Page 42 of Scream For Me
Another string loosens.
But that doesn’t explain the way he watches me. Or the way his voice drops when he says my name. Or that fucking electricity between us.
I shove the thought away as I focus on threading the new string through the bridge.
Maybe I imagined it all. Maybe I’m so damn starved for attention that my brain is inventing things that aren’t there. Do I know anything anymore? The thought makes my stomach knot.
Snap.
“Shit!” I hiss, clutching my hand to my chest.
In my obsessive thought bubble, I’d tightened the string too much. It whips out and slashes me across the hand. I frantically look around for a tissue or anything to stop the bleeding. But of course, someone has cleaned the place, so there is nothing fucking here.
I press my hand closer to my chest. There’s not a lot of blood, but it makes my head swirl. I place my uninjured hand against the wall, steadying myself. When I was younger, I was fine with blood. I was constantly getting scrapes and scuffs, and the blood never bothered me. But not so much now, as an adult. I glance at my hand and see a small trail of blood working its way down my wrist. The sight ignites something in me that I quickly push back down.
Bathroom.
I swing the door open, and immediately slam into something solid.
No, not something.Someone.
Elias.
My entire body jolts as if I’d just walked into a brick wall. His hands grip my upper arms to steady me before I stumble backward. His brows are knitted together, and he tilts his head to the side, his ponytail falling against his shoulder. His eyes scan my face, then drop to the hand clutched against my chest.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice low.
“I cut myself restringing my guitar,” I rush, the words spilling out of me. “I was having coffee this morning, and a song came into my head. I went to write it down but I couldn’t find my songbook, and then I remembered I left it here, so I came back, I saw you talking to a woman and didn’t want to disturb you—”
“Come,” he says, cutting my ramble short. He takes my hand as if it’s an injured dove and leads me back towards the bar, his other hand lightly hovering over the small of my back.
He gestures for me to sit at the nearest booth, and I obey. He walks behind the bar and returns with a large, red box. A first-aid kit. He pulls up a stool and sits between my knees, gently placing my hand in his lap. The intimacy of this scene threatens to steal my breath again.
Stop it, Kat. He’s with someone.
He pours liquid onto a cotton ball, and I hiss as he swipes it across the gash, the sting shooting straight up my arm.
“Sorry,” he says, gently patting the liquid into the wound.
The way he’s looking at my hand would make it seem like I’ve shown up with a mortal wound instead of a stupid cut from a guitar string. His fingers move with surprising care as he cleans the small amount of blood away. I try not to stare at him, but it doesn’t work. Up close, I take in all the small details of his face—the faint scar running through one eyebrow, the concentration in his eyes as he works to clean me up. He looks focused.
“You should really be more careful, Kat.”
A warm heat begins in my belly at the way he says my name.
“Sorry,” I reply, not knowing what else to say.
“Sorry?” he repeats, his mouth twitching at the corners like he’s fighting a smile. “You’re apologizing for being hurt?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “I guess I am.”
He takes my wrist in his hands and begins cleaning the blood that trailed down there, but his fingers stop. The location of where he stopped makes my stomach drop, and my body go rigid.
Slowly, almost reverently, his thumb traces one of the many faint, white lines scattered across my forearm. He starts with the small ones, higher up my wrist, before working his way down to the thicker purple ones around the joint. He doesn’t press hard, like he’s afraid of hurting me.
“What happened?” he asks.
I try to pull my sleeve down, but he holds my wrist firmly before I can cover it. How did I not anticipate this? My scars have faded so much over the last year that I sometimes convince myself they’re gone. But under bright lights, up close—there’s no denying they’re still there. I try desperately to wiggle out of his hold, but he tightens his grip.
