Page 57 of Lucy
I stood in the break room, running water over my wound and watching the red-tinted water swirl down the drain. I cleaned my cut until it wasn’t actively bleeding anymore, then I found another clean towel to wrap it in.
“Hey,” Hush’s deep voice startled me a bit.
“Hey. You ready to clock out?” I asked. He frowned at my hand and shook his head at it. Usually, I clocked him out but that time, he clocked me out and motioned to the parking lot.
“Wanna tell me what the fuck that was in there with Treasure?” He asked before I got into my car.
“Tell you over fried fish.” I smiled and so did he.
**
We sat down in our usual booth and became Lucy and Chase, not Lucy and Hush. He took my hand in his and inspected it. “You need stitches.”
“Not before I eat,” I protested.
“You want an amputated hand. Fine.” I looked at him and a sliver of fear rippled through me. My hand wouldn’t really get amputated if I didn’t get it looked at right away, would it? I was too much of a punk to find out.
“Okay. Let’s order it to go.”
“Good girl,” Chase laughed. I bit my bottom lip and tried to ignore the pulsing between my thighs when he said that. I’d never ordered food so fast in my damn life.
I rode with Chase to the ER and the nurse agreed with him that I definitely needed stitches. Five to be exact. It was a small cut but damn it was deep. I stared at it the entire drive back to his place.
“What happened at work, Crazy?”
“Well, weirdo, if you must know,” I sighed, “Treasure saw us in the break room hugging.” His sculpted forearms flexed then tensed. I stared at them. One resting on the gearshift, and the other on the steering wheel. I stared at the tattoos and the veins and every dark hair that curled against his ginger toned skin.
“What did she say?” He asked.
“She asked if we werejustfriends and I told her of course.” I hated how dry my mouth got each time I mentioned Chase and me were just friends. “Then she said some stupid shit that I didn’t agree with. It made me mad. Sometimes I fly off the handle when I’m mad.”
“You fly off the handle all the time. You’re unpredictable but fragile.”
“I’m not fragile,” I huffed, folding my arms.
“Not fragile like a flower, Lucy. Fragile like a bomb. Fragile like the turn of the weather. Like how it goes from sunny outside to a tornado ripping up the ground. That’s how you’re fragile.”
Air refused to leave my chest. It was caught there for a few seconds until my lungs burned and I had to exhale.
“That was beautiful, Chase.”
“That’s you…” I bit my lip to stop the smile from spreading any further across my face. He pulled into his complex and we sat there while he examined my stitches.
“You don’t want to know what Treasure said?” I asked him.
“Nah. What good would it do? It would piss me off. My energy is better spent elsewhere. Besides, nowhere in the universe is it cool to talk shit about someone for no reason. If Treasure doesn’t know that now, karma will teach her later.”
I thought my heart would burst in my chest and rain down little pieces of confetti hearts. “That’s so fucking true, Chase.” We stared at each other for a few beats, then went inside. I tossed my bag in a chair and fell on the couch. I had to take pictures of my hand and send it to Nora and Abel.
Me: Look what I did at work today.
Twin: OMG Luce, are you okay?
Me: I’m good now. Chase took me to get stitches.
Nora texted back a picture of her hand. It was mottled and red in the same spot I had stitches.
Me: Shit. Sorry, Sissy.
