Chapter Nine – Kayla #3
His tall frame is leaning over me, and even though I’m sitting on top of a counter, I feel… boxed in, but not in a bad way. And the way those fingers touch my face, so delicately, makes part of me come alive.
“Talk to me,” he begs me. “Tell me what I can do for you. I want to help you. I want—”
Someone coughs near the bathroom door, and Hayden jerks himself away from me as we both turn to look at Bradford, who comes bearing a small kit in his hands. Though the über alpha’s gaze flicks between us, he doesn’t say a word as he steps closer and sets the kit on the counter near me.
What would Hayden have said if Bradford hadn’t interrupted and made his presence known? And why the heck does he want to help me so badly? It doesn’t make sense. I don’t get it.
Bradford opens the kit and pulls a few things out. Rubbing alcohol and bandages. “The wounds might be easier to clean off if…” He keeps his dark gaze averted from me. “…if you take your pants off.”
Taking my pants is absolutely not something I want to do here, especially in front of both him and Hayden. It’s not like I think they’d be overcome with lust or anything. It’s more that I’m just not comfortable bearing my body to anybody.
I mean, look at me. My body isn’t anything to flaunt. Starving myself has given me a figure not fit of an omega. I lack a lot of the curves most omegas have, the ones that nature deemed us so worthy of.
Bradford finally looks at me when he adds, “I can find you something to wear until your new clothes come. I’m sure I have something from my childhood that would fit you.”
His childhood? Why would he have clothes from his childhood here? Unless… this is the house he grew up in. I don’t know why, but that possibility never occurred to me before.
Hayden is slow to say, “He’s right. We could cut them more, if you’d rather keep them on. Either way, it’s up to you, but we should get everything fixed up.” He leans back and glances downward, at the floor, and I assume that means blood is dripping from me and landing on the floor here, too.
I’m just a mess, aren’t I?
“Fine,” I whisper. My pants have a button and a zipper on them. They’re very similar to leggings, only they’re made of a different material. They’re versatile, I could wear them for anything, but it seems like they’ve met their ultimate end today, one way or another.
I shimmy out of my pants while staying seated on the edge of the counter.
It’s not the easiest thing, and I wince when I tug them down over the bleeding injuries on my legs.
Bradford tries not to watch, while Hayden watches unabashedly, ready to leap in and help me undress, should I give him the word.
Eventually, I get them off, and Hayden takes them, carefully folds them up, and places them beside me on the counter. It’s a good thing this vanity is on the bigger side.
“Might be better to clean her off over the tub,” Bradford says as he handles the rubbing alcohol.
I’m about to slide off that counter, but Hayden doesn’t give me the chance.
He once again scoops me up and carries me as if I weigh nothing, depositing me on the edge of the tub, with my legs hanging inside it.
Even though I’m in my underwear, he is a gentleman.
His gaze doesn’t linger anywhere it shouldn’t, nor do his hands.
Bradford offers him the alcohol with a curt, “Here.” The moment Hayden takes the bottle, he snatches his hand away and pulls off one of the towels hanging on the rack.
Hayden sits beside me on the edge of the tub, straddling it with one food inside and one foot out of it, facing me. “Are you ready? It’s probably going to hurt. That one there looks pretty deep.”
I know exactly which one he’s talking about. It’s the one closest to my knee, the one that’s bleeding the most. My whole body is buzzing with pain and exhaustion, so what’s a little more? I give him a nod, and then I watch as he uncaps the bottle and pours some on the wound.
If I say it stings, I’d be a liar. It’s worse than that.
It’s biting, acidic, the kind of thing that might have made me cry out if I wasn’t in front of these two men.
As it is, I manage to keep myself quiet by biting my bottom lip and clenching my hands together to give my mind something else to focus on as the wounds burn and the cold liquid falls down my legs, hits the tub, and travels to the drain.
Mingling with my blood, the stuff that swirls around the drain is a pinkish hue. I keep my eyes averted, glued to that drain, as Hayden finishes with the alcohol.
“This one might need stitches or sutures,” he remarks, talking about the deepest one near my knee.
This next part must be to Bradford: “Got anything like that in there?” Bradford must’ve set the towel on the tub near him, because the next thing he does is lightly dab away the excess alcohol around the wounds, drying my legs in the process.
Searching through the kit, Bradford comes back with a pack of butterfly sutures. Hayden goes to take them from him, but Bradford drops them before they make contact, making Hayden pick them up off the floor.
I don’t watch as Hayden works. It’s like everyone in the bathroom is collectively holding their breath.
He puts the butterfly sutures on the deepest wound near my knee, and then regular bandages on the others.
Keeping the skin together should help the blood clot and the wounds close.
All in all, Hayden seems pretty good at stuff like this, almost like he’s patched someone up before.
Maybe himself. If he’s a groundskeeper, he probably hurts himself on the job all the time.
“There,” he says once my legs are all patched up. “Should be good now. Just have to be mindful of the one near your knee for a few days, I’d say. No overexertion.” The way he talks makes it sound like he knows what he’s talking about, like he’s a doctor or something.
He glances over his shoulder at Bradford, who stands near the vanity. While Hayden was busy with my legs, he cleaned up the blood that had dribbled onto the floor while I was sitting over there earlier, and then he hung back and watched. “You said you’d find something for her to wear?”
The über alpha almost appears as if he’s in a trance. When Hayden speaks to him, he snaps out of it and says, “Right. I’ll be right back.” He leaves the bathroom.
“This is so embarrassing,” I whisper once he’s gone.
Hayden still sits next to me on the edge of the tub, and the expression he wears is the opposite of judgement. His voice is soft when he says, “Don’t be embarrassed. These things happen. It was just an accident.”
If I would have done something like this at home, Jeremy would be pissed.
He’d rage, shout, throw things around, and if I made the mistake of trying to calm him down before he was ready…
things wouldn’t be pretty for me. So, yeah, my first reaction isn’t to quietly accept the accident.
It’s to blame myself and wish I could rewind time and change things.
I look at my lap, at my bare legs. I hate how small I feel next to Hayden. Put him side by side with my brother, and Hayden would make my brother look small, too. He has to be ninety-ninth percentile when it comes to betas.
“I can’t help it,” I whisper. “I feel like an idiot.”
“Don’t. Bradford didn’t seem too upset. It’s just a glass. Everything is fine.” He sighs. “Seriously, though, why did you skip lunch?”
I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t tell him that I felt some certain omega instincts start to poke through and that those instincts overwhelmed me in the worst way possible. What can I tell him, though? What can I say that’ll get him to drop it without oversharing personal details?
When I don’t answer, Hayden quietly asks, “How often do you skip meals like that?”
My shoulders rise and fall once. “I don’t know. I just… I just do. Sometimes I forget, and sometimes… I do it on purpose.” Crap. I shouldn’t have said that last part. I know it the moment the words leave me, because Hayden straightens out beside me and appears even bigger.
Like he’s an alpha.
But, I suppose everyone would look like an alpha when placed next to me.
“Why would you starve yourself on purpose?” He sounds almost pained. “That’s not good. You have to know that. By starving yourself, you’re slowly killing yourself. Why would you want that?”
Again, I shrug. “Is slowly killing myself a bad thing? Sometimes it feels like there’s not much to live for.” I don’t know why I say it. I shouldn’t. It’s way too heavy, too raw, to share with a stranger.
It’s weird. Hayden doesn’t feel like a stranger. It’s like something inside of me recognizes something in him. I fought it the first moment I met him, but each consecutive time, that instinct to resist has grown weaker and weaker until the walls cracked.
Hayden reaches for one of my hands, setting his atop mine.
His skin is warm on mine, and the immediate contact causes my heart to skip a beat.
I feel like I felt earlier, when I first smelled Bradford in his office, like I want more.
Like I want things I shouldn’t. It’s instinctual, primal, nothing at all like I’ve ever experienced before.
What is this? Why can’t I shake this feeling? I shouldn’t have enough energy in me to feel any of these things. That’s what skipping lunch was supposed to help fix.
“I’m sorry,” Hayden whispers as his hand keeps squeezing mine. “No one should feel like that. Hearing you say it… you might think I’m crazy, but it really bothers me. I don’t want you to slowly kill yourself.”
For some stupid reason, I believe him. I believe every word he says. He’s earnest, and what shocks me the most is that I trust him not to feed me lies.
“Why would you care?” I ask in a whisper.