Chapter 4 #2
But Priya was too busy here, demanding to read our tea leaves.
She’d peer into your empty cup with the intensity of someone decoding nuclear launch codes, then announce stupid things like, “I’m getting strong vibes about someone wearing blue,” or, “Beware of Tuesdays.” It drove us all mental, but try telling Priya that and she’d just give you that look and mutter something in Hindi that definitely wasn’t complimentary.
I reached the last few steps and saw that nobody else was there yet.
Apart from Kit.
Fuck.
No!
Not alone with Kit!
Anything but that!
My foot caught the edge of the final step, my trainer snagging, and suddenly—
The world tilted sideways, and then I was kissing the concrete floor.
Pain exploded across my face like someone had detonated a small bomb behind my nose. Stars burst across my vision, brilliant white flashes that made me squeeze my eyes shut.
My palms stung where they’d scraped against the rough surface, trying and failing to break my fall.
But I had bigger issues. Something warm and wet was trickling down from my nose, dripping steadily onto the concrete floor below. I touched my face tentatively and my fingers came away crimson.
Blood. Quite a lot of it, actually.
Brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant.
I scrambled to push myself up. The world was a blur of fairy lights and shadow in my daze. My cheek throbbed, but I forced myself upright anyway, brushing off my hoodie with hands that shook slightly.
More drops splattered onto the floor at my feet, bright red against the grey concrete.
Heavy footsteps thundered across the basement floor, and suddenly Kit was there, his hands hovering near my shoulders like he wanted to grab me but didn’t quite dare.
“I’m fine!” I announced quickly, stumbling away from him, palms raised. “Completely fine!”
My voice came out thick and nasal, which rather undermined my argument. Panic crawled up my throat. I’d never had a nosebleed before. Was this normal? Was I supposed to be bleeding this much? What if I’d broken something important?
“You’re not fine.”
Kit’s voice was harsher than usual, that Scottish accent more pronounced. Before I could protest further, he shrugged out of his grey cardigan and grabbed the hem of his bright white T-shirt, pulling it over his head in one fluid motion.
I’m not sure which stunned me more—the shirt being pressed firmly against my nose, or Kit’s naked torso suddenly filling my field of vision.
The T-shirt was soft and warm. For some crazy reason, I had a mad urge to inhale its scent, and was rewarded by drowning myself in blood.
The cotton shifted and there they were—broad shoulders, defined abs under a generous smattering of dark chest hair, scars mapping a history I had no business staring at.
I blushed furiously as he guided me towards one of the armchairs, one large hand on my elbow. At least my face was hidden under the shirt.
“This is really not necessary,” I mumbled through the makeshift compress.
“Tilt your head down and pinch your nose,” Kit ordered, settling onto his knees in front of me. “Above the nostrils, not the bridge.”
When I hesitated, he reached up and positioned my fingers correctly, his hands covering mine.
“Your hands are bleeding,” he said quietly. Then hollered in the direction of the stairs, “Priya, we need the first-aid kit!”
Oh, how is this my life?
It was awkward between me and Kit at the best of times.
My fault, not his. He got on well with everyone else, was perfectly natural and chatty towards them.
But with us, it was different. It had been from my very first day here, when Kit came into Seb’s office to introduce himself.
I’d forced my gaze up from the carpet, prepared to mumble a quick hello to him.
But Kit stared at me like I’d just fried his brain—mouth slightly open, completely frozen.
When I’d finally whispered, “Hello,” he’d blinked rapidly before replying, “Yeah. Hi. I’m—yes. Kit.”
Then that first week, he’d appeared in my doorway one afternoon holding a mug of tea—Earl Grey, somehow he’d known—and we’d just stared at each other in silence until he mumbled, “Tea,” and backed away like I was going to bite him. I’d managed to whisper, “Thank you,” to his retreating form.
But that was Kit. Hasty retreats, like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
Kit had never been unkind to me, quite the opposite.
Kit encouraged everyone (mainly Rory) to be nice to me, defended me during team meetings, took my side in any argument.
He’d often leap out of his armchair to give me his seat when I wandered into the basement.
Collected me from my lair—the name the others had quickly adopted for my tiny cupboard office back when I’d just started—if I was running late.
But as far as forming any sort of friendship went? Not a chance.
It was odd glances and strained silences, like being caught in a feedback loop, all static and white noise where normal conversation should be.
It was Kit going completely still whenever I entered a room.
It was me stammering through basic conversations because I couldn’t work out why he treated me differently.
The closest we ever came to bonding was when I helped him in the kitchen on Christmas Eve—the very night he ended up stabbing the dining table with that rather sharp knife mid-dinner…
But things had gone back to normal after that. Well, until Kit discovered he had a Greywatch chip embedded in his brain, followed shortly after by the discovery that Kit and Rory’s dead father was actually still alive and kicking. Kit had promptly disappeared for two entire weeks.
When he returned, he seemed pretty much his old self.
Until Wren and I caught him pissing behind some wheelie bins one evening. Things got even more awkward after that. It was super embarrassing, to be fair.
“Felix!” Priya gasped as she bounced down the stairs, tossing Kit a small green bag. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” I said. “Just a tiny… stumble!”
“Did the situation really require you to whip your shirt off, Action Man?” Priya said, clearly holding back laughter.
“You could have shouted up for a towel. At least put this back on. Some of us don’t want to ogle your six-pack.
” She tossed him his discarded cardigan—the grey one that I figured was his favourite.
The one that always looked particularly soft, not that I’d ever touched any of them.
Kit ignored her jibing, his attention fixed on me with an intensity that made my stomach perform several somersaults. His shirtlessness certainly wasn’t helping—I had to try very hard not to stare at the way the fairy lights cast shadows across his skin.
“The bleeding’s stopped now,” I said quickly, checking the shirt. It was true—I patted the shirt to my nose, and it came back still white. “Really, I can just—”
I tried to push myself up from the armchair, but Kit’s hand landed on my shoulder, gentle but immovable.
“Please, Felix. Let me help you,” he said quietly.
There was something in his voice I couldn’t identify. Not pity, exactly.
I glanced down at my palms. A few drops of blood welled up from the scrapes. It hurt like a bitch, but it was nothing remotely serious. The kind of thing you’d get from falling off a bike as a kid.
What I should have said: “I’ve had paper cuts worse than this.”
What I found myself saying: “Okay.”
Kit’s hand closed around my forearm before I could change my mind. His grip was firm but careful, like he was handling a particularly skittish animal that might bolt at any moment.
Which, to be fair, wasn’t entirely inaccurate.
“Stay,” he said, and did I imagine the way his lips quirked into a half smile?
He pulled an alcohol wipe from the first-aid kit, tearing it open with his teeth. The bloody T-shirt disappeared from my lap as he bundled it aside, and then he reached for my hand.
My brain short-circuited. Which was ridiculous, considering it was just Kit cleaning a scrape. But then again, I wasn’t exactly used to people touching me.
His fingers were warm and calloused, his hands dwarfing mine completely. They were the kind of hands that could probably snap my wrist without much effort but held me like I was made of tissue paper.
He dabbed at the scrapes with the alcohol wipe, each touch so gentle I barely felt the sting. His breathing had gone oddly heavy, like cleaning a few drops of blood was somehow taxing work.
“This might sting a wee bit,” he murmured, though he’d already finished with the worst of it.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. Priya had decided to disappear and leave us to it—gee, thanks, Priya—so the basement was silent except for the sound of Kit’s breathing and the distant rumble of London traffic overhead.
He pulled out a plaster—one of those ridiculously large ones that was completely unnecessary for what amounted to a graze. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
Almost.
Because Kit was running his thumb across my palm in slow, deliberate strokes that surely had absolutely nothing to do with applying a bandage. His touch spread wider than the tiny scratch, fingertips tracing patterns across my skin.
My breath caught.
I looked up, meaning to make some joke about battlefield medicine being overkill for a stumble, but the words died in my throat.
Kit’s eyes fixed on mine, and I couldn’t look away. Dark grey, almost storm-coloured, with flecks of silver that made you want to stare more and more at them. A tiny scar cut through his left eyebrow—pale against his skin, barely noticeable unless you were this close.
“You’ve got…” He trailed off, his hand rising towards my face.
I held perfectly still as his fingertips brushed against my cheek, just below my eye. The touch was feather-light—barely there, really—but the intensity of it had my heart thumping.
“Dried blood,” he finished quietly.