9. Remi

Chapter 9

Remi

T he day had finally arrived for the highly anticipated FaceTime call. And Angie was a mess. She’d allowed a brief break in our day for this and had taken time to shower, but she worked tonight. She’d scheduled FaceTiming Dan during her only chance to nap. I still had on my farm clothes, and they weren’t the cleanest.

Hot rollers covered Angie’s head, making her look like she walked out of a sitcom from the fifties, and after a heated debate over ‘less is more,’ her makeup was finished. The last task to tackle: wardrobe. Wrapped in a bright-blue robe, Angie held an emerald, flouncy shirt for me to inspect. Though the shirt would pull out the flecks of green in her eyes, Smoot would be thinking with his other head the moment he saw her breasts spilling over.

“Nope. Neckline’s too low. Not a bad option, but not on the first call.” I took it from her and tossed it on top of the growing pile on Angie’s bed. “Think of yourself as a gift. You want to wrap yourself up, layers if you can, so he can imagine uncovering you in his mind.”

“Ew.” With her back to me, Angie continued to shuffle through her closet. “All men aren’t like that.”

“Last time I checked, I’m the one with the penis in this room.”

“You’re so gross.”

“You think penises are gross? No wonder you’re having issues.”

“You know what?” She turned and pushed her hands against my chest, attempting to shove me toward the door. I dropped one foot back and remained where I was. “Forget it. I can do this on my own.”

“And how will you avoid looking like a gaper when he tells you about a splitter morning in the epic pow, perfect to send into a gnarly jump, bro?” My guess was he’d spray all over the conversation like the conceited jerk I envisioned him being. No one climbed Mount Rushmore without an ego the size of Lincoln’s nose.

She stopped pressing against me and held her hand, palm up, toward her closet, then to the clothes on the bed. “Fine. Why don’t you pick something out for me?”

I’d told her to stay in her T-shirt and pajama bottoms for the call, but she’d refused.

Angie turned her back to me and walked out of her room.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, my eyes instantly scanning the screen.

Thinking of you. Hope your trip …

Damn. Yet another text from Kathryn.

Swiping the notification off the screen without reading the entire message, I grabbed a casual but fitted crew-neck tank from Angie’s closet and some jeans. I followed her into the bathroom. Whoa. This bathroom could be in an episode of I Love Lucy , as it was complete with mauve floral wallpaper, beige carpet, a kitty clock over the vanity, and a pink toilet, sink, and bathtub. The brass fixtures left the bathroom with an elegantly dated touch.

It smelled of old electrical heating elements and pine air freshener. Standing in front of the vanity mirror, Angie unrolled each of her curlers and placed them back into the ancient relic they came from.

“I’ll only have like forty-five minutes for this call.” A clip fumbled out of her hands and clattered on the floor. She bent to get it and smacked her head on the edge of the vanity. The last roller in her hair came undone and skittered onto the counter. “Ow. Ow. Ow.”

“You okay?”

She shoved her hand where she’d hit the counter and pressed. “Shit. Shoot. Shit.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her lackluster attempt to swear.

Removing her hand, she turned to me. Blood poured from a gash in Angie’s head.

My ears started ringing, my world swayed, and I tightened my grip on her clothes in my hand.

“How bad is it?” She glanced down. “Shoo-it. It’s bleeding.”

The tips of my fingers tingled while black ate at the edge of my vision. Blood was okay as long as it stayed where it belonged, but once it escaped, I became sick as a dog passing peach pits. I took a deep breath through my nose, let it flow through my teeth, and leaned against the wall.

“Remi.” Angie’s voice was muffled through the continuous whooshing sound lodged in my ears. “Remi? You look pale.”

I risked a glance at her. In her concern for me, she’d let the blood continue to flow. It streaked down her forehead and onto her cheek like she’d secured a lead role in some slasher flick. I shut my eyes and placed my hands on my knees, on the verge of passing out.

I’d passed out once when Myles got a bloody nose while we were playing basketball. I shoveled out all this advice about extreme sports and how to get a manly man to Angie, and yet here I was on the brink of unconsciousness over a minor head wound. I couldn’t do anything about it now, with my weakness exposed for her to exploit as she wished.

“I think you need to sit down.” Her gentle touch rested on my shoulder, yet she firmly pressed me toward the bathtub’s edge. Obediently, I sat on its rim. “Now put your head between your legs.”

I did as she instructed with my eyes still closed. If I didn’t see any more of the red fluid, which shall not be named, pooling out her wound, I stood a chance at staying lucid. Sounds of the faucet running and toilet paper rolling against its holder penetrated my cocoon of hot and cold sweats.

“Did you cover it?” I squinted at the plush, pink toilet rug. The hem of her blue robe swung into my vision, exposing the long length of her smooth legs. I opened my eyes wider, appreciating the view she offered me.

“It’s safe to look.”

No, it isn’t safe to look. I told myself. Not at all .

My wooziness eased, and I was hard-pressed not to rub my hands along her inner thigh and pull her onto my lap. I breathed in deeply again, for an entirely different reason.

No. I wasn’t going to act on my attraction to this woman. She tortured me daily, and she needed my help to keep a man on her line. Although, right now, she was the most alluring thing I’d ever seen.

I sat up and shoved her clothes at her. “Get dressed. Call’s in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m gonna need your help—”

“What?” No way in hell. I only had so much restraint. “I’m not helping you get dressed.”

She laughed. “You wish.” She pulled the toilet paper away from her injury along her hairline. Once again, my blood fled from my face to my extremities. “This’ll need a butterfly bandage.”

I was shaking my head before she stopped speaking. “I can’t do it. I don’t do blood.” With the mention of a butterfly bandage, I focused on the imagery it created, of bright and vibrant butterflies dancing with the wind.

She laughed even harder at that. “You, an extreme sports expert, can’t handle bandaging a small cut.”

“You saw me practically pass out at the sight of it, and now you want me to touch it?” I’d tried to pinpoint when I’d developed this reaction to blood, but I’d never been successful. It must be genetic. Takeaway, I’m no nurse .

“If I can jump off a telephone poll, you can help bandage my wound.”

“Can’t we get your mom to do it?”

“And interrupt Law & Order: SVU?” She gestured to the stairs with her free hand. “Be my guest.”

I glared at her and thought back to our conversation about having a penis. If I was tough enough to jump off bridges, I could do this. “Fine. What do you need me to do?”

Keeping the toilet paper pressed to her cut, she shuffled through the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a first aid kit. Did she stash these in all her bathrooms? How often did she get hurt?

She unclasped the plastic buckles and grabbed the few items she needed while I gave myself a pep talk. Come on, Remi. I’d jumped off the cliffs at Navagio Beach in Greece, skydived in the Himalayas, hiked to the top of Machu Picchu, and surfed with the sharks in Australia. I could handle touching the edges of flappy skin and fatty tissue.

One glimpse in the mirror showed me how pale my face was even while Angie kept the tissue pressed to her head. She struggled to open a bandage with one hand.

“Here.” I took the slip from her. “Let me.” I pulled the bandage open and set it on the counter—a white oblong thing with no butterflies on it. Boring.

She handed me a bottle of super glue with raised eyebrows. Without needing further instruction, I tugged off the top.

“All I need you to do is keep my hair free of the cut. Can you manage that?”

I nodded but didn’t say anything and stepped closer to her. Aside from the ropes course, I hadn’t been this close to Angie in the week I’d worked for her. I kept my distance and did my job while we bickered about something I’d done wrong.

She smelled of hairspray and whatever coconut shampoo she used. Carefully, I gathered her hair, my hands brushing her neck just behind her ear, some strands still warm from the curlers. My eyes dipped to where her pulse thudded against her throat, to where I loved to tease delicate skin. What would Angie do if I bent and touched my lips to her neck and checked to see if she tasted of coconut?

Oblivious to my thoughts, Angie leaned closer to the mirror and pulled the tissue away from her gash. The blood flow had slackened, but only slightly. I slowed my breathing and focused on containing the golden strands of Angie’s hair.

She ran a bead of glue along her broken skin and took in a sharp breath. “It stings.”

I swayed on my feet and dropped my gaze to the counter, the black in my vision becoming stronger. I refused to pass out. Angie would never let me live it down.

“What am I supposed to do in this call again?” Angie asked as she held her skin together.

“You’re going to answer, but then fifteen to twenty minutes in, tell him you’ve got to go,” I said, grateful to have something else to think about.

“I still think that’ll make him think I’m not interested.” She narrowed her eyes. “Darn. My makeup is ruined. Hand me the butterfly bandage.”

I placed the white strip in her hand. “If they’re going to name it after a butterfly, they should at least print butterflies on it.”

Angie laughed while she stuck it over her cut, tightening the edges of her skin together. I could never work in the medical field. Even though Angie was a pain in my ass, she had my respect.

“That’s all you needed me for?” I still held her hair, enjoying its silkiness far too much.

“Yep. I think it’s dry.”

“You could have told me I wouldn’t have to touch it.” We spoke to each other, facing the mirror.

“And lose an opportunity to make you suffer?” She quirked her eyebrow on her uninjured side. “No way.”

“You have less than ten to be on your call.” I pointed at the creepy kitty clock on the wall. “Why do you even have that clock?”

“It was my Grandma Anne’s.” She wiped the makeup off her eye and began reapplying. “That’s always the answer. This house is a shrine to those who’ve lived here before us.”

This dug at my soul … at least it would have if I had one. I’d sacrificed it long ago after my first time buying land out from under ma and pop farmers.

“We need a bumper crop this year, or I’m going to lose it all.”

Her soft words were slivers to my skin. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. “Are you being forced to sell?”

“With Papa’s medical bills … and a couple of hard years of drought? It’s going to be tough.”

Now was my chance. I could throw my offer on the proverbial table and finish my charade. Something told me she’d say no and to go to ‘H-E double hockey sticks.’ And, I grudgingly admitted, part of me wasn’t ready to leave Angie and this place forever.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I let the moment pass and cleared my throat. “The key is to act like you don’t care if Smoot is in your life. It’s the same dynamic as friends in high school. The more you act like you didn’t care if they were your friends or not, the more they clambered to be one.”

The mascara brush in Angie’s grip stilled, and pained emotions flickered over her features. Took me less than a second to guess what kind of high school experience she’d had. I pictured Angie facing a crowd of her jeering peers. Nausea, having nothing to do with the sight of blood, settled in my stomach. Shit-for-brains kids. If I could time travel, I’d set her childhood bullies back a few paces.

“Well. I guess I can give it a try.” She went back to applying her makeup, but a trace of a shadow remained.