’s scorching—heat radiates against her palm, and she worries if heat exhaustion is what led to this little mishap.

She should never have asked him to play this silly game.

“Darlin’, I’m really not worth all the fuss,” Cyrus offers her one of those smiles he’s so notorious for, the ones that normally send butterflies swirling around in her stomach.

It doesn’t quite have the same effect with his face covered in blood.

Alana brushes her thumb across his cheek. He winces at the contact, and his throat bobs with a swallow. He’s definitely still in pain. “I don’t think it’s broken, but let me help you get cleaned up. We have a first aid kit inside, okay?”

“Alana…” Cyrus sighs and stands upright so that she has no choice but to let him go. “That isn’t necessary.”

Stepping back, Alana crosses her arms, expression twisted into the same one her mother gave when she was a hard-headed kid who refused to listen. It gives her immense satisfaction when he nervously fixes his posture. “I know I phrased that as a question to give you the illusion of choice, but you don’t really have much of an option.” Alana takes him by the arm and drags him towards the house.

Cyrus follows. Begrudgingly, and with complaint. But he follows.

Her family offers sympathetic glances and claps while they pass by. “You did good, son,” one of her uncles says, as if he were a wounded soldier being walked off the battlefield. Cyrus’ face reddens, and he hides further behind his bloodied hand.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Alana says as she leads Cyrus into the same bathroom from earlier. She sits him on the toilet, positioning his head down while she grabs a couple of tissues.

“When I was in middle school, the same thing happened to me. Dodgeball. And no, not those foam balls kids play with now. We had those real deal rubber ones. Hit me straight in the face. I broke my glasses, blood everywhere. Not a good look.” She shakes her head at the memory. When she looks at Cyrus, she envisions him in the same class, the same age. Would he have been one of the kids who laughed along with the others, or stepped out to ask if she was okay? She likes to imagine the latter.

“That does sound brutal,” Cyrus says with a small laugh. He accepts the toilet paper Alana offers and nestles it against his nose. Blood saturates the thin tissue in an instant, and he gives another pathetic smile. “It’s not as bad as it looks, I promise you. The only thing damaged is my pride.”

“I’m sorry. This is my fault. I should have just let you leave when you asked.” Alana steps away to rummage through the cabinets. It takes a while, but she finds what she’s looking for—a little white box. She places it on the counter and regards the contents. Pain meds, bandages, rubbing alcohol. She snatches a disposable cup from its place next to the mouthwash and fills it with tap water before handing it to Cyrus, along with two pain pills.

He hesitates to take them, his brows furrowed. “You’re not to blame for nothin’ that happened down there. Trust me on that,” his eyes shift away. “I’m a grown man. I could have left if I really wanted to.”

Alana sifts through the family’s wildly unorganized first aid kit. When she finds what she needs, she holds it out to him.

“This will help stop the bleeding.”

Cyrus stares at the contents in her hand, then back up at her.

His eyes fall, mouth drawn into a tight line. “Alana,” his voice holds a warning. “No.”

Alana tries to hold a straight face; she truly does, but a smirk slips through. “You’ve already blown through the tissue! Will you please just suck it up?” She gestures to the already ruined tissue paper and blood-stained fingertips before shoving two individually wrapped tampons into his palm in exchange for the soiled toilet paper. “They’re extra absorbent and are literally made to soak up blood. The only other options are the good hand towels. And I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve entered into an old-generation black household. So trust and believe you don’t want to ruin those unless you want a grown woman to chase you around with a belt.”

“Sweetheart, my mom’s old weapon of choice used to be her hard ass chanclas. You ever get smacked in the back of the head with one of those things?” Cyrus mutters. He crosses his arms over his chest in an act of pure, testosterone-driven defiance.

“I’d be willing to risk it, because I am not sticking tampons in my nose! Gods, this is not how I envisioned this night going. Fucking Connor probably did this on purpose.” He pinches the bridge of his nose on reflex, only to immediately regret that decision and draw his hand away with a hiss.

Alana shakes her head. “How was this Connor’s fault? It was just an accident. Besides, Citlalli is the one who spiked the ball.”

Cyrus opens and closes his mouth as he looks off to the side.

“What is your problem with him, anyway?” Alana asks. She looks up, her brows tightly knitted together.

“He’s actually a pretty nice guy.” Cyrus scoffs.

Bristling, Alana presses, “He is.” Her voice holds firm, perhaps a little defensive. “He seemed like he’d be a jerk at first, granted, but he’s actually pretty sweet? If he’s secretly some terrible person with a scary past, I wish you’d just tell—”

“He’s not,” Cyrus cuts her off. She isn’t used to this tightness

in his voice. He’s still not looking at her, the framed pictures of seashells on the walls presumably more interesting.

When he doesn’t elaborate, Alana sighs and sets the feminine hygiene product to the side. She takes a seat on the edge of the tub, opting to grab a few more squares of toilet paper. “So, how exactly did you envision this night going? If not for getting a face period all over the floor, how did you think showing up unexpectedly at my birthday party was going to go for you?”

Despite the notable discontent in her voice, her touch remains gentle as she blots away some of the blood caked beneath Cyrus’ nose. The skin around his ears darkens, and his attention takes a sudden shift to the floor. His knee taps anxiously as he mulls over his word choices.