Page 15 of Poetry On Ice
It grows louder and louder. Persistence gives way to insistence. Bold and rude. Eventually, I lose my shit, throw my covers off, and fly out of bed, angrily shoving my legs into the sweats I was wearing before I went to sleep and pulling them up as I make my way to the door. I yank it open as hard as I can.
The sight of Ant Decker on my threshold hits me like a splash of cold water to the face. An icy jolt. A shock thatmakes me draw a sharp breath without really intending to do so.
He’s wearing all black. Black pants that hug his waist and flare out. A black top that’s so tight it somehow manages to make him look leaner and more ripped at the same time. The look is a lot, but it’s not the main thing I notice. His teeth are stained red and a stream of blood runs from his bottom lip and gets lost in his beard.
“Are you going to let me in or what?” he asks as if this is all normal and I’m the problem.
“Uh,” I say, stepping out of his way simply because I’m unsure what else to do. I glance down the hallway, looking for some explanation, only to find it completely deserted. At a loss, I close the door and follow him into my room. I find him in the bathroom, spitting blood into the sink. “What the hell happened to you?”
He’s turned on all the lights and the sudden shift from dark to light has my retinas struggling to adjust.
“What do you think happened, Einstein?”
I’m lagging from the shock of being woken and find myself unsure whether it’s a rhetorical question or not, so to be on the safe side, I say, “It looks like you got your ass kicked. Looks like you took a punch to the face. One here”—I point to his lip and then to the mauve semi-circle under one eye—“and one here.” I can tellhe’s unimpressed with my powers of deduction by the way he blinks at me. Slow and infinitely aggrieved, irises fluttering in the upper quadrant of his eye sockets before he closes them.
“Well?” he demands. “What are you waiting for? Glue me the fuck up.”
He leans back against the basin, half sitting to give me better access to his face, acting like this is something that happens every day. He’s a hell of an actor. His performance is so convincing that I find myself getting my first-aid kit out and rummaging around for the spray I used on Lewis earlier.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asks.
As a matter of fact, I’m not. I usually hand out basic supplies to people who need them, and for more complicated matters, I call my mom and ask her what she thinks I should do. Almost without fail, her advice is that I send the wounded straight to the ER on account of my complete lack of medical training.
I glance down at my watch. It’s after two in the morning. If it was someone else who’d been hurt, someone like Bodie or Luddy, I’d definitely put in a call. My mom wouldn’t mind, but I’m sure as shit not going to wake her for this asshole.
“Of course I do,” I say, uncapping the spray and aiming it at Decker’s mouth.
“Are yousure, sure ’cause that saysfor external use only?”
“Just shut your mouth and it will be external.”
He presses his lips together tightly, wincing slightly when he does it. The bottom one is swollen, puffy and thicker on the left side than on the right. His top lip rests on it, whitening slightly from the pressure.
It’s the first time in years I’ve been around him without him actively antagonizing me, and I like having the upper hand for once, so I take my good goddamn time before spraying him. When I do, he splutters, turns, and spits into the basin loudly.
It pleases me.
“Two more sprays,” I say, glancing surreptitiously at the box the glue is in, hoping to find clear, concise directions for use.
No luck there.
I spray Decker a couple more times, fighting the urge to snort when he grimaces andhawk tuahsinto the basin with more gusto after each one.
I give him a handful of gauze and let him do what he can to clean himself up. He swipes roughly at his chin a few times before turning to the basin and splashing hisface until the water runs clear. He uses my towel to dry his beard, totally unbothered when he leaves a bloody stain. He holds the towel out to me with the panache of someone born into money and used to looking down on people.
It annoys me.
My hands get hotter. My face too.
I get the glue out of its box, wrestling with the packaging and finally resorting to ripping it with my teeth. He shakes his head at what a lost cause I am. A distant rumble of anger rolls through me. If someone hadn’t already laid hands on him tonight, I’d be sorely tempted to do it myself.
I wonder what happened? I wonder who the hell would be crazy enough to land a punch on him?
Curiosity gets the better of me. “How’d this happen?”
He gives me an icy glare. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
Ha!A likely tale.