Kristen Ashley - Play It Safe

The cop looked at Gray and me and when he did, his eyes again dropped to our hands, mine still held in Gray’s.

Then he looked to Gray and grinned. “Bud would probably stop bein’ such a jackass if you didn’t scoop up all the pretty ones.”

I liked that and I didn’t. I liked it because it was a compliment. I didn’t because that meant Gray had a lot of girlfriends and even though this was by no means a surprise and it made no never mind to me, I didn’t like knowing it.

“Wrong way around, Len. He wasn’t such a jackass, he might get a shot,” Gray returned.

This was true.

Len agreed with me and I knew this because he kept grinning and also nodding. Then his eyes flicked up to Gray’s forehead before going back to his.

“I got any shot you’ll go to the clinic and get that stitched?”

“I’ll be all right,” Gray answered.

That meant no.

Len looked back down at our hands then to me then to Gray, all quickly.

Then his grin turned to a smile but he did this right before he looked to his boots and said, “’Spect so.” He looked back to me. “You sure you’ll be all right, miss?”

I nodded. “I’m just fine. Thank you for intervening.”

“Like I said. My job,” he replied, jerked up his chin then moved toward his cruiser.

Gray’s hand around mine squeezed and I looked to him to see him looking down at me.

“No lie, you all right?” he asked.

And right then, without me even trying to stop it, I did something stupid. Something unsafe. Something I’d never done and something I never expected I’d do.

I answered, “I will be, you let me see to that cut.”

And that was when I got it, probably what I was looking for, definitely what I wanted.

He smiled at me and I saw his dimple.

“You think, you’re cleanin’ blood off my face and all, you might give me your name?”

That was Gray, sitting on the end of my bed in the hotel room as I stood over him doing exactly what he said, cleaning blood off his face.

Blood he shed for me.

Hells bells.

My eyes went from the short but deep and gaping cut to his.

He was close, really close. I’d turned on most the lights in the room so I could see what I was doing and I saw that his eyelashes weren’t russet. They were dark brown.

The tips were russet.

Oh my.

“Dollface?” he called and I blinked as my body started.

I needed to pull myself together.

“Ivey,” I muttered, looking back at the cut.

“Ivey,” he muttered back and I could swear, him saying my name gave me goosebumps.

“Yeah,” I whispered then ran the damp cloth down his face, wiping off the blood.

“What we got?” he asked and my eyes flicked to his but I’d learned.

Don’t look long. Don’t get captivated.

I looked back to the blood, kept gently wiping and asked back, “What we got?”

“The cut,” he explained. “How bad is it?”

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 asshole 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.

But it was his house I liked.

It was old. It wasn’t a ranch house, it was a farmhouse. Not big. Compact. Two stories. From what I could tell white outside but the woodwork was painted something else. A rectangular porch out front with a porch swing, the family room jutting out so the porch only had two open sides.

Stained glass in the door.

I didn’t have to peruse the rest of the house, the entryway said it all.

People lived here, the same people for generations. When I say that I mean the same family. The furniture was old and pretty. The pictures on the wall faded and pretty. The décor the same. This house had been lived in, maybe stuff had been added but nothing had been taken away. Still, instead of full and suffocating, it seemed warm and welcoming.

I sucked in breath and moved down the hall to the shadowed kitchen. Feeling around the opened, doorless doorway, I found the switch and the kitchen was bathed in light.

I closed my eyes but I still saw it.

No renovation, not for years. This house might have been built before modern appliances but it was modernized shortly after and left to be.

I opened my eyes.

Cupboards painted bright red. Little white ceramic knobs to open them looking like polka dots in that sea of bright. Soffits papered in wallpaper that had a white background, green vines and leaves, white and yellow flowers and big fat strawberries. Cream fridge, the old kind with the bulging front, huge handles and curved edges. Big, old gas burner stove. Someone had cut out some cupboards to insert a cream fronted dishwasher next to the sink. Butcher block countertops that had seen so much use they didn’t have grooves, they had waves and their edges were rounded. A big, beat up farm table in the middle of the room with six chairs around it, only three matching, all of their seats sporting big, red poofy cushions tied to their backs. A huge bowl filled with apples, oranges and bananas in the middle. The countertops covered with appliances and crocks holding utensils. A backdoor that led now to darkness but its window was covered in wispy white curtains held back with red sashes. A huge window over the double-bowled, cream ceramic sink with the same wispy white, red-sashed curtains hanging. Another window at the side under which there was a low, wood-framed cabinet, its doors inlaid with punched tin, its top holding a vase of slightly wilting flowers, some greeting cards turned on their sides and a bowl full of keys, change and other life detritus.