Page 74 of Snowed In
And then, just for a moment, everything goes black.
SIXTEEN
MEGAN
Christian grunts as the stick smashes into his nose, his hands flying to his face, and I swear a collective wince goes around our small group.
“Okay,” he says after a beat. “Ow.”
“Shit.” Cormac puts the cue down, panicked. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m fine,” he says thickly, tilting his head back.
“Don’t do that,” I say, trying to see if it’s bleeding. “Is it broken?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Likepain?”
“Can you get a first aid kit?” I ask Hannah, who’s watching her brother with a realyikeslook. “Maybe an ice pack too?” She nods and scrambles over to the bar. Everyone else has gone quiet, tempers dying as quickly as they flared.
“I swear it was an accident,” Cormac continues.
“I know,” Christian assures him as I peel back his fingers. “I’m grand.”
He is not grand. He just got hit in the face with a big wooden stick and is now bleeding from his nose.
“Come on,” I urge, ignoring the others as I bring him to the bathrooms. “I need to look at that.”
“If I start crying, just remember that’s manly now,” Christian says, following me blindly. “Toxic masculinity is dead.”
“Yes, it is.” I pull him down the hallway and into an empty cubicle, where I sit him on the toilet lid. “Now let me see.”
He drops his hand, breathing through his mouth as I inspect the damage. Bleeding, but not too bad.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” I say, pulling some toilet paper free of the container. “You probably just burst a blood thingy.”
“Is that a scientific term or…?”
“I watched a video on it once.” I press the tissue to his nose at the bit of blood I see there. “Lean forward.”
“Not back?”
“Not unless you want to vomit,” I say, crouching before him, and he does as he’s told as we wait for it to pass.
I am instantly more comfortable now that it’s just us again. Compared to the tense atmosphere outside, the moment is nearly peaceful despite the fact my fake boyfriend almost broke his nose, and we’re huddled in a pub toilet. Could be worse, I suppose. They’re cleaner than most I’ve seen, and a pleasant lavender scent wafts from the automatic dispenser over our heads.
“I’m sorry,” Christian murmurs after a few seconds. “I don’t think I made it any better with your friends.”
“They’re not my friends.”
“They used to be.”
“You sound like Aidan,” I say dryly. “And they weren’t really my friends back then either.”
“What do you mean?”
