Page 10

“Pull-ups.”
Quinn tsks, her cheeks flushing a deeper shade of red in her fury. “How are you that careless? How many times have I told you to take it easy until the stitches come out?Especiallywhen they’re on a muscle like this. You’re lucky you didn’t do worse damage.”
“Sorry,” I grunt, but my lips threaten to tug into a smile at her lecture. I’ve heard it all before.
“Well, you should be. I don’t know why I even bother trying to minimize your scars.” Quinn purses her lips, her green eyes flashing as she glares up at me. “You’re all sweaty. I can’t stitch you up like this. Go wash off. You can use my shower. Just try to avoid getting your stitches wet as best you can. I’ll clean them when you come out.”
“Thanks, Quinn.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She tosses me a clean towel from her closet then busies herself in her dresser, looking for the tools she’ll need to fix my sutures.
Wordlessly, I head into her en suite bathroom, closing the door behind me. It’s the first time I’ve set foot this far inside her personal space, and I glance around, taking in the clean countertop, the crisp, modern decor. She keeps her areatidy, and I like that. It reinforces her attention to detail and meticulous personality.
The shower’s sleek, with a clear glass door and white tiles laced with a thin ribbon of gray covering the walls. I rinse off quickly, not bothering to wait for the water to get warm.
As I use her floral body wash, I realize that the hint of rose and strawberry I smell on her sometimes is from her soap. It’s nice. Refreshing. Shockingly appealing, honestly. And as warm and comforting as her presence.
It makes me more intensely aware that she’s just on the other side of that door, waiting for me in her bedroom. Maybe it was a bad idea to come find her. But if I didn’t, I’d either have to go to the hospital to get patched up or face her wrath at the end of the day, after my skin had time to get good and angry and possibly infected.
No. Better to deal with any awkwardness now than face Quinn’s true fury.
Turning off the water just as the shower finally reaches a comfortable temperature, I step out onto the plush bath mat. Grabbing the clean towel, I run it over my head a few times to wick away the worst of the moisture. Then I pat myself dry, avoiding the thin rivulets of blood that have started to trail down from my busted stitches onto my stomach.
I wrap the towel around my waist, keeping it low enough that I hopefully won’t stain it before Quinn can clean me up. Then I comb my hair out of my eyes and open the door to step back into her bedroom.
“Oh! God…” she gasps as she turns from her dresser and nearly spills the handful of medical supplies at my unexpected appearance.
“Sorry,” I grunt again and secure her grip on the bundle until she’s regained her composure.
“No, you’re fine. I just…didn’t realize you were there.” Her blush makes her freckles stand out once more, accentuating the delicate shape of her button nose, and Quinn juts her sharp chin toward the vanity near her window. “Let’s work over there. I’ll have better light.”
Releasing her hands, I follow her to the window and watch as she organizes her tools on the vanity’s surface.
“Let me just…wash my hands,” she says and quickly disappears into the bathroom.
As I wait, I take in my surroundings, once again making note of the neat state of her room. She’s made her bed. All her clothes are hung or folded and put away. And the only clutter is on her desk, where she has a massive stack of medical textbooks piled nearly as high as the top of her computer monitor.
Half the words along their spine, I couldn’t even be sure I would pronounce right. And my respect for Killian’s little sister intensifies at the reminder of just how smart she is to be graduating with a nursing degree in just over a month.
“Okay,” Quinn says, entering the room once again.
Her eyes scan down my body, taking in the towel wrapped around my waist, and I wonder if she’d intended for me to put my sweaty shorts back on. Perhaps that would have been more decent of me.
But it’s too late now, and she doesn’t ask me to before she wets a gauze pad with sanitary solution and dabs along my stitches. She’s not wearing gloves today—likely because her bedroom isn’t as well stocked as the medical room Killian made for her. And her fingers are feather light as they brush across my throbbing cut, soothing it even as the antiseptic makes it sting.
Quickly, she swipes another clean gauze pad over my abs to wipe away the rest of my mess, and she tosses each spent item into the waste bin beside her desk.
This time, she stitches me up with a fabric sewing needle, but if the thread’s different, I can’t tell. Within a matter of minutes, she’s resealed my cut—albeit using an alternate angle that’s not quite as symmetrical as before. But this way, the thread avoids exacerbating the angry skin I tore by overexerting myself.
“Now, do not—I repeat,do not—push it like that again for a week. Okay?” she demands as she slathers a fresh layer of antibiotic ointment over the wound. “If you do, I’m not stitching you up a third time. I’ll drag your butt to the hospital and demand you pay for a doctor to lecture you about proper suture care instead.”
I chuckle, amusement over her empty threat making it impossible to keep a straight face. “Yes, ma’am,” I say, and I gather my gym shorts from her bathroom on my way toward the door.
“You know to change that bandage at least once a day, right?” she confirms, though she’s given me dressing instructions more times than I can count.
Turning, with my hand on the doorknob, I nod.
“Good. I want to keep an eye on it to make sure those broken stitches don’t get infected. Stop by tomorrow.”