Page 22 of The Spare
“Xander! What did you do?” She rushed to my side and smacked the back of his head.
“I didn’t mean to.”
She shooed him to the dining room, not wanting to hear his explanation or cause a stir, and warned him to behave. Sloan grabbed my hand and led me to the kitchen. She filled a bowl with water and got the first-aid kit.
“Don’t move.” She stood on her tiptoes and assessed the damage. “It's not too bad,” she assured me as she opened the first-aid kit.
Sloan took the warm washcloth and wiped the dirt away from the abrasions around my eye. It wasn’t lost on me that I could very easily tend to my own eye, but I didn’t mind the attention. Her attention. I flinched at the sting of some antiseptic hitting my skin.
“Sorry.” She winced. “You’re going to have a headache. I’ll send Xander and Pen to get something for that.”
“Thanks.”
She smiled. “I guess you’ll have to hit Henry or me next year. Fair is fair.”
“Probably Henry. I don’t know if I want to end up like the candy dish.” I tried to concentrate on the pain and not that she steadied herself by leaning her hand against my chest.
That close, I could smell the citrus of her perfume and the lavender scent of her hair. Her breath scorched my neck. The soft warmth of her fingers buzzed through me like a live wire. That’s when I realized I was running my fingers along the hem of her shirt. I resisted the urge to touch the soft skin beneath.
I could enjoy that while still being her friend. Look and not touch. How hard could it be?
It was temporary anyway, until the feelings passed. And they would eventually. Distance may not have blunted whatever it was, but time had to.
Aside from coming to blows with my little brother, the situation ended half decently. Sloan was solely focused on me. With everyone else in the dining room, we were left to the quiet solitude of the kitchen.
“Hopefully, it’ll look less harsh by Monday.” She stepped back, snapping me out of the trance she had me under. “But concealer should cover it if you have anything important to do.”
“You want me to wear makeup?” I laughed for a second before I ran the words back in my head. It hit me. Fury thrummed low in my ears. Why the hell did she know how to do that? “How do you know so much about covering bruises?”
Sloan stopped, looked down, and tamed a worried expression about half a second late. I caught it. And I wouldn’t believe whatever lie she was about to tell me.
She stayed silent.
“Sloan.” I lifted her chin to face me. For the first time in a long while, I was having trouble controlling an emotion. The anger began to fester. The bar. They saw her ex and immediately left. I needed to know what had happened. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Women know how to use makeup. If you don’t like it, blame the patriarchy.” Her demeanor was calm, voice steady. She wasn’t half bad at lying.
“Sloan.”
"Xander was there." Not an explanation, but she knew the mention of his name would blunt the worst of my concerns. My mistake for trying to pull information out of a lawyer. “It's been taken care of. I’m fine.”
I tried to ignore the caustic jealousy bubbling in my gut. She didn’t need someone who looked after her, but if she did, it would be Xander. Not me. “Who?”
“This is why we don’t tell you two anything.” She walked away from me, went to the cabinet, and grabbed a bottle of wine. She placed it on the table before walking back to get a couple of glasses. “You overreact.”
You two.I hated that she saw Henry and me as the same. Older brother types. To her, the idea that I could care for her in any other way was unfathomable. “How is this an overreaction?”
“You knowliterallynothing, and you’re getting bent out of shape.” She stopped and put the glasses on the table. “For all you know, Xander and I could have been in a West Side Story-style dance fight.”
I laughed. Dammit, I wanted to be angry. “I need a na—”
“No, you don’t. It's been handled.” Her tone lost its razor edge. A small laugh snuck through.
“Sloan.”
“Saying my name over and over again isn’t going to change the fact that it is a story I am not telling you.” She looked at me and pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
I took a seat and dropped it for now.
