CHAPTER SEVEN

Liana drew the drawstrings of her black hoodie closer about her throat, wondering whether she should have worn a coat. It was now late March and most of the snow was gone, but though the southern Ohio climate was slightly milder than New York, the nights could still be cold. She ventured down the dirt road that led downhill to the garage, as everybody called it, though it was closer to the size of a barn, one that Tryg and the rest of the Black Sparks used to work on bikes and cars during the day as a way to supplement their income. Behind it, there was even a small orchard and apple trees, and one hardy magnolia that must have drifted north from Kentucky and bravely stuck it out. A veritable feline playground, Liana thought as she flicked on the flashlight.

 

"Here kitty," she said, taking some tuna chunks out of the plastic bag in her pocket, shining the flashlight around the perimeter of the garage hopefully. She tried the side door and noticed a motion – a skittering in the corner, a rustle of a tail against the wall, crouching in the corner beneath strange, hulking shapes that could have been cars, motorcycles, or furniture. The cat paused in the headlights, one paw in the air, tail flicking gently, as if deciding whether to come closer to this unfamiliar face. Liana crouched down and held out the tuna. The cat crept closer. She was a furry tortoiseshell, her fur a bit matted and dirty, but otherwise healthy. Kirrily's feeding must have been regular.

 

She crept forward, close enough for the rough tongue to flick out. It only took a second before the cat was licking tuna off her fingers happily. Lulling her into security, Liana kept her free hand low against her body, moving it ever closer to the cat, hoping to grab her around the waist and make a grab for her--when from behind her came a crash. The cat yowled and skedaddled out of sight as fast as if a terrier were chasing it. Liana swore and fell backwards, tripping over the heap of junk behind her. Heart racing, Liana directed the flashlight over to the corner where she'd heard the noise. Not yellow eyes, but a pair of wide, golden-green ones blinked guiltily back at her.

 

A young man leaned over the industrial sink in the corner, his plaid shirt unbuttoned, clutching a wet sponge to his shoulder, as surprised as if one of Kizzy’s plastic unicorns had sprung to life-size.

 

"Nick?"

 

"She likes to hide under the couch," he offered with a shrug and a sheepish smile, as if he could redirect her attention off him.

 

Even in the dim light of the garage, it was easy to see how he'd grown since she’d last seen him. He was taller, his shoulders had grown broader, his waist narrower, his body tauter and more muscular, more perfectly and classically proportioned – everything that happens when a boy grows into a man. And, yet, his thick, coppery, shoulder-length hair was the same, and his blue-green eyes and long-eyelashes--well, it was too dim to see everything, but her memory was no slouch, and her imagination could fill in the rest.

 

She stepped backwards tripping over her tongue. "I--I was looking for the cat," she stammered awkwardly, unable to think of anything better. "Holy--" Now she could see why Nick had tried to shrink away, out of the light. Blood matted his bangs to his forehead, smeared across his shoulder, and ran down the drain of the sink. The garage looked like the scene of an open-heart surgery gone horribly. That's all it took for her compassionate instincts to kick in. "Are you okay? What the hell happened to you?"

 

Nick turned away from her, both hands on the edge of the sink, knuckles flexing, drawing in a sharp breath. He was in pain, she realized, even if he'd never admit it. "I'm fine."

 

"Jesus Christ, Nick, you are not fine. You're covered in blood. Let me see." She took a step closer, without pausing to consider what he’d think.

 

"It's M.C. stuff, okay?” he insisted, turning away again. “It's got nothing to do with you."

 

"Let me see.”

 

"Don't--” He held up a hand, and she bit her lip, overcome with what she'd been about to do on instinct--touch him, for the first time in six years. Touch something that had once been forbidden, and now could only lead to a different, and worse, kind of trouble.

 

"You got shot, didn't you?" He clenched his jaw; his exquisite cheekbones suddenly more prominent, his eyes downcast. She felt a fluttering in her stomach. She wished she could tell it to shut up. "What were you thinking?"

 

"I was thinking I was doing my job." He sounded young, petulant.

 

"Such as it is," she muttered. "You know, there are jobs where you don't regularly risk having your insides spilled all over the sidewalk on a regular basis?" She shone her light around the garage for anything resembling a first aid kit--there had to be one; industrial accidents weren’t uncommon. She spied one over on the wall near a high cupboard, though she had to leap over a few stray motorcycle parts to get to it, sending more junk crashing down. "You should be in a hospital."

 

"Our friends at Bethesda North don't look too kindly at this," he said, pointing to the rider on the bottom of his jacket. "Chances are the squad car will get there before the ambulance does."

 

"Then, at least, you have to tell Kirrily. She can get you--"

 

"No. Don't tell Kirrily. She's such a mom; she'll put me in bed and make me live on chicken soup for a week. Besides, I'm fine. She'd just worry."

 

"Tryg, then."

 

He actually laughed at that. "Are you insane? I like all four of my limbs, thank you very much.”

 

"Then something did happen. Something you don’t want him to know about.

 

“He will know about it soon,” said Nick with a sigh. “I’d just prefer to delay the inevitable.”

 

“For God's sake, why is it so damn dark in here?"

 

"Here," said Nick, reaching his long arm up over his head, pulling on a light bulb chain hanging down.

 

Liana barely had time to brace herself before the garage was flooded with light. She whipped open the first aid kid, which was basically empty except for a wad of gauze and some ibuprofen. “Sometimes I don’t believe you people.” She made an exasperated noise as she made her way back to Nick, pointing to a dingy couch in the corner next to a Hostess ice-cream refrigerator containing a six-pack of PBR. “Give me that sponge.” She grabbed for it.

 

"No, I--"

 

"Nicholas Stone," Liana hissed, grabbing his arm. "Sit the fuck down."

 

His golden-green eyes flashed in surprise at her sudden outburst, but he obeyed, almost automatically. He threw himself down on the couch with a sigh, blowing a stray strand of copper hair off his face.

 

"So who did this? Is there some kind of gang war going on?"

 

He paused. "Not a war."

 

"Well then what?"

 

"Look, I've already said too much," he said, unable to disguise how his fingers drifted up to the side of his neck.

 

She re-wet the sponge, wincing as she dabbed at the wound; she could see where the bullet went in, and came out and could feel him respire beneath her touch; his chest moved up and down. His heart beat, though she tried not to think about that, not to think about how close she was to the young man she’d once craved being close to, the one she’d thought she’d never be close to again. He was trying to be a good patient, she realized.

 

She felt him jerk. “Does this hurt?” she asked.

 

He didn’t answer, just looked away, his jaw tight. Of course he wouldn’t admit it. She wasn't exactly trained in First Aid, except for a brief class she'd had to take in ninth grade, practicing CPR on a rubber dummy that every Prudence High School student for the past quarter-decade had already had their mouths on. Luckily, Nick didn't need CPR.

 

She blushed at the image that briefly flashed in her head. Those full lips with their petulant pout, the same one he'd had as a teenager, the one she’d watched for from out her bedroom window as she tried to do her homework. Her stepdad had worked Nick like a dog in the garden pulling weeds, digging fence holes or planting flowers. It's good for him, Noel had said, and she didn't dare object. The boy's never known an honest day's work in his life.

 

"That shirt's going to have to come off," she said.

 

She met his eyes, but he quickly looked down at his injury, then up again, mouth parted slightly, as if what she’d said had surprised him. She wondered if he’d been staring at her while she’d been looking at his wound. She wondered if there was going to be standoff. She stayed absolutely still, and he obeyed, but there was a look of defiance in his eyes as he silently reached up to the collar of his t-shirt, peeling it off and tossing it next to him on the couch.

 

She forced herself not to stare at the smooth rock-hard chest beneath the wounds, its slight curve where his lower half rested against the wall, or draw in a sharp breath at the Black Sparks M.C. tattoo that curved across half his chest, its ink lines sharp and graceful. This was no half-assed prison tattoo, she thought, oddly grateful for that. Somebody had put a lot care into it. Back when they'd first met, he'd had only one tattoo, on his inner arm, memorializing his dead mother with a Celtic cross. At the time, she'd never dated or even touched a boy with a tattoo. It almost frightened her. Tattoos represented a different world, a world her mother had warned her against, one of violence and pain and blood – her father’s world.

 

But on Nick, they were beautiful. They hugged the curves of his body, cradling his rippling muscles, drawing attention. Attention she didn't need to be paying. She saw him swallow, and look down, then up; she knew he was following her gaze as it brushed across his body, and suddenly, there was a flash on his face of that old cockiness, that of the boy who knew full well how attractive he was, and hadn't yet learned that he had to be careful who looked. She remembered how he'd look up from his work to smirk up at her window, as if he'd known, somehow, that she was up there, watching him. Raking his hands through his damp, coppery-brown bangs, as thick and lush as they were now, just brushing his shoulders.

 

"You--you're a little more...decorated than the last time I saw you," she said, immediately regretting it, since it would draw attention to the fact that she’d been looking.

 

"I'm thinking of getting another one," he said casually, his hand again drifting up to the wound.

 

"Don't touch," she scolded, and he snatched it away obediently, like a kid with his hand on the hot stove. It would have been funny if the situation weren't so awkward. "Where?" she asked, dabbing at the wound, biting her tongue.

 

"I haven't decided yet." It was as if he was inviting her to survey, to examine which part would be best.

 

She didn't dare take the bait. Instead, she observed how more blood streaked across his body, leaking down from the crusted-over wound on his shoulder, whose drops of blood had come down like rain. Reaching over with the cloth, she bent down and closed her eyes, trying to put an unsexy image in her head--subway rats, downtrodden passengers at the Port Authority bus terminal, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie--something, anything that did not include a shirtless Nicholas Stone. She'd had to do this constantly during the year they’d lived together, but much as she'd tried, knowing what the consequences would be, it hadn't worked then and she was terrified it wasn't going to work now.

 

There was one other mark on him that wasn't new--the scar on his neck. Noel had done that, choking the boy in one of his whiskey-fueled rages, the ones he was an expert at hiding from the townspeople to whom he was so respected. The ones he took out on his foster children, ones like Nick who didn't bow and scrape and obey and act grateful that he'd deigned to take them in – the children who tried to fight back, but couldn’t ever win, because nobody would believe them. At first, Liana hadn't been able to figure out why he seemed to hate the boy so much. When she grew closer to Nick, the answers started to crystallize. But by then it was too late.

 

"Jesus Christ, this looks awful, Nick. Has this even been cleaned? You're lucky you're not dead of an infection," she said, trying to force the authority in her voice she didn't feel. "I can't believe you thought you could get away with leaving this untreated." She sounded like a nagging scold, but she figured it was better than nothing. Maybe she could succeed in keeping this interaction strictly friendly.

 

"Why did you come back?" he asked as she reached for a wad of gauze. Startled, she watched helplessly as it rolled out of her hand, leaving a trail along the none-too-clean garage floor. She was probably breaking every rule in the first aid book, but Nick needed help. Only an ogre could walk away from him in the state he was in. She glanced over at him, hoping she’d heard wrong. But he was looking at her expectantly. He did not drop his gaze.

 

She dropped her head. “It was time.” She hoped he was getting the unspoken message: Please, please don’t ask more. “This is going to have to be changed tomorrow,” she said as she wrapped the wound tighter, wondering how she was going to cut off the excess. She finally ripped it with her teeth, hoping Nick wouldn’t laugh. “You really shouldn’t go anywhere until then.”

 

"It’s not the first time I’ve slept off a bullet wound in here.” He shrugged.

 

"You--you live here?" She asked in surprise, glancing around the decidedly un-homey environment of the garage.

 

"Upstairs." He pointed.

 

"Kirrily didn't mention that."

 

“Probably because she heard what happened the last time you and I got under the same roof.”

 

Liana froze; all sensual thoughts involving the man reclined in front of her flew out of her head. They were pointless. Nicholas no longer wanted her; that was clear. He didn't even want to be around her, and she was sure he would have avoided it if he could have; it was pure bad luck that he happened to live above her uncle's garage. That cockiness, that shameless flirtation, that supreme knowledge that she found him irresistible, that had thrilled her so much back then--she'd killed all of that. She'd broken it, and had nearly broken him. He didn't smirk at her now; his golden-green eyes that had once blinked curiously up at her, that only desired to know her, to puzzle her out, to unwrap her, were now only hard steel. Her one action had destroyed it, ensured she could never have it again. She deserved that consequence. In fact, she didn't deserve to ever see him again; when she'd left Prudence, she hadn't expected she would. Now, only some twisted facet of fate had brought him back into her life.

 

"And you'd be surprised how many guys had shivs in Circleville."

 

She froze, before turning and rushing out of the room.