I CLIMBED INTO Tony’s dark red Toyota, still not sure what to make of this strange morning and our even stranger conversation. Were we about to become friends? Tony could be seriously cute when he wanted to be, with a very nice smile. It just took him so long to show it.
But I wasn’t sure if that was enough to make up for all the shit he’d given me this week.
Anyway, I didn’t want to think about that now. First, I needed to get rid of that nasty little piece of wood in my shin. It hurt like hell and it looked even worse. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, trying to extinguish one sort of pain with another. It didn’t work.
Tony had been quiet for most of the walk through the woods and still was now while he drove us to Ryan’s place. I wished he’d say something. Talk to me, to distract me from my aching leg. He could even call me all sorts of tiny right now, if only he wouldn’t be so closed off again.
From the rearview mirror hung a short chain and on it dangled a picture in a plastic frame. I reached out to hold it still and took a closer look. It was of a happy couple with a much younger edition of Tony Mitchell between them.
“You must be quite the family guy to have this in your car,” I said, fishing for a conversation starter.
“It’s not my car, it’s my mom’s,” he answered as I let go of the small frame. “I’m hoping to get my own car before Christmas. That’s why I’m bussing tables at Charlie’s.” There was a cold note to his voice as he cut a quick glance at me.
I wondered if he expected me to slag off his job. Chloe would probably do it. I wasn’t going to. “That’s really cool of you to work for your car. Not many students would do that.” Definitely not my cousin.
“I don’t have a choice. My parents won’t give me presents as huge as a vehicle.” He snorted, and there was a small hint of frustration in it. Then a grin followed. “But they will double whatever I make, so I guess I could be much worse off.”
“Yeah, you could be,” I seconded, giving him a wry smile when he looked at me briefly before taking a left turn onto a very familiar road. “For instance, if you had to rely on your weird cousin to lend you hers.”
Tony chuckled at that. I was sure if anyone in the world knew what I meant, it was him. “You don’t get along with her?” he wanted to know as he drove up the road that led to Chloe’s house.
“We used to get along really well. But something seems to have changed. And it’s not me.” I shifted in the seat, a little uncomfortable. “Anyway, why are you driving me home? I thought we were going to see Ryan’s dad.” Scaring Pamela out of her bed at six in the morning didn’t seem like a good idea to me.
“We are. Hunter lives not so far from your family. Just a few streets up.”
Oh.
When we passed my aunt’s house, I felt the urge to scoot lower in the seat while throwing a tentative glance out the window and up to the second floor where Chloe’s room was.
“What are you doing down there?”
I lifted my head to Tony’s confused voice and only then realized just how deep in the seat I’d moved. I straightened, clearing my throat. “Um, nothing.”
He laughed. “Bullshit. You’re hiding! Why?”
I cut one last glance over my shoulder. When we were well out of sight of Chloe’s window, I relaxed. “That’s too weird to tell.”
“Random guess…she doesn’t like you hanging out with us,” he said, then added as an afterthought, “or with me in particular.”
I gaped at him because I didn’t know what to read in his amused voice.
“So, she was nicer in the past?” Tony asked after a few seconds of silence. “I would have liked to get to know that personality.”
“That ship has sailed,” I grunted. And then I wondered if they would still be together if they had met sooner, when Chloe had still been Chloe and not the Barbie Clone.
Tony surprised me when he asked, “What’s so funny?”
“Hmm? What?”
“You’re grinning. Why?”
Oh. I hadn’t realized I was. “Just something that Simone—or Lisa—recently called my cousin.”
Tony turned his head to me and lifted one eyebrow together with the corners of his mouth. “Barbie Clone?”
“You know about that?”
“Of course. Lisa used to give me shit about it. It was her favorite term when she talked about Chloe.”
Since Tony seemed open for conversation right now, I thought it was a good moment to test my luck some more. “You were a couple…you and Chloe?”
His face immediately hardened. But he granted me an answer…after an uncomfortably long minute of thinking. “Not a couple. But we dated.”
“It must have been some intense dating. Even my aunt remembers you.” I rolled my eyes. “She said you were such a sweet boy.” Shit, could I never stop my damn mouth from getting me into trouble? And I would undoubtedly get the bill for it in just a moment.
“You talked to your aunt about me?”
At his surprised tone, I lowered my chin and gazed at my knotted fingers. “Um, yeah. I told her what a jerk you actually were.”
Heartfelt laughter filled the inside of the car. “All right. I can see that.” Tony stopped the car in front of an impressive mansion and cut the engine. “Get out. We’re here.”
I ogled the front of Hunter’s house through the windshield. Wow. And I’d thought my uncle’s house was huge. But this…one could only hope to be given a map upon entering.
The car door opened and tore me out of my stunned gazing.
“Need an extra invitation, Summers?”
I looked up, grinned, and climbed out. As I put weight on my injured leg, I was reminded of the biting pain and limped after Tony. We didn’t have to ring the bell because the door opened as we climbed the steps.
A woman with warm brown eyes just like Ryan’s smiled at us. Her hair was fair like that of an angel, but she was unmistakably his mother. “Tony, dear, where have you been all this time? I haven’t seen you in weeks,” she exclaimed and kissed him on the cheek.
“I have a job now, Jessie.” Tony beamed at her, squaring his shoulders like a confident preschooler. It made me giggle.
“I heard that. Ryan told me, and I ran into your mother the other day. She’s very proud of you.” Mrs. Hunter cupped Tony’s cheek briefly with her hand, then she released him and turned to me, extending both her hands to grab mine. “And you must be Samantha. I’m Jezebel. Come in, dear. My husband is already waiting for you in his practice.”
I hardly had time to say hello before she dragged me into a warm and cozy home that I would have never expected from the outside. Tony led the way past a long set of winding stairs, into the back of the house. Limping, I hurried after him, so as not to lose him in a place as big as a football stadium.
Through a wide door we entered a different part of the house that smelled strongly of cat food and disinfectant. It was painted in clean white, the floor tiles off-white, and the many spotlights in the ceiling cast a way-too-bright light for six o’clock in the morning. We walked through two more rooms, one lined with all sizes of boxes and carriers, where cats and dogs slept the morning away, and another room resembling a sterile kitchen. Bandages, syringes, and tubes filled many cabinets and chests.
Behind the next door, we were greeted by a tall man whose black hair had already started to gray at the temples but who was otherwise a perfect Ryan Hunter replica—give or take a few wrinkles around his eyes, and of course the glasses.
“Tony,” he said, shaking Tony’s hand.
“Good morning, James. This is my friend, Sam.” Tony nodded at me. “She was a little clumsy last night.”
I knew this was the wrong moment to dwell on it, but had he really just called me a friend? At my puzzled look, Tony narrowed his eyes at me as though he knew exactly what was on my mind and was testing the term for himself. Eventually, he shrugged it off and let Mr. Hunter step forward to shake my hand.
“Hello, Sam, I’m James Hunter. Ryan said there’s a piece of wood in your leg. Come over here and let me take a look.” He ushered me over to make myself comfortable on some sort of cold metal table in the middle of the room that was clearly for animals and not for people.
I guessed it was fine to just sit and not lay back.
Taking off my boot and rolling up my pant leg, I was getting really uneasy. Not because a vet was inspecting my leg, but because of the nasty silver scalpel in his hand as he did.
“Do you think I need stitches, sir?” I asked him, frowning at my leg.
“Hmm.” He grabbed a pair of latex gloves from his coffee-brown desk, which dominated one half of the room, put them on, and tested the little splinter with his index finger. Biting my bottom lip, I strangled a whine in my throat at the immediate pain.
“Probably no stitches, Sam, but it’s going to hurt a little when I work this fragment out.” Mr. Hunter grimaced. “I’m not authorized to give you a local anesthesia. So if you’d rather have this done by a specialist, I can give Doctor Decker a call and send Tony over to Pismo Beach with you.”
I didn’t know where that place was and I preferred not to wait any longer to get the splinter out. It already hurt like hell—it couldn’t hurt much worse to have it removed. “No, please do it.”
He nodded and moved to get a few things: a big plastic syringe filled with clear liquid, some pads, a pair of tweezers, and a bandage. While he was placing all these things next to me on the metal table, Tony bent forward to inspect my weeping wound.
“Wicked…” His face screwed up with disgusted awe, but when he looked up and found me watching him with growing horror, he quickly put on an encouraging—however faked—grin. “It isn’t that bad.”
I cast him a wry glance. “Yeah right. I wonder if you’d say the same if this piece of wood was stuck in your leg instead.”
“Don’t worry, Sam,” said Mr. Hunter. “It’ll be over in a minute. Let me just clean the wound first.” He held up the big plastic syringe and grabbed a pad from the small stack he’d brought. Then he had me place my foot on the table and bend my knee, so he had better access.
I was prepared for a lot, but not for the biting, mind-shriveling pain that spread through my shin the moment he let some of the liquid drip into the wound.
“Holy crap, what’s— Oh my God! Bloody fuck!” Screaming, I jumped off the table, because I didn’t know what else to do, and half hopped, half limped erratically around the room. Teeth clenched, I grunted more curses and bent over, then dipped against the wall, where I finally dropped to my ass with my back sliding down the cold tiles. I sucked air in through my nose, my teeth gritted so tightly I could hear crunching noises inside my jaw.
Tony watched me with obvious interest, while Mr. Hunter seemed a little more concerned. Thank God the burning started to ease a few seconds later, so I could breathe normally again. “Shit. That hurt!”
“Do you still want me to remove the splinter without anesthesia?” the doctor asked warily.
I could only hope that the disinfectant was the worst part of the procedure. I nodded but felt my heart slip to my pants. However, I was in a room with two men. I wouldn’t turn tail.
Tony came over to me and grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet. “Come on, Summers. Don’t play the weak sissy here. I know you’re harder than that.”
In spite of my misery, he managed to make me laugh. As he helped me back to the metal table, I had time to thoroughly feel his biceps while holding on to his arm. It didn’t only look stone hard, it actually was. And his skin felt warm and smooth.
“Nice arm, Mitchell,” I teased him, stroking my fingers down the inside of his biceps, but it was probably more to distract myself than to compliment him.
Tony chuckled. “Having fun down there, Summers?” He didn’t shake my hand off.
“Yeah. If nothing else, you’re some distraction.” I stuck my tongue out at him.
Mr. Hunter helped me back onto the examination table. “Are you ready?” he asked with an encouraging smile.
“Yeah. I guess.” I could hardly let the wood grow roots inside me, right? But when he bent forward to grab the splinter with the tweezers, I winced even before he could pinch it and pulled my leg away.
With cheeks reddened by shame, I quickly brought my foot back into place. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”
He looked a bit uncertain. “Shall we wait another moment, Sam?”
“No, no. I’m fine. Really. Just go on.” I waved my hands, encouraging him to proceed.
Mr. Hunter pinched the splinter with the pair of tweezers, but I didn’t let him pull it out just yet. I couldn’t do anything about it—my courage seemed to have gone for a drink…without me.
“No! Damn. Please. Wait!” The words shot out at random from my mouth and I covered my wound as soon as he let go of the wood in my flesh. “Maybe…I don’t know. Perhaps we should just wait until…until it falls out by itself?” My voice sounded whiny. Way too desperate.
James Hunter had mercy on me and didn’t push me to let him butcher my leg. Contrary to Tony. He sat down next to me and leaned closer to my ear. “Get your shit together, Summers. This will be over in a second. And you know as well as I do that this fucking splinter won’t fall out.” He leaned back so I could see his smirk. “If you want, you can feel my muscles for distraction again. Or I can feel yours.” He didn’t hesitate to squeeze my upper arm. “Ah, no muscles there,” he announced with a playful pout. “You’re weak. Just like I expected.”
I shoved him hard from the metal table. “That’ll teach you to call me weak,” I scolded him with a smile.
“Right. I forgot, you’re the strongest of the seven dwarfs.” He rubbed his chest as though I had done serious damage, and this time his teasing about my height didn’t bother me at all. It was clear he was winding me up for a reason. While my thoughts had gone astray, Mr. Hunter had seized the opportunity to catch the splinter again and was ready to pull it out.
I shook my head at him, fighting against a raising panic. “I know Tony is trying to distract me, because you think I won’t feel the pain then. But this won’t work. I will feel it. And it will hurt! Can’t you just give me one of those shots for dogs or cows to numb my leg?” I whined.
Tony lifted his brows dubiously. “For cows? Seriously, Summers? That would knock you out for days.”
“I’m fine with that.”
“And why do you think my distracting won’t work? I think I’m pretty good at it.”
I felt the doctor’s hand squeeze my calf tighter to hold me in place, but I had to answer Tony before I could tell the doctor to leave my leg alone. “No, you aren’t. In fact, you suck.”
“Really?” He reached for my hand and at the same time grabbed something from Mr. Hunter’s stuff that lay on the metal surface. “So what’s this?” Holding the small aerosol can just a couple of inches away from my skin, he must have triggered it, because in the next instant I felt a weird sensation of ice-cold spray on the back of my hand…and a stinging pain in my shin.
“Whoa, what are you doing?” I shouted at both of them in shock and pulled my hand and leg away.
Tony flashed a fabulous toothpaste-commercial grin at me while Mr. Hunter held out a piece of wood the size of a freaking toothpick between the tweezers.
“You—you tricked me!”
“And aren’t you glad we did?” Tony asked, the grin still perfectly in place.
I made a sullen face. But in the end, I was happy the splinter was out, whatever way they’d done it. Resting my forehead on my bent knee, I closed my eyes and exhaled a long breath.
A gentle hand squeezed my shoulder. I thought it was the doc, but a moment later, Tony said way close to my face, “Well done, Summers.”
I turned my head and found him sitting opposite me on the table.
“I didn’t know you were capable of hiding half a tree inside your leg,” he taunted with a wink.
The splinter was far longer than I’d expected. Of course it would hurt like heck. “Maybe I should keep it as a souvenir. To always remind me of the day that Anthony Mitchell called me a friend and not a plague.” I flashed a mocking smile, but a moment later I flinched back as Mr. Hunter had another go at my wound.
He cleaned it once more before putting a bandage on my leg. “It looks all right to me now, but I want you to change the dressing every evening and then come back to me in three days for another look.”
I nodded. The Hunters were almost neighbors. It shouldn’t be too hard to find my way back here. I shook his hand and told him thanks before Tony and I left his practice through a different door than we’d come in. We walked back to Tony’s car, but when he unlocked the doors, I hesitated to get in.
It was a walk of only five minutes back to my aunt’s house, and I could easily do that now with my leg neatly wrapped up in a bandage. I also didn’t want to be a burden on Tony any longer, even if the morning with him had been astoundingly nice—apart from the pain and all.
A thought crossed my mind. If we really were on the road to becoming friends, he’d probably insist on giving me a ride home anyway, no matter what I said. Just like back in the woods when he and Ryan hadn’t let me back out of getting my leg tended to. So this could be my ultimate test.
“What’s up?” Tony demanded, disrupting my thinking, already one foot inside the car and one hand on the steering wheel.
“Nothing. I think I can walk home from here. It’s not far really.”
Tony gaped at me for a second, then he turned his head to look down the road and back at me. His forehead creased. “You sure?”
Was I? “Umm, yes. It’s no big deal.”
“All right.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll see you Monday in AVE then.” He lowered into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and the engine came alive.
I waited for him to roll down the window and prompt me to get into the car so he could drive me home after all. But the window never moved. Tony steered away from the curb and the Toyota swiftly became a small red dot as it sped away from me.
“Okay…” I mumbled, staring after him. Obviously, the road to our friendship had ended in front of Hunter’s house.