Page 7 of Ink & Snow
I didn’t really believe in sparks or love at first sight, yet something about this, Amory looking up at me from the ground, pale, helpless, touched a spot deep inside of me. It wasn’t even a very horny spot. It just felt good, his eyes on me and only me.
“Uh.” He lifted his bleeding hand, and his eyes went wide.
“Leave that. Stay right where you are. I’m going down to my car. I have a first aid kit in there.”
“My sweater. It’s all bloody.”
I looked. It was. The thing also had ink stains on it though, something I only saw now that I was this close and looming.
“I’ll buy you a new one. Stay where you are and don’t fucking move.”
“I have a first aid kit in the shop. I think this needs stitches though.” He looked at his hand, lip twisting at the sight.
“We’ll see about that. Don’t move.”
“Okay. Can you hurry, please?”
I did, taking the steps two at a time. Out on the sidewalk, I nearly fell on my ass again but managed to stay upright. I got the first aid kit and made it back up to the apartment in what had to be record time.
“You doing okay?” I asked.
“No,” Amory said. “I ruined my sweater. I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t help it, I chuckled as I opened the kit and dug through the contents. “I think I should say that.” I opened a sterile wound dressing and started on wrapping his thumb to staunch the bleeding. “This isn’t the kind of treatment anyone should get for breaking and entering.”
He smiled up at me. “Sorry about that. Hey, by the way, you didn’t say what your name was. I think because you were lying on the kitchen floor and all that.”
He’d been mopping my floor and ignoring my flirting without knowing my name? Who did that? Then again, it was a normal thing to do in the early stages of a casual relationship, ignoring people’s names. Which I knew. Because I had done casual before I’d done Cecil. Why the idea of Amory not really caring about my name unsettled me just a fraction, I wasn’t sure.
“Right. You want to guess?” I asked to distract him. For a guy ramming a needle into people’s skin, he sure had an issue with blood it seemed. He was looking all right, just getting more and more upset about it by the second.
He smiled a little. “Are you a John? Or a Mike? We have both in town already, so we’d have to come up with a nickname for you.”
I snorted. “Calling me random, Amory?”
“No. Oh, maybe something fancy like Antonio?”
I rolled my eyes, lifting his free hand so he would hold the gauze in place while I found tape and scissors. “No. It’s Soyer. Soyer Bennet.”
He hummed, a corner of his mouth lifting. “Nice to meet you, Soyer Bennet.”
“Same. Thanks for making it such a memorable occasion.”
“I didn’t. One of your glasses broke, I think, and I found the shards.”
“Right. Do I call someone for you? To come pick you up? Or you could stay.”
The last came out very desperate-sounding, and I bit my tongue.
“Can you, uh, get my phone from my right back pocket? I’ll just call Ben and ask if he’ll come over.”
My eyes narrowed. “Who the fuck is Ben?”
“Dr. Ben,” he said. “He’s really nice.”
So I fumbled Amory’s phone out of his right cheek pocket, so very much not how I’d imagined me touching his butt for the first time would have gone.
Chapter Three
