Page 25 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

My gaze lingers on them long enough to see him hold her wrists to help her stand before wrapping her up in his arms. Liza begins to cry openly against his chest, and I close the door.

Once upon a time, I saw myself doing that sort of thing for her, but I wasn’t enough for her. And I’ll be damned if I ever see myself being that sort of thing for anyone else.

Stepping away from the office, I head down the hall toward the front of the house just in time to see Scarlett standing there with Jimmy, Luke, and Frankie, who are gathered around her with an air of concern.

“It’s fine, it’s nothing,” she’s saying, head downturned. “It’s really okay. We can get started.”

“You sure?” Frankie asks, placing her hand on Scarlett’s shoulder. “That looks painful.”

“I’m really fine, I promise,” Scarlett insists.

I stop about two arms’ length from them. “Scarlett? Something wrong?”

She lifts her head slightly, putting on display a couple of angry, inflamed, red claw marks that stretch from her cheek bone to the corner of her mouth. “No. Sorry I’m late.”

Her appearance is so startling that I can’t help approaching her. “What happened?”

She blinks rapidly and shakes her head. “Can we just get started?”

I stare at her, and I can feel everyone else staring at us both. There’s a beat of silence.

“Sure,” I tell her, gesturing toward the hall that leads to the studio.

Scarlett says nothing as she slips away from the group and heads to the hallway.

I pat Luke’s shoulder and nod my chin at Jimmy. “Gimme a minute alone with her?”

Jimmy nods back. “Yep. And we don’t gotta do this today if she’s not up to it.”

“Right.” I pivot away from them, heading to the kitchen at the back of the house to locate a first aid kit, and then make my way to the studio.

Stepping through the sound-proof doors, I’m greeted by rich, slow, hypnotic chords from the piano, something that could almost pass for the Moonlight Sonata, but with a mournful jazz edge to it. Scarlett’s face is inclined low as she hunches over the keys, the short, red, corkscrew curls of her hair partially hiding her expression and the scratch marks. Entering the studio, I pull a stool from nearby to position it just behind her and sit down.

“Turn around,” I say as gently as possible, feeling bizarrely awkward about speaking to her in a manner that’s not fraught with the irritation that’s become a hallmark of this strained professional relationship.

“Why,” she deadpans, still playing.

“I’m going to clean up your face.” I set the first aid kit on the bench next to her and flip open the lid. “You don’t want an infection. It could scar.”

“Like you give a fuck,” she mumbles. “You’d probablylike itif I had a scarred face.”

“Scarlett.” She stops playing. “Turn around.”

After a beat, she tucks one leg underneath her and shifts around, but keeps her face low. Picking up a small bottle of peroxide, I soak a cotton ball and hover it close to her face. “Look here.”

She lifts her head, but keeps her eyes downturned. Brushing her curls away with the side of my hand, I get a good look at the scratches. I’ve never seen such a strange and distressing injury on someone’s face before. I can’t even begin to assess what caused it, but it looks a hell of a lot like someone literallyscratched her face. And who would do something like that?

I gingerly press the cotton to her cheek, following each red line. “Did you get mugged?”

“No.”

“So what happ—”

“Fuck off, August. I’m not talking to you about this.”

My hand stills as I stare at her. She still won’t look at me. “Why not?”

She finally cuts her eyes up to meet mine. They’re as red as the marks on her face, and equally as tearful as Liza’s were only a few minutes ago. “You don’t get to know because you’re a piece of shit, and I hate you.”

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