Page 7 of Shade

Holly was behind the bar with the coffee pot. She looked at the blood all down Mya’s arm, then at me, and set the pot down.

“I’ll find her a clean shirt,” she said, and went to do it without asking one question. Preacher’s old lady has been around this club long enough to know when not to.

I walked Mya straight through the room and down the back hall to my room before any of them got ideas.

My room had a bed, a dresser, a chair and a bathroom about the size of a closet. I sat her on the edge of the bed and got the bigger first aid kit out from under the sink.

I numbed the arm first. She saw the needle and looked hard at the wall.

“Do you treat all your patients like this?” she asked.

“Like what?”

“Like you’d rather be doing literally anything else.”

“Hold still.”

She held still for about a minute.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said.

“Shade.”

“Is that your actual name?”

“It’s the one I answer to.”

She thought about that. “It suits you. You’ve been scowling at everything since you got off your bike.”

I cleaned the cut out and started stitching. The strap of that top kept slipping, and I had to keep my hand flat on her bare skin to hold her still. She was soft and warm under my palm, and there was a little freckle on the curve of her shoulder, right under my thumb. I wanted to put my mouth on it. I wanted to find out what sound she’d make if I did. I cursed myself under my breath for the effect this woman was having on me.

I kept my eyes on my work and my jaw shut, because both of those things were going to keep me out of trouble.

“Where’d you learn to do this?” she asked.

I pulled the next stitch through and tied it off.

She waited. I did another one.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “It’s fine. I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

I could feel her watching me the whole time. My face, my hands and back up again. I kept my face hard. It’s the only thing I’ve ever had that works on people.

It didn’t work on her for a second.

Twelve stitches. I taped a dressing over them and sat back. She looked down at her arm, then up at me, and for the first time since that plane came over my head she looked like a woman who might be okay.

“Thank you,” she said. “Really.”

I got up and put the kit away so I wouldn’t have to answer.

Then I went to the kitchen and came back with a sandwich, a bottle of water and two painkillers, and put them on the bed beside her.

“You probably need to eat.”

“Thank you.”

I sat in the chair in the corner until she’d eaten every bite of it.