Page 18 of Strelitzias in Spring

“No,” a small voice responds, barely a whisper, and I have to strain to hear it. I laugh at her denial.

“Yes, Serena. Celeste called me. It’s Wolf. Open up for me.”

“Everything’s fine. Sorry to worry you. I’m going to go home now.”

“You’ll need to leave the bathroom for that to happen. Are you planning on coming out, or are you looking for an exit plan through a window?”

I hear mumbled words that sound suspiciously like, “Parasitic, infuriating, disgusting men.” I take it as an insult to the fuckface who hurt her and not me, who’s an innocent guy just trying to help. So what if I terrify a few college students in the process? They deserve it for the goddamn whipped cream.

Reaching for the door handle and pushing down, I’m surprised to find the door unlocked and the ease with which it opens.

Scowling, I look down at the knob. “Has this been unlocked the entire time?”

“Yes. It’s not my fault Meg didn’t think to try opening the door. If her deductive reasoning skills aren’t available, I’m not sure how much help she’d be to me, anyway.”

I look in front of me and see Serena huddled in the corner of the bathroom, her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. She’s a small woman, and in this position, she looks like a collapsed marionette doll.

“Deductive reasoning? Don’t you mean investigative? For Christ’s sake, I would have come anyway because Celeste asked me to make sure you were okay, but don’t you think Corset Girl would have wanted to be in here with you? She was a mess outside this door.” I shake my head, disappointment and annoyance coursing through my veins.

“‘Corset Girl?’ That’s a new one. And yes, deductive reasoning. As in, all doors have handles. You use the handle to open the door. Therefore, I should try to open the door before I call Celeste. And I didn’t ask you to come, Wolf. I don’t need your help, anyway.”

“Yeah, you seem pretty fucking capable sitting in the fetal position on a bathroom floor that has more piss and jizz than I even want to think about.” Her face transforms from a scowl to a disgusted expression, and she quickly stands up, shaking her hands out at her side as though that will remove the germs and bacteria covering her body. It won’t; she’ll need Bactine or Listerine to get the grime off.

She’ll probably need to burn those clothes, too.

I take her in as she stands, and I can’t hide my surprise over her appearance. The clothes—or lack of them—don’t bother me, especially because I’m used to half-naked men and scantily clad women in the MMA world and exposed bodies when I tattoo. No, I’m shocked because she is covered in chocolate syrup and red marks that are sure to turn into bruises. My eyes settle on the mark on her jaw, a nasty red spot that takes up a majority of the lower right half of her face. Blood trickles down her arms from unseen gashes, and I can see marks on her forearm that look suspiciously like a hand.

A hand that gripped a little too tightly.

“What, don’t I look okay?” Serena asks, an inflection in her tone that lets me know she’s joking about the blood and bruises on her body.

“No, you don’t look okay, goddammit,” my voice vibrates with anger. “Who the fuck did this to you?”

I watch closely as Serena sucks in a long breath, like a smoker taking a drag from a cigarette. Her shoulders bunch, and for a minute, it’s like she’s holding the weight of the world in her chest. Her slow exhale is accompanied by a shake of her dirty hair and a humorless laugh. She walks to the vanity, looking in the mirror before turning and bracing her hip against the counter. “Most of this is an accident or looks worse than it is. I was trying to avoid the chocolate sauce tyrants and walked into an elbow in the process. The hit sent me back, and I skidded my elbows.” She twists her arms, showing off the cuts that decorate her skin. “Right now, these don’t hurt too bad. Probably because I still have the vestiges of rage and adrenaline in my system. I’ll probably want to hide in a hole tomorrow, though.” She pauses, tilting her head as though considering her words. “You know, I want to crawl into a hole now. So, I’ll want to fade into obscurity tomorrow.” She turns her body, giving me her side profile as she turns on the faucet and places her hands beneath the stream of water.

I grunt at her explanation, not missing that she didn’t elaborate on the very obvious handprint on her arm. “What happened to your arm, Serena?” She waves me off as though it’s not important.

Not fucking happening.

“Serena, I’ll give you three seconds to tell me who laid their hands on you so hard that I see the beginnings of a five-finger bruise on your skin.” I cross my arms, leaning back against the door, and silently count to three. When she remains quiet, I nod. “Fine, then you won’t mind if I tear this party apart until I find the limp-dicked weasel who put his hands on a woman.” I uncross my arms and clench my fists, ready to throw a punch or two if it means teaching these idiots to keep their hands to themselves.

Hypocritical? Maybe. But they deserve the lesson.

I move to turn around, but Serena’s frantic voice reaches me before I do. “No, just don’t kill anyone. Then I’ll have death on my conscience, in addition to being an apparent homewrecker and friendship betrayer, and I can’t carry the entire load, okay? So just calm down and maybe unclench your fists because if I have one more freak-out and end up rocking on this floor with semen and urine, I’ll probably need to throw my entire body into a Lysol bath. I don’t think I’ll survive that, so just, no.” She takes a breath, the first one since her rambling began. “Dylan, my best friend—no, former best friend—did it. He grabbed me from behind, and I thought it was Jack, the guy who elbowed me in the face.”

Serena pauses to shake her head, the dried chocolate on her neck flaking off from the movement. “When I tried to get him off me, he gripped me harder, and I couldn’t move. I’m not even sure how, but I was finally able to break his hold and slap him. He grabbed my arm after that, and that’s where this came from.” She motions to her forearm and the marks that seem to get brighter the more I stare.

With her back to me, I’m able to see the lacerations on her elbows and can make out flakes of dirt embedded in her skin. “You need to clean those cuts and disinfect them before you get an infection.” I glance from her arms up to her face.

Her eyes meet mine in the mirror, and I realize for the first time how closely we’re standing. Somewhere during her explanation and my inspection, I drifted from the door to directly behind her, less than a footstep away. I watch her reflection in the mirror as her eyes go wider and her mouth pops open, like a blow-up doll, before she sucks her lower lip between her teeth. My eyes catch on the movement, and fuck if I can look away from her delicate nibbling.

My chest aches with the realization that this girl is hurt, not just surface level, but to the deepest caverns of her soul. I never went to college, but my fourteen dipshit cousins did, and Celeste, and I know that hiding in a bathroom in the middle of a party is a defense mechanism.

Despite the sugar coating her skin and the bruises that shouldn’t be there, she looks striking, like a siren hidden below the depths of the ocean. I take in the rest of her, the parts camouflaged by the mess, and notice that her hair is shorter than the last time I saw her and blonder. I replay the kiss in my mind, if it can even be called one, and I can’t help but wonder how it would feel to have her lips on me now—would she taste like the cinnamon and vanilla perfume I smelled when I tattooed her, or will the chocolate be an overwhelming flavor on her skin?

“Wolf,” she breathes, and that’s all it takes to break the spell I fell under. Stepping back, I clench my eyes shut and shake the remnants of insanity out of my head.

“We’re leaving now. Do you need to get your shit, or do you have everything?”

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