Chapter 5
Chapter Five
QUINN
My heart is in my throat by the time I reach the clinic doors. I have to pause a moment outside to draw in a few breaths of mild spring air before I step over the threshold.
I’m a little embarrassed, I have to admit. I don’t like to show people this side of me – the part that’s still just a scared little boy – but certain things never fail to bring it to the surface. And this is one of them.
I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. After what happened with my dad, I totally get it. But just because I get it doesn’t mean I can do anything about it, and it definitely doesn’t mean I like it.
I almost said no to Florence. I almost said I didn’t need to come in, that it didn’t matter, that I’d take my chances.
It was right there on the tip of my tongue.
I’m not sure who exactly it was that made me change my mind, the no nonsense Florence who started the call, or the softer, more fun version I managed to coax out later.
Both versions of her made me feel like this was something I could do.
I mean, it’s a tiny bit of blood, for fuck’s sake.
I take ten steps before I stop again, just inside the entrance of the clinic.
It’s the smell of hospitals that always gets me.
There’s no other scent like it – like a blend of cleaning chemicals and sweat and overcooked food.
I don’t think they even have food in this little clinic and yet the smell is still just the same.
It clings to the back of my throat and sends a cold shiver racing across my skin.
But it doesn’t stop me. Not for long. Especially not when I spot Florence herself striding towards a door at the back of the clinic. She doesn’t spot me, and I use that to my advantage. I watch her all the way, taking in every part of her.
She looks different from how she did at the bar.
Her face is scrubbed clean, her long brown waves twisted up into a messy bun.
The hospital-blue tunic and trousers she’s wearing don’t look like they do much for anyone, honestly, but somehow she’s pulling the look off.
I think she’d probably look good in anything.
‘Can I help you?’ the older woman behind the desk says, jolting me out of my trance, and I flash a sheepish smile at her. If she saw me staring at Florence, she doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful for that.
‘I, um…’ I mumble, trying to remember what I was supposed to say here. ‘I’m here to see Florence.’ I’m not sure if this is a first name situation, but I don’t know her surname, so I don’t have a great deal of choice. ‘She’s expecting me.’
The woman gives me a long look, and I half expect her to accuse me of stalking Florence and throw me out of the place, but after a few moments, she smiles broadly, her face falling into well-worn smile lines.
‘Oh, yes,’ she says, her fingers flying across her keyboard.
She’s not looking at it, though. She’s looking at me.
It’s a little unnerving. ‘I’ve let her know you’re here,’ she says, with a smile, but …
how? She didn’t break eye contact even for a second.
She points me to a cluster of chairs and I plop myself down, dragging the tips of my fingers over the surface of the seat, feeling the bumps. It calms me a little. Just enough that when Florence appears in front of me, I’m able to stand to my full height and flash her my most confident smile.
She smiles back but it’s all business, those whisky-coloured eyes trained on me. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she says. ‘Please follow me to one of the bays.’
My heart lurches, dread speeding its rhythm. I mask it with a cocky smile. ‘I’d follow you anywhere.’
She doesn’t reply, but I think I see the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, and it buoys me a little.
When we reach the blood room, she ushers me into an empty bay, pulling the curtain shut around us.
My pulse is thundering in my ears, my chest tightening.
I can’t move, can’t think, can’t breathe.
It’s like I’m lying on the shore in a storm, waves of panic crashing over me one after the other.
But when her eyes settle back on mine, it feels like a lifeline.
She guides me wordlessly to the blue pleather chair and I sink into it, swallowing back a roll of nausea. I’m building this up to be more in my head, I know I am, but I can’t make it stop.
Not until Florence starts to talk.
At first, I almost don’t register that it’s happening. I can’t. The roar of my pulse is too loud to hear much of anything else. But then I hear her voice, clear and bright through the cacophony. It soothes me a little. Just enough.
‘Hey,’ she says evenly, studying my information. ‘Your blood type’s O negative, same as mine.’ She smiles at me, and it goes someway to distracting me from the clatter of my heartbeat. ‘We’re universal donors,’ she mutters, gathering supplies. ‘Always in demand.’
Usually I’d make a joke at that. A flirty comment, at least. But in my current state it’s all I can do to smile weakly back at her.
‘Ok,’ she says, standing just beside me. ‘Let’s do this. Left or right?’
‘Right,’ I mumble, and then I feel soft fingers at my wrist. They skim the edge of my shirt cuff, deftly unbuttoning it and beginning to roll it up with a precision that blows my mind.
It’s almost hypnotic, the steady way she does it.
Now and then I feel the brush of her knuckles on my skin and that sends entirely different senses ricocheting through me.
By the time my sleeve is all the way up, my anxiety has already dropped a notch, and it falls further with every touch of her fingers, every softly crooned question.
‘Eyes open or closed?’
I clamp them shut. ‘Closed.’
I hear the quiet click of the tourniquet buckle, then, ‘Is this ok?’
‘Yes.’
‘Count up, count down, or neither?’
‘Count down.’
‘Ok.’ There’s a gentle touch in the crook of my elbow, cool and fleeting.
‘Three … two…’
‘One,’ I finish, but when I feel nothing and open my eyes, I can see in my periphery that the needle is already in. My eyes snap to hers and I find her perching on her chair, looking awfully pleased with herself. One hand effortlessly swaps out the vials while the other holds the needle steady.
‘Told you I was good,’ she says, those perfect pink lips curled into a smile, and it stirs up another sort of noise in my brain, something just about loud enough to drown out the worst of the fear.
‘I think I have a competence kink,’ I say, my voice still ever so slightly wobbly.
She looks at me sideways as she clicks the last vial into place. ‘From what I hear,’ she says, ‘you have an everything kink.’
I fake a cheeky smile, but behind it my heart sinks. I’m not surprised she thinks I’m a fuckboy. It’s not an unfair assumption. I came into adulthood with a lot of feelings and absolutely no clue how to deal with them.
My example growing up was a dad who slept around, who treated women like shit, and all I knew was that I didn’t want to be like that. So maybe I went too far the other way. Maybe I thought every girl who showed interest in me was the love of my life. That’s got to be better, right?
Ok, so sometimes it happened that I became the one being treated like shit, but I could deal with that.
After all, I was used to it.
But Florence is something else entirely. She’s dangerous in a different kind of way. And she’s the first person who’s had this effect on me since Robyn and I separated, so if I’m thinking rationally, it’s probably a good thing she thinks I’m a player. Even better if she thinks I’m an idiot, too.
Even if it makes me feel like there’s something on fire in my guts.
So, as she expertly slides the needle out of my arm, I lean into it.
‘Was that good for you?’ I ask, schooling my expression into a cocky grin, even though really I want to say something else. Something quiet and vulnerable. Something grateful.
And maybe my face betrays me, or maybe it’s that she has Bram’s mind-reading superpower, because there’s nothing but compassion in her eyes when she turns back to me.
‘You’re welcome,’ she says quietly, sticking a ball of cotton to my arm with a length of medical tape. And then she carefully rolls my shirt sleeve back down over it, and I swear to God, her small act of tenderness makes a lump form in my throat.
I’ve been loved, don’t get me wrong. The guys at the bar have loved me like crazy, far more than I probably deserve. They’ve given me friendship and opportunities and understanding and their endless patience. But I think this might be the first time anyone’s taken care of me.
It’s only the second time we’ve met and I’m already giving Florence pieces of myself.
Pieces I’m not sure I can afford to lose.
I don’t know what scares me more: blood or the very real possibility of having my heart obliterated.
It’s not lost on me that she represents both.
I mean really, a vampire phlebotomist? It feels like some kind of cosmic joke.
Maybe it’s my penance. All my past indiscretions back to taunt me.
‘Ok,’ Florence says, buttoning the cuff of my shirt with a grin that makes something turn over in my chest. ‘You’re done.’ And then, as she pulls her hand away, there’s a moment when her fingertips skim across my skin and it sends a jolt of attraction ricocheting through my body.
Yep, I’m definitely atoning for something.