I made his decision easy. “That one will work,” I said, pointing to the couch against the picture window that looked somewhat less distressed and more “hygienic” than the other.
He cringed, looking around as if wanting to find a blanket he could spread over it before setting me down. “You’re as brave as you are beautiful,” he said, arranging me on the couch.
Knowing what I did of my beauty—and how it’s lack thereof would be just as obvious to him—he must think of me as the cowardly lion.
“Do you mind if I take a look,” he asked, eyeing my head anxiously.
“Be my guest.” I couldn’t feel the warmth of new blood running down my face any longer, but I could only imagine how I looked. Blood drying and cracking like zebra lines down my face, and I was positive my impossible hair looked like a bomb had exploded in it.
As if reading my mind, he went over to the sink, pulling a piece of cloth from his back pocket. Was that a handkerchief? Did guys still carry those around? The last time I’d seen one had been when my great-grandpa offered one to me after I’d fallen from the tree house in the large sycamore out back when I was five.
Even then, disaster prone.
He adjusted the temperature of the water before running the cloth through it. Given everything else about him, I don’t know why I couldn’t do anything but stare at his hands—lined with blue veins, canyons of flesh set between mountains of bone—but they were the most intriguing pair I’d seen. Hands that were strong and flawless, but also weary and aged.
He hurried back to me, kneeling beside me as he dabbed at my face with the damp cloth. He finished with my lips, pressing them clean before removing the cloth. His eyes stayed fixed on my mouth, which naturally gave me heart palpitations.
He looked up, his eyes telling that he hadn’t meant for me to notice him so fixated. He sucked in a breath through his freshly parted lips, closing the distance between us at an agonizingly slow pace. So slow I had time to think, oh my gosh, this is it. The night my lips will finally update their status to non-virginal.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice that was acid called out behind us.
William’s head snapped around, the moment shattering into a million pieces.
“Nice timing,” I said under my breath. William shot me a sideway’s smile.
“Here’s your bag of crap,” Paul said, chucking a black leather bag at William’s face. “I thought first aid kits were little white plastic boxes filled with bandages and gauze. A little excessive wouldn’t you say?” he eyed the bag William was sorting through, pulling items from it like he’d done it a thousand times.
“Doesn’t seem excessive given our current situation does it?” he replied back, not sounding the least bit antagonizing.
Paul just puffed his chest out and crossed his arms.
I eyed over the contents of William’s bag, trying not to look like a child staring wide-eyed at a hypodermic needle.
He looked up, noting my stare. “I’ll be quick, I promise.” He clasped his hand just above my knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I felt an injection of calm enter me, dulling my unease. He climbed up on the couch and hitched a leg over my head, situating himself on the back of the couch where I sat agreeably positioned between his legs.
His fingers scrolled around my head, no doubt inspecting the damage. “It’s not so bad,” he said finally, jolting me from the lull I’d succumbed to from his touch. “I’ve seen much worse.”
So had I.
“I didn’t realize we were in the presence of an MD,” Paul said, reminding me or his presence. “How lucky for us.”
I heard the smile in William’s voice as he replied, “You’d be amazed what you learn in boyscouts.”
Paul leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “So who is this tool?” he asked, looking hard at me, as if the subject of his comment wasn’t ten feet in front of him.
“Tool,” William said, as if to himself, contemplating. “As in a device to perform or facilitate mechanical or manual labor?”
Paul tilted his head against the wall and chuckled. “That’s right Encyclopedia Britannica. Or in layman’s terms: screwdriver, hammer—”
“How about a wrench,” William interrupted, his voice too level not to be up to something.
“You’ve got a quick learner on your hands, Bryn,” Paul said to me, clapping his hands. “Sure, wrench works just fine as well,” he said, his eyes narrowing on William. “Whatever blows your skirt up buddy.”
I felt the chill of iodine drenched cotton balls circle around, soft and methodical. “Well a wrench would come in handy right now,” William mused. “Because you definitely have a couple screws loose.”
Paul shoved off the wall, and from his expression you would have guessed William had given him the most unthinkable insult known to man. “I take that back. You’re not a tool,” he seethed, his turquoise eyes growing stormy. “You’re way worse, something that hasn’t been given a name. You’re that guy who preys on innocent young women, and you know what, you’re going to be doing the same thing fifty years from now. You’re going to be that old dude in the bar with the designer jeans and seedy smile who thinks he’s still got it, not realizing everyone’s laughing at the sorry old geezer. You could have five more lifetimes and you’d still end up alone.”
“Paul,” I interjected when it didn’t look he was going to be wrapping up his soliloquy anytime soon. “Enough.”
Red lights suddenly flashed through the windows, casting their nets over me, ensnaring me into the recesses of my memories. Taking me back to that night when those same red lights had appeared and made everything so real, just as they were doing now.
I glared at Paul, noticing the cell phone he was gripping in his hand. “Tell me you didn’t call—”
“It’s just campus security,” he answered immediately, taking a step back. “As a resident advisor it’s my responsibility to report any kind of attacks on campus.”
“You had no right,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s none of your business what happened—”
William cleared his throat, obviously wanting to cut in.
I didn’t secede right away. “Don’t even think about saying he only did it because he’s looking out for my best interest.”
“I wasn’t,” William replied. “I was going to agree with you. It was none of his bloody business.”
Paul uncrossed, crossed, and uncrossed his arms again, obviously unsure what to say and knowing we were right. He looked away, just in time to see a security guard, probably only a few years older than me, charge into the room. Just from the look on his face, I knew this wasn’t going to go well.
His eyes locked on me, studying me as if I was more a chalk drawing than a living, breathing person. “You the one that got jumped?”
I didn’t think my blood-matted hair and debris ridden clothes needed an answer, but he was waiting for one. Not the brightest crayon in the box.
“Yes,” I said, offering nothing more.
“Name?” he asked, marching towards the couch.
“Bryn Dawson,” I said it like a question. “Yours?”
His march turned to a strut. “My frat brothers used to call me the beaver charmer when I was a student here a few years back,” he smiled at William and jumped his brows in a you know what I mean kind of way.
Just perfect. A former student who couldn’t hack it in the real world now dressed in a uniform and on a head trip. Just when I thought my luck couldn’t plummet any farther south.
“Do you expect me to call you beaver charmer?” I asked, just barely able to contain my laughter when I heard William choke on his.
“Only my friends and the ladies call me that,” he said, hooking his thumbs under his belt. “You can call me Officer Simchuk.”
Officer? Had the standards for gaining the title of officer fallen to driving a minivan and sporting a flashlight as a weapon? I take it back . . . this guy was on a major head trip.
“So we’ve established who the victim is here,” he said. I imagined him checking off his list of what to do at the scene of crime. Crime scene investigation for dummies.
“What’s your story, pal?” he tilted his chin at William and studied our positioning on the couch. “You the boyfriend?”
“No,” Paul answered immediately, stepping forward. “He’s the one that found her.”
“He’s the one that saved me,” I edited.
“Does our savior have a name?” Simchuck asked, grabbing a metal chair and twirling it to him.
“William. William Winters,” he answered, focusing his attention back on my head. Simchuck grabbed a writing pad from his chest pocket, licking his finger before rolling it open.
“Which dorm are you assigned to,” Simchuck asked him.
William paused before answering, “I live off campus, actually.”
“Are you done yet?” I whispered up at William.
“Two minutes,” he whispered back, his mouth just outside my ear. Goose-bumps ran up my back, blossoming on my neck. I was hoping he’d be too consumed to notice, but right then he scrolled his fingers from the base of my hairline down to the collar of my shirt More goose-bumps . . .
Simchuck’s chair screeched as he turned to Paul. “And you are?” he asked with an edge of sarcasm, viewing him head to toe. “Captain America?”
I had to turn my head so Paul couldn’t see my smile. From Paul’s cleft chin and blinding smile, to the way he was standing with arms crossed and legs spread wearing his OSU letterman’s jacket as if some superhero garb, Paul could have been an identical twin.
“Funny,” Paul said, crossing his arms tighter. “Paul Lowe.”
“Great.” Simchuck continued scribbling away. “How are you involved?”
“I was the one who called you,” Paul answered, puffing out his chest.
“Super job, Captain,” he said as if to himself before looking Paul straight in the eye. “Scram.”
“Excuse me?” Paul said, taking a step forward.
“I said beat it. I don’t have any questions for you and Bryn looks like she has enough support here already.” His eyes moved back to where I sat wrapped between William’s arms and legs.
I expected Paul to look angry, but instead he looked confused. He probably wasn’t used to being sent away from a gathering.
“I’ll be right outside if you need me,” Paul said to me, before shooting Simchuck an evil eye as he left the room.
“So, Bryn,” he scooted closer and put on his good cop face. “You were attacked tonight?”
We were going to get nowhere if he continued to re-ascertain I was, indeed, the one who had been attacked. “Yes,” I answered, trying not to vocalize my impatience. “Again.”
“Can you describe what happened?” he asked. I imagined him checking off number three on his list.