Jacked - The Complete Series Box Set (A Lumberjack Neighbor Romance)

by Claire Adams

  I walk in and he closes the door behind us.

  “What first aid stuff do you have around…” I start, but am unable to finish.

  Rather than simply lifting the pant leg or opening it where it’s already torn, Ian went for the much less expected option of simply dropping his pants altogether.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks and tries to angle his upper leg under the sink faucet, but it doesn’t quite bend that way.

  “Do you have rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s just up in that cabinet. There should be bandages and antibiotic cream in there, too. Would you mind grabbing it while I try to get myself cleaned off here?”

  Most of his bleeding stopped a while ago, but he is a hell of a mess.

  I nod and try not to gaze too long at the bulge of his anatomy pressing against the fabric of his boxers.

  After rummaging through the cabinet for a minute, I manage to get everything I need: hydrogen peroxide, bandages, antibiotic cream, cotton balls, cotton swabs, and a pair of latex gloves. When I turn back around, Ian’s managed, somehow, to get his upper leg under the sink faucet and is carefully rinsing off the area around the wound.

  I set everything on what’s left of the open counter space.

  “You know,” he says, “I think I can probably get this on my own.”

  As unappealing as tending a wound generally is, I protest, “Oh, quit being such a baby.”

  “I’m not,” he says. “I’m telling you that I can take care of it. That’s kind of the opposite thing…”

  He trails off, because not only am I ignoring him, I’m also holding a cotton ball over the mouth of the hydrogen peroxide bottle and tipping it just enough to get the cotton wet.

  I hand him the cotton ball and tell him, “If you think you got this by yourself, go for it.”

  As soon as the cool wetness of the hydrogen peroxide touches his fingers, Ian shudders.

  “All right,” he says. “Thanks. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  I walk out of the bathroom and take a seat on the nearest piece of furniture, what looks like an antique chair or a reproduction of an antique chair. Either way, I’m really uncomfortable even touching the thing, much less sitting in it, so I quickly get back up and knock on the door.

  “You about done in there?” I ask.

  “Would you mind coming back in here for a minute?” he asks.

  I open the door and find him sitting on the counter, the cotton ball about six inches above the wound and just far enough off to the side that, when it drips, it doesn’t drip onto his wound.

  I sigh. “You’re such a baby,” I tell him, and before he even asks, I put on the gloves, take the cotton ball from his hand and start cleaning the area around the wound.

  “I hate to be a bother,” he says, “but would you mind getting the cut itself? I hate that peroxide stuff.”

  “You’d think, being a skater, you’d be used to it,” I tell him, drying my hands and grabbing the bottle.

  “I think I had to have it so many times that it built into a phobia,” he says. “I can get through it and everything, but if I’m going to do it myself, we’re probably going to be here for a while.”

  I take a look at the cut. Now that the area around it is clean, the thing doesn’t look so bad.

  Ian’s eyes are on the lid of the bottle as I’m unscrewing it, and then on the space where the lid was once I’ve removed it.

  “Don’t you need one of those cotton balls?” he asks.

  I give him a sideward glance. “You know, for someone who’s sat through what I can only imagine must have been a few days’ worth of tattoos, I’d really think you’d have developed a pair of balls somewhere along the way,” and I dump a little hydrogen peroxide straight into the wound, and I laugh a little as Ian’s mouth gapes and his hands are just above his leg as he wants to try something to take the sting away, but doesn’t want to contaminate the wound and end up having me do that again.

  “Totally different thing,” he says. “Tats can hurt and everything, but they’re not dripping poison into open wounds.”

  “It’s not poison,” I tell him. “I wouldn’t drink it, but…” I pour a little more over the wound, and Ian has his eyes closed and he’s banging the back of his head against the wall.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying this maybe just a bit too much.

  “You know,” I tell him, “with as much blood as you left on the ground, I was expecting something a lot deeper.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “I bleed a lot when my heart is racing.”

  I look up at him with a smirk. “You’re really hung up on dropping in, aren’t you?” I ask.

  “It’s kind of the only thing standing between me and that fat sponsorship they’re offering the winner of the Midwest Comp.,” he says. “As much as I know my dad would love for me to just quit boarding and be a lawyer like I’m supposed to, I’d really hate to actually end up working a regular job.”

  “Is that all it is?” I ask. “You don’t want to end up in a 9-to-5?”

  “I wouldn’t say that’s all it is,” he answers, “but you’ve got to admit that’s some pretty strong motivation right there.”

  “I guess,” I tell him. “I always thought it was more important to actively do something you love rather than just trying to avoid the stuff you think might bore you.”

  “I love to skate,” he says. “That’s kind of the point. I’m always going to love to skate, but the question is, how far can I take it? I’ve spent a lot of time getting good, trying things I haven’t seen other guys try and all that. I’d still skate if there was never any money on the line, but I would like to be able to move out of here and not end up on the street as a result.”

  “I know you’re not going to like this, but there’s some dirt and what looks like a couple small bits of gravel in your cut, and I’m going to have to get those out of there before we can bandage it,” I say.

  “Maybe we should go to a hospital,” he says.

  I look at his face and then back down at his leg. The cut really isn’t all that bad. He’s not going to need any stitches. There’s no real reason to go to a hospital, unless he thinks they’re going to shoot him up with something to take his mind off of the pain.

  “If you think you need to go to the hospital, we can get you to the hospital,” I tell him. “Really, though, it’s just a matter of cleaning it out and dressing it. There’s not a whole lot more anyone’s going to be able to do about it. It’s a fairly long cut, but it’s not deep at all.”

  “Okay,” he says, clenching his fists, teeth, and I assume just about everything else on his body that can be clenched. “Just do it.”

  I savor the sight of him preparing for some terrible affliction to land a few seconds, and then I bend down to get a better look at what I’m dealing with.

  “I’m going to try to get the gravel with a cotton swab,” I tell him. “This is going to take just a second. I’ll try to be quick.”

  He doesn’t answer in the normal sense; he just grunts and nods his head.

  I dip a clean cotton swab into the hydrogen peroxide and set about cleaning the wound. It takes a minute to get every little piece of gravel out, but before long, the wound is cleaned of foreign matter.

  “Thank you,” he says when I remove the cotton swab and don’t put it back in his cut.

  “Oh, we’re not quite done yet,” I tell him, and before he has another chance to clench, I irrigate the wound with a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide.

  “Ah, fuck!” he grunts and his hands grip the side of the counter.

  From there, I dry the wound with a cotton ball, apply the antibiotic ointment, and place a large bandage over the cut.

  He’s still waiting for the final shoe to drop out of the sky and land hard on his leg, but I’m all done.

  I pat the wound lightly with my hand just to be a jerk and Ian grabs my wrist. He grabs my wrist, but he doesn
’t remove my hand from his leg, he just moves it away from the bandage.

  There’s a rush of something I hardly have time to process through my body and his dark eyes are intent on mine, his eyes dilated.

  “You know,” he says, “I really appreciate you trying to help at the park and getting me cleaned up here.”

  “It’s not a problem,” I stammer.

  He’s leaning forward a little as he sits there, his head cocked a little to one side, and we just stare at each other for a little while.

  Finally, I pull away from him, shaking my head and chuckling. “Well, if you wanted to pick a way to get me to stop messing with your cut, you did a pretty good job,” I tell him.

  “What cut?” he asks and pulls me back toward him.

  “The cut on your leg,” I tell him, knowing full well he hasn’t actually forgotten about it.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  This came on rather unexpectedly, and I haven’t even had time to really sift through everything and decide how I feel about Ian. I know exactly how I’m feeling now—the weakness in my knees is making it particularly difficult to forget—but do I really want to do this?

  He brushes a strand of hair out of my face, his fingers lingering as he secures the strand behind my ear.

  The things I was really worried about with Ian, they’ve turned out not to be actual problems. He’s cocky and a bit brash for my taste, but as his hand comes to rest on my shoulder, I feel myself naturally leaning in toward him.

  We’re both watching one another for signs of retreat, but the space between us continues to narrow. My eyes begin to close, and I can almost feel Ian’s lips on mine when there’s a loud crash from somewhere outside the room and a man is yelling, “Ian! Get your skateboard and the rest of your peasant shit out of my living room!”

  My eyes are open now. Ian’s leaning his head back against the wall.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Mind if I…?”

  I move out of his way and he hops down from the counter. He quickly puts his pants back on, though they’re wet with his blood, and he walks to the bathroom door.

  “Wait in here for a minute,” he says. “I really don’t want to have a conversation explaining what we’re doing in here with my dad right now. If I play this right, I think I can get us both out of here in five minutes or less. You up for it?”

  “Sure,” I answer, having no idea what he’s planning.

  He walks out of the room and closes the door behind him. Just to be on the safe side, I lock the door.

  While I’m waiting for a reasonable amount of time before I emerge from the bathroom, I take a minute to clean everything up, taking off my gloves and disposing of them very last. By the time I’m done, the bathroom doesn’t show any signs of what happened, other than a few drying blood drops on the floor that I’m not going to clean without gloves.

  Blood freaks me right out.

  When a minute or so has passed, I come out of the bathroom to find Ian and his father, a tall, tan man with intense features and what looks like a permanent scowl, coming into the living room just off the bathroom.

  “You’re going to clean all this up, right?” Ian’s dad asks.

  “Yeah,” Ian says. “I was just about to when you came in yelling.”

  “Well, worry about that in a minute,” Ian’s dad says. “There’s some stuff in the car I’d like you to bring in for me.”

  Until now, Ian and his father have been looking at each other, either unaware or unaffected by my presence, but as I go to sit down on the same antique chair I sat in earlier, as if by instinct, Ian and his father both turn toward me.

  “Don’t sit in that,” Ian’s father says. “That chair is over two hundred years old.”

  My legs straighten and lock, saving the chair from my apparently destructive touch.

  “Dad, this is Mia,” Ian says. “She’s my partner for our final project in psychology.”

  “Charmed,” Ian’s dad says, giving me the briefest of glances before looking back at his son. “If you could grab the stuff from the trunk and the back seat, I’d really appreciate it—and go around the back so you don’t get blood all over my carpet,” Mr. Zavala says to Ian, all but shooing him out of the house. As soon as Ian’s out the door, his dad turns to me and asks, “The two of you are working on some kind of project, huh?”

  All I can get out is the “Y—” before Mr. Zavala is talking again.

  “I’m not stupid,” he says. “I know the kind of people Ian likes to hang out with and you’d fit right in.”

  I’m not sure why he seems to be mad at me.

  “We were assigned as partners for—” I start again, but am again, interrupted.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Zavala says. “You and Ian were assigned as partners for your psychology class, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any sign of books or notes. What kind of a project is it: human sexuality?”

  “That’s not what—” I start.

  “It doesn’t really matter whether the two of you are actually working on a project for school or not,” Mr. Zavala interrupts. “What matters is that people like you are sucking my son into that ridiculous life of skateboarding and you need to stay away from him. He’s a bright kid with a bright future as long as he gives up the stupider hobbies of his past, and I’m not going to have some barely legal Jezebel coming in here and helping Ian destroy his future.”

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  The guy came off as a jerk the moment I laid eyes on him, but I wasn’t actually expecting him to talk to me like that.

  Mr. Zavala seems frustrated by my silence just as much as he did by my voice, and he shakes his head, saying, “I’ll never understand what it is about people like you and him that makes you think that you can just go through life like it’s some kind of a big game.”

  “I don’t think it’s a game at all,” I tell him. “I don’t know what kind of person you think I am, but—”

  “We can stand here going back and forth until the cows come home,” Mr. Zavala interrupts. “I think you’ll find that you’ll get the same result and save a lot of time if you just go.”

  What is this guy’s problem? Yeah, I look like a punk/skater chick because, well, I am a punk/skater chick, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have goals or priorities. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m out to stop his son from being successful.

  I open my mouth to speak, but before I can give voice to breath, Mr. Zavala says, “One of these days, Ian’s going to grow up, and if he doesn’t get his act together, he’s going to be pretty disappointed at what he finds around him. I’m sure you’re a nice girl, but he’s not for you, so I think it’s best if you just go.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m shocked and hurt as much as I am angry and offended, and there are no words I can conjure to adequately respond in any other way than by simply doing what he told me to do and walking out the front door.

  Behind me, I can hear the sliding door open and Ian’s calling after me, asking where I’m going, but I don’t stop. I just shut the door behind me.

  Chapter Eight

  The Silver Tongue

  Ian

  It’s been about a week since Mia up and left my house without a word and I haven’t yet been able to pry an explanation out of her.

  At least I’m in the one place where she can’t ignore me entirely.

  Class starts and I’m writing in my notebook, still trying to figure out some way to get Mia and me back to where we were before my loudmouthed father had to crash the party. I tear the page out, fold it once, twice, and I use it to tap Mia on the shoulder.

  She turns her head and sees the paper. Rolling her eyes, she whispers, “Really?”

  I nod.

  She sighs and takes the note, unfolding it.

  I wrote, “We should get together again, soon.”

  The professor’s discussing something that would probably make a lot more sense if I had paid attention at the beginning, so I just give up and tune o
ut entirely.

  I still haven’t been able to get past my vert problem and I’m starting to lose hope.

  It’s the stupidest thing, having the sponsorship hang on how good you do in three different categories. Not everyone does vert. Not everyone does street. The best trick competition seems fair enough, as everyone does that shit with their friends for fun anyway, but I never wanted to be a vert skater.

  This is bullshit.

  Sadly, none of those arguments have changed anything yet.

  Mia passes me back the folded piece of paper and I open it up.

  She wrote, “You mean for our project? We should probably get going on those interviews.”

  I don’t know if she can hear me scoff, but if I had to guess…

  I write, “I don’t mean for the project. We should hang out, get to know each other. You look like you could use some fun.”

  She turns before I can tap her on the shoulder and takes the note.

  I can actually see the skin of her neck turn red as she reads the note, and I can’t remember hearing someone write so loudly. I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to write loudly.

  About 15 seconds later, she’s holding the note behind her head before dropping it on my desk.

  I have to cover my mouth as I chuckle at how easily I can irritate her.

  Her new addition to the passed note reads, “I just love how you assume I never have any fun, like I’m some sort of spinster freak who’s afraid of a good time.”

  This is too easy.

  I write, “So you’re up for a night out, then?” and pass it up to her.

  After a hasty rustling of paper, Mia groans loudly enough for the professor to stop mid-sentence to look at her.

  “Sorry,” Mia says. “Just clearing my throat.”

  The professor goes on talking whatever voodoo she’s talking, and Mia hunches forward to respond.

  She’s so much fun to torment.

  Mia tosses the note over her shoulder, now crumbled into a ball, and it bounces off my desk before going off onto the floor.

  I lean over, pick it up, open it, and read it.

  She just wrote, “Does this approach ever work?”