Page 26 of Mourner for Hire

TWENTY-ONE

DOMINIC

As she rushes away, I notice a wobble to her stride and the hand she’s holding to her head, is quickly oozing crimson.

Shit.

She’s actually hurt.

I hurry to catch up to her before she reaches for the metal door of the restrooms, lightly touching her waist to get her attention.

She turns so sharply to look at me that I almost think she’s going to backhand me. Instead, she groans.

“What the fuck do you want? I’m bleeding and really not in the mood to fight with you.”

“I know you’re bleeding. I’m just?—”

“Selectively nice? Only choosing to be decent and polite when someone is bleeding out of the cranium?”

I withhold a smile. She notices.

“Go to Hell.” She storms away. This time, she reaches the public restrooms, and I follow her inside. “Excuse me?!”

It’s not the way she says it. It’s the way her normally pink cheeks have gone ghostly pale and the way her vision wobbles as she tries and fails to glare at me.

“You’re scared of blood. ”

Death in a sundress doesn’t like blood—the irony.

“No,” she argues defiantly.

But the way her expression falls tells me I hit the nail on the head.

“Come on. Let’s sit down.” I coax her down to the sandy cement floor, holding her by her elbows.

“Do you know how disgusting these floors are?”

“You came in here first,” I say, then decide to comfort her. “Harry hosed them out and cleaned them this morning.”

“Still.”

“Knees up and put your head down.” I ignore her and help her get into a position to help with her lightheadedness. “One second,” I add before grabbing wads of toilet paper from a stall and returning to her, pressing the tissue to the cut on the top of her head.

It’s probably only an inch and only deep enough to need a stitch or two, but head injuries bleed enough to make even the most reasonable person believe their head is going to fall off. Her bloody hands are shaking, and I know she needs some sugar to not pass out.

I pull out a butterscotch candy from my pocket and hand it to her. “Here.”

She peers at it, briefly tilting her head up from her knees. “Where did that come from?”

“My pocket.”

“Are you an eighty-seven-year-old man?”

A warm bloom of affection I wasn’t expecting covers my chest. “Yes.”

She laughs a little. It’s breathy, warm, and reminds me of velvet on soft skin. I clear my throat with the thought sifting through the animosity in my brain.

“Just eat it so you don’t pass out,” I say shortly.

“Why are you being nice to me? Wouldn’t you prefer I bleed out in the bathroom?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t want Harry to have to clean up the mess. I’d much rather get your blood sugar levels back up and send you out into the ocean to drown.”

She chuckles. “You are lovely.”

Her voice is thick with sarcasm, and I can smell the sweetness of candy on her breath.

I hate it.

My jaw tightens. “You might need stitches.”

“No, I’m fine. It will stop bleeding, just apply more pressure.”

She reaches up to push against my hand. I ignore exactly how it makes me feel.

I ignore that it reminds me of the first night I met her and watched the pool stick slide between her fingers and the way she laced her fingers with mine and pulled me closer to kiss me.

The memory of that kiss and all the ways I held back that night create this pressure of want deep inside me.

I ignore all of it and remember that this woman is fucking crazy and has somehow swindled fifty grand from my dead mother.

Even still, my mom raised me to be the bigger person.

“I’m going to call Eli to bring the first aid kit.” I pull my phone out of my pocket to make a call while keeping a hand on her head. My hand is covered with her hand.

Fuck. Blood might be her kryptonite, but her touch may as well be mine.

The phone rings once before Eli answers, and I tell him the situation and to bring in a first aid kit.

“You don’t have to do this, Dominic. I’m fine.”

“Actually, I do. I’m not going to leave you bloodied in a public bathroom. That wouldn’t be a good look for me.”

She hums. “Ah, yes. Don’t want to tarnish that golden boy reputation you have going.”

My face twists. “Golden boy?”

That is not at all how I think this town sees me. Fuck up? Tortured? Angry? All of the above. But golden boy?

Yeah, this lady doesn’t know me at all.

As if reading my thoughts, she says, “You build birdhouses, Dominic. You volunteer with the animal shelter. I’m willing to bet your friend is going to waltz through that metal door with a first aid kit, and you are going to watch him bandage me up and feed me Tylenol and butterscotch candies.”

This makes a small breath of a laugh escape my nose.

“And I’ve had at least ten people tell me what a sweet boy you are and only one of those people was your mother.”

At the mention—and reminder—of my mother, my jaw tightens. I open my mouth to say something angry and unforgiving, but the door to the women’s bathroom swings open with a loud creak, and Eli comes in.

“How’s she looking, doc?” he teases.

“Unfortunately, she’ll live,” I answer, and Vada says, “Hey!”

Eli ignores me. “What happened?”

“There’s this scary, tatted bartender that hates me. He scared me when I was looking at birdhouses, and I hit my head on one,” she answers.

“Ouch,” Eli says, crouching next to her.

I pull my hand away as he goes in to examine the wound. I don’t know if I’m relieved or frustrated to no longer be touching her. I stand and take two steps back while my brain reconciles this visceral reaction my body is having to protect her… from a scratch.

“Are you a doctor?” she asks, looking up at Eli while he cleans the wound.

“Paramedic. I’m definitely not the doctor.” He glances at me, and I shoot him a glare.

She misses the interaction. “Do you think I need stitches?”

Eli thinks a moment. “No, but maybe superglue. Head gashes just bleed like it’s shark week.”

She tilts her head back, and a real laugh tumbles out of her.

A strike of affection warms inside me and it pisses me off.

“See, Dominic? All your dramatics for nothing,” she says as Eli continues to clean the wound.

“I wasn’t being dramatic. You were bleeding after hitting your head at my booth.” I cross my arms and tip back on my heels .

“Ah, yes. Your booth. I should probably sue.”

“That sounds like something an embezzler like yourself would do,” I counter.

“Financial exploiter. Please, Dominic. If you’re going to accuse me of something, at least let it be close to the definition.”

Eli’s mouth twitches like he’s about to smile. He clears his throat. “What do you think, Dunner? Superglue?”

I don’t even have to look at it. I know it needs glue. I step forward anyway and pretend to examine it and turn to Eli. “That’ll work.”

Eli applies more pressure to the wound so it stops bleeding enough to apply the glue. He nods at his first aid kit. “There’s some glue in there.”

“Glue?!” Vada shrieks, grabbing onto Eli’s wrist.

“Relax. It’s medical grade.” I crouch down and show her the tube.

“You do the honors?” Eli suggests.

I nod, washing my hands and putting on gloves.

“Why can’t you do it?” Her green eyes brighten in the light like sea glass in the sun as she looks up at Eli helplessly.

Eli grins down at her. “Don’t worry. He has the steadier hand.”

She doesn’t seem convinced. “He’s a bartender.”

“He’s just as trained as me. If not more?—”

“All right. Ready?” I cut Eli off, kneeling next to her.

She meets my eyes, and I swear the eye contact could undo me.

“Don’t mess up.” The plead falls out of her mouth with a soft exhale.

I ignore the twist of empathy in my gut. “You’ll live.”

Eli stands and discards the gauze and gloves while I apply the glue and hold the skin in place.

“Your hands are softer than I remember,” she whispers, eyes closed as she inhales deeply .

I breathe out a small laugh. “You’re delirious from the blood loss.”

“Don’t say blood.”

I gently blow on the cut to help dry the glue, and as I do, I watch her shoulders relax and her throat dip in her neck as she swallows.

Her tough exterior cracks as she takes slow, deliberate breaths against the cold cement floor.

“This wasn’t very sanitary,” she says, her voice lifting a bit.

“You’ll survive… Unfortunately.”

She opens her eyes to glare at me, and I stand, backing away from my nemesis. My beautiful, infuriating nemesis.

“Now, Eli cleaned up your hair pretty well, but try not to get it wet for twenty-four hours, and in five days, you’ll be good as new.”

“Thank you.” She opens her palms and examines the crusted blood on her hand. “I need to wash my hands.”

I hold out a hand to help her stand. She takes it with an embarrassed smile, mutters another thank you, and heads to the sink.

At the same time, the door bursts open, and Connor is standing there with Marylou.

“Oh, honey, we heard you two got into it,” Marylou says with an angry scowl and arms crossed over her navy floral shawl. “What is wrong with you, Dominic?”

I toss my hands up as Connor charges me, grabbing my shirt and slamming me against the cinder block wall. I stare down at him as he yells, “What the hell, Dunner? You don’t lay hands on a woman. Ever. I don’t care if she scratched you.”

Vada’s eyes widen, and she stares at the two of us through the mirror. She spins around.

“He didn’t hit me. And I certainly didn’t scratch him. How would that even—” she cuts herself off, the shock on her face waning as her mind realizes something. “Well, Dominic, if you’re going to lead a girl on, maybe stop telling lies about her so that she doesn’t embellish them for the masses.”

And just like that, any empathetic truce in the room vanishes. She crosses her arms and relaxes her shoulders. The posture she takes is confident and singed with anger.

“Connor, let him go. I stood too quickly. I hit my head. Dominic came in here to help. That’s it.”

Connor lets go, but his grimace doesn’t budge.

“Are you sure, honey? Lyla seemed pretty upset as she relayed the encounter,” Marylou says.

“I’m sure she did,” Vada says to Marylou, but she looks directly at me. “I’m going back to the cottage. If one of you could relay my thanks to Mrs. Nettles for the necklace again, that would be great.”

She wipes her wet hands on her dress and mutters a thank you before bowing an embarrassed head and escaping the restroom with minor wounds and a bruised reputation.

When the door slams shut, Marylou, Eli, and Connor all stare at me, waiting for an explanation.

I shrug. “What she said is true.”

“Why can’t you just leave her alone, Dunner?” Eli asks. “Stop fucking around. You aren’t in high school anymore. Grow up.”

“That’s not fair, Eli,” Marylou says with a soft expression. I can see her mind working as she hesitates over what to say.

“I’m going to walk her back. She doesn’t deserve to become a spectacle in a situation your mother created,” Connor says, always the wannabe hero.

I clench my jaw so hard that my jaw aches. “This isn’t my mother’s fault.”

“You’re right. It’s not. It’s yours,” Connor tosses over his shoulder before leaving.

I turn to Marylou and my best friend. “This isn’t that big of a deal.”

“No, it’s not, Dominic,” Marylou agrees softly.

I meant this particular situation with minor head injuries and misinformation coming from Lyla, but Marylou very clearly means the entire situation with Vada being in town. It’s infuriating that no one seems to get my point of view.

“So maybe you should just accept it and leave her be. She’s already a nervous wreck around you, and for no good reason. You’re all bark and no bite.”

Guilt punches me in the gut, just as frustration rises hot behind my ribs.

Why does no one see this from my point of view? I don’t want to see Vada hurt just as much as I don’t want her in this town at all.

When Marylou leaves, Eli socks my shoulder. “Come on, drama queen. You have some birdhouses to sell.”

We escape the bathroom and head toward the market area, but my vision is pulled in the direction of the beach beyond the bathroom. There, I see Connor walking with Vada, his arm draped around her shoulders, and the jolt of jealousy rattles through me like a warning bell.