Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I’m not scared of heights.
I am allergic to bees, and the rose bush is covered with them.
“Stop panicking. They’re not bees,” Cash shouts half a second later, his voice echoing in the quietness of the night.
Although I appreciate he remembers our conversation earlier this week about my fear of bees, I shoo away one of the ‘pests’ before replying, “How do you know that? You can’t see them from down there. They’re big, scary, and this one has stripes.”
“They’re not bees, Einstein, because bees can’t fly at night.”
I freeze for a moment, shocked. “They can’t?”
How do I not know this? I’m studying to become a vet.
“No, they can’t.” The high pitch of Cash’s tone exposes how much he loves teaching me a broad range of things. Just not kissing—unfortunately. “But they can crawl, though, so maybe get your ass down here before you find the straggler who’d rather slack off instead of studying.”
Reading between the lines, I snap out, “I’m not slacking off.” A grimace hardens the features of my face when a branch digs into my thigh. “My tummy is full of Milo. I need to work it out of my system before I fall asleep. How bad would your reputation be if they heard snores bellowing out of your room within minutes of you placing a sock on your door?”
I can’t see him, but I picture his shoulder touching his ear when he mutters, “I think I could live with it. Every guy wants to cross off fucked-her-comatose from their list before they’re thirty.”
After cranking my neck back, I shoot daggers at him. “You could have told me that five minutes ago… before I started scaling the trellis.”
Strands of my hair catch on the prickles of Cash’s three-day-old beard when I lose my footing. I almost plummet a dangerous four feet but am saved from having a muddy backside by Cash catching me as offered.
Although the positioning of his hands has my temperature rising, I act nonchalant. “I think I broke your trellis…”
My words trail off when the faintest brush hits a portion of skin high on my thigh. I assume it is a struggling bee hitchhiking a ride home but am proven wrong when Cash murmurs, “You’re bleeding.”
After peering down at the leg the rose bush snagged partway during my climb, I say with a pfft, “It’s just a scratch.”
You wouldn’t believe me if you could see the mortified expression on Cash’s face. Anyone would think half my leg has been sawn off. His cheeks whiten to match the wispy clouds in the sky, and his throat works through numerous swallows.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.”
Ignoring me, he undoes all the craftiness we just undertook by marching me into his fraternity house, plonking my backside onto the kitchen counter housing dozens of red cups and empty bottles of beer, then fetching the first-aid kit out from underneath the sink.
His caring side is unexpected, but I can only accept so much mollycoddling. “If you bring out iodine, I won’t be the only one housing wounds.”
Cash misses the threat in my tone. “Wound ointment. Good idea. I think I’ve got some in the bathroom.”
“I don’t need wound ointment. It’s just a scratch.” After popping my thumb into my mouth to moisten it, I run it across the half-inch scratch. When the removal of the dry blood causes more to trickle out, I announce defeat, “Okay, I might need a Band-Aid. But that’s it. No burnie fires of hell required.”
When I hold out my hand palm-side up, wordlessly requesting Cash to hand over the first-aid kit, he does—begrudgingly.
I roll my eyes when he murmurs, “If it gets infected, and you lose your leg, remember, you chose the no-ointment option.”
More strands fall in front of my eye when I shake my head. “I won’t lose my leg.”
After fishing out a Band-Aid, I tear it open before peeling back the protective layers.
I’m about to slap it over the scratch when Cash shouts, “Let me. Your hands are dirty.”
I stare at him, shocked by his germophobic behavior when he scrubs his hands under the sink tap like he’s about to perform open-heart surgery.
Once his hands are red from being scrubbed so hard, he removes the Band-Aid from my grasp, then bobs down low so he can get the placement just right.
So low, I feel every shallow breath he releases as he endeavors to match the sterile part of the Band-Aid with my micro scratch. They make the coolness of the night a forgotten memory and adds a pink hue to the skin circling the scratch.
If he can’t hear my heart thudding, he’ll soon see it since every vein in my body is working overtime, including the one at the back of my knee he’s gently grasping.
Not wanting to make a fool of myself, I say, “Just slap it on. It isn’t rocket science.”