Play It Safe(14)

My eyes went to his cut then I went back to cleaning his face while answering, “Short but deep. You should get stitches.”

“No stitches,” he murmured and I looked to him but I braced myself beforehand.

Nope. Bracing myself didn’t work so I tried to look at him while not so I ended up mostly looking at his nose.

“No stitches?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“It’s deep.”

“It’ll heal.”

“You’ll have a scar.”

“Yeah, but it’ll heal.”

I looked back to his eyes. “Gray, really, you should have it seen to. If you don’t get stitches you should have plasters and it should be disinfected.”

“You got a first aid kit?”

I did but it was in Casey’s car.

“It’s in my brother’s car.”

“So he’s your brother.”

Darn!

This was why you didn’t connect. This was why you played it safe. You played with fire; you were going to get burned.

But he’d bled for me so what could I do?

“Yeah, Casey. He’s my brother,” I whispered.

Gray grinned at me, with dimple and that made it worth it.

I moved away from him to the bathroom.

“When’s he gonna be back?” Gray asked my back and I turned to him.

“Sorry?”

“Your brother. When’s he due back?”

I couldn’t tell him this.

I told him this.

“Late, very late and that’s the earliest. Probably not until morning.”

Gray’s face changed and it wasn’t a good change. He looked mildly angry.

“Not until morning?”

“He…uh…well, he’s busy doing something so no, not until very late or morning.”

That was when Gray stood and announced, “You’re comin’ home with me.”

My body froze and I stared at him.

Then I forced my mouth to whisper, “Sorry?”

“You’re comin’ home with me.”

“I –”

He interrupted me. “First, I got a first aid kit. You can disinfect and put shit on the cut. Second, I got a grandma who lives with me, she’s not ancient, she’s not young but she could be three hundred years old and still she’d have the hearing of a German Shepherd. She goes to church every Sunday and she’d lose her mind if I brought a girl home with any intent other than to make her dinner or study the Bible.”

I couldn’t help it. That was so funny, it made my mouth twitch.

Gray watched my mouth move and flat out smiled.

Then he started speaking again.

“And last, got an extra bed. Manny takes pride in his place,” his arm moved, indicating the space around us that was clean and to my practiced eye I knew it had been renovated sometime in the last five years and although the cable was basic and I wouldn’t want to live the rest of my life there, it was pretty nice for what it was and a whole lot nicer than many places I’d laid my head, “but I bet the bed at my house is more comfortable and I can guarantee a thousand other people haven’t slept in it. So, what I’m sayin’ is, you’re safe, you’ll be comfortable and last, and most important, you’re safe.”

I read him and my eyes locked to his.

“You think they’ll come back,” I said quietly.

“No tellin’. Jim, Ted and Pete, no way. ‘Specially Pete. Buddy is an ass**le and he was pissed. You were immune to his charms then you bested him then he got bested by me. That shit doesn’t lay well with him so…” he trailed off and shrugged.

This wasn’t good.

Another trickle of blood slid down his face. It wasn’t much but the cut was still bleeding.

That wasn’t good either.

Darn it all to heck.

I closed my eyes.

“Ivey, swear to God, you’ll be safe with me.” I heard him say softly.

I opened my eyes mostly because him talking soft was nice and with my eyes closed it seemed a heck of a lot nicer.

“Get what you need and write your brother a note. I’ll bring you back in the morning.”

I wanted to bite my lip.

I didn’t.

I went to the bathroom, did my best to rinse his blood from the washcloth I had, I wet another one then took it out to him.

Then, stopping as far away as I could, I held it to him and said quietly, “It’s still bleeding. Maybe I should drive.”

He took the cloth from me but he did it grinning.

Hells bells.

* * * * *

“Go on through to the kitchen, I’ll take this upstairs and get the first aid kit,” Gray ordered on a mutter, his fingers flipping a light switch which illuminated the hall.

He’d already illuminated the entryway.

At the end of the hall was a kitchen.

He turned and went to the foot of the stairs and jogged up, carrying my bag.

I stood in the hall and allowed myself to bite my lip.

He didn’t live in town.

He lived out of town and not close to anyone. I couldn’t tell in the dark if it was a ranch or an orchard. There were a lot of shadowy trees close to his house. There were also outbuildings and some fenced but empty pens. One of the outbuildings was a barn.