Page 15 of Now or Never

She looked again, and a glob of blood pulsed out of his leg.

Her tongue darted out in an involuntary gag.

“There’s so much blood!” Ben yelled, squatting down on the other side of Adam. “It’s coming out of your leg like . . .” He started making gurgling noises in his throat.

“Ben,” Chelsea said, shaking her head.

Adam groaned and sat up, looked down at the carnage, and pulled a face.

“Maybe it looks worse than it is?” Chelsea asked.

Adam looked up and met her eyes. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and she noticed a faded scar on the side ofhis lip pulling his mouth tight. “I guess that would be the gallant thing to say.”

Chelsea snorted. “Sorry, you don’t exactly strike me as the gallant type.”

“No?” he asked, groaning as he stood, then shifted his weight to his good leg. “What type do I strike you as?”

Chelsea wouldn’t dare look back at his face. He was standing too close. She was feeling uncomfortable. She turned and bent, gathering up the papers that had escaped a white binder he’d been holding. When she stood, she forced a smile and shoved the binder at him. “The forgiving type?” she asked, finally meeting his eyes.

She gave Ben a little elbow behind her, and he took the hint. “I’m sorry,” he said from behind her leg.

Adam’s face softened. “It’s all right. Just bad timing.”

The awkwardness of their first meeting at the baseball diamonds settled on her like a wet blanket as the silence between them stretched. She looked around, wondering what the hell he was doing there.

Luckily, Ben broke the tension by squatting down to get another look at the blood. “You need a bandage,” he said.

Now that Adam was standing, the blood was working its way down the front of his shin in a stream through his leg hair, turning his white sock red.

Chelsea rubbed her forehead. The last thing she wanted to do was invite Adam into her house, but she couldn’t very well leave the guy dripping blood everywhere. Besides, he was Ethan’s best friend, so he couldn’t bethatbad.

Right?

“Come on,” she said, waving toward the door. “I’ll get you a bandage, and you can tell me why you’re skulking around my property.”

Adam smirked. “Skulking?” he asked as he fell in step with her.

“Mm-hmm . . .” Chelsea nodded. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

four

Adam followed Chelsea into her creepy old house and tried to pretend that he was gallant. But with her ass swaying in front of him and the dirty handprint on the back pocket of her worn jeans making it impossible to look away, he was struggling.

Think of the blood.

Who the fuck was he kidding? A tornado ripping through the place couldn’t distract him from that ass. And those hips. And those lips.

“Are you going to die?” Ben’s voice broke through his thoughts.

Adam’s step faltered as he looked down at Chelsea’s kid. He looked just like her: blond hair sticking out from under his helmet and round aqua eyes piercing Adam’s retinas and examining his brain.

“Uh,” he said, searching for words. It was a question he asked himself daily yet never had a firm answer on. He made a show of glancing at the watch on his wrist. “It’s already four, so probably not today,” he said.

Chelsea laughed as she walked through the entryway toward the back of the house, oblivious to his internal strife. “Oh, Ben. People don’t die from a cut on their leg,” she said, then threw a bright smile over her shoulder at him that had his heart ceasing. “They die from medical malpractice. Sit. I’ll get the alcohol.”

Adam couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up out of his throat as he sank down into the chair. He looked for a place to put his binder, but the table was covered with drawings, crafts, a Spider-Man backpack, and all other manner of kid stuff. He settled for holding it on his lap.

“We don’t have any more of the bandages where Spider-Man hangs upside down,” Ben said in a solemn voice, as if delivering news of a terminal illness. “Mama says they’re all the same, but she’s wrong.”

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