“I couldn’t get you out of that damn library. I guess I got ripped up a little.”
He wanted to get to me that badly? “Where’s your first aid kit?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Tell that to your bloody fingers, pal.” How the hell hadn’t I noticed them before?
You’d been that wrapped up in yourself, that’s how.
I stood and pulled him up off the couch. Gizmo gave an unhappy chirp but leaped onto the shelf behind the couch.
“Hellcat, it’s fine. I’ve had worse.”
“Just don’t argue.” I turned on the taps in his sink and nothing happened.
“Gizmo.”
“God, you have to be kidding.”
“What?” He reached up into the cabinet where the on and off taps were and then turned on the faucet.
He’d remembered what I said about Gizmo, and he’d taken really good care of him since I’d had to give him up. “Nothing. Wash those hands. Where is the kit?” He gestured to the below cabinet. I found it and pulled out the peroxide and triple antibiotic.
“It’s not a big deal. I get worse helping Archer.”
“Yeah, well, if you want those hands on me again, you’ll listen.”
He held out his hands over the sink. “Do your worst.”
“Funny guy.”
Which also wasn’t the norm for him. Not that I hadn’t seen a few bits of humor inside of him before, but he was quick to press them down. Like he didn’t deserve to be happy or even amused.
I poured the peroxide over his battered cuticles and watched it foam. He didn’t flinch. Not that peroxide was painful, but he really didn’t seem to notice the pain at all. Was that because he’d experienced so very much of it?
“Hellcat.”
“What?” I glanced up at him.
“You’re staring at my hands.”
“There’s a lot of scars here.”
“Welding tools aren’t exactly kind to the body.”
I turned his hand over to see a series of burns along his forearm and twisted it back for the webbing of scars over his knuckles. “Do you miss it?”
I could feel him tightening up, but then he blew out a slow breath. “Sometimes. But after the accident, there’s nothing in there. I used to see pieces of a car in the junkyard and know exactly what it would become. I couldn’t pull the scraps apart fast enough to get them reshuffled into what I saw in my head.” He flexed his hands. “Why I have so many burns. Impatient.”
“Then why did it stop?”
“I don’t know. The first time someone paid me for a piece, it was asinine, to be truthful. I went from a shitty co-op space in Brooklyn to living in Manhattan. This woman talked me up.”
“What’s her name?”
He sighed.
I could tell he didn’t want to tell me. I was a designer. I knew that word of mouth was king.
“Kim Tomlinson.”
Or, in that case, queen. Dear God. “Well, then.”
“I take it you know who she is?”
“Pretty sure she was at the bottom of that People Magazine cover in my bag.”
He reddened. “Yeah, well. We got involved for a while and she paraded me in front of her rich friends.”
“You used to go out with Kim Tomlinson?” My stomach jittered.
And now he wanted to be with me? Kim was one of the most beautiful and influential women in the world.
“Yeah, it was not a smart move.”
“It wasn’t?”
“It was fun for a while, but she treated me like a damn show pony. I was stupid. All I saw was that people wanted to buy my work, then came the oh, I have an idea. Can you make this?” His whole body tensed. “Then I was a trick pony.”
