“Do you think there’s any way we could maneuver me getting punched by your dad into a good thing in the press?” he asks.
“If it’s all the same to you,” she says, “I’d rather just forget any of this even happened.”
“You should really get a better gate,” he says, “maybe one that latches and won’t open unless the person on the other side puts in a code or something.”
“Yeah,” she says, “I’ll call tomorrow. Until then,” she continues, “let’s get some ice on that thing.”
I follow Emma into the kitchen and she pulls an ice pack out of the freezer.
“You know,” I tell her, “I’ve never been in a fight before.”
“You did pretty well,” she says. “You didn’t knock him out or anything, but you got some pretty solid blows in there.”
I chuckle, saying, “I just beat up your dad.”
“I think beat up might be a bit of an overstatement,” she says with a smile, “but if he hadn’t run off like a bitch, I have no doubt you could have taken him.”
The adrenaline must be on its way out, because the area around my eye is beginning to throb.
“Just hold still,” she says, and leans in close to inspect the eye. “You’ve got a little cut,” she says.
“Do I?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s nothing to worry about—the thing really is pretty small. We’ll just get that cleaned and get a bandage on it and then we’ll see about taking care of that swelling.”
I shrug.
I’m not going to lie: I feel like a bit of a hardass right now. Yeah, I know I took the first punch, but I jumped right in there, and if it weren’t for the twin forces of Emma trying to talk me down and Shane getting the hell out of there, I might have done some serious damage.
They say you never really know yourself until you’ve been in a fight, and I think I did all right. That’s pretty cool.
I wait at the kitchen table while Emma goes out of the room to find some bandages. She comes back with a plastic basket filled with first aid stuff.
“You might have to help me find the antibiotic stuff,” she says. “It’s been a while since I’ve been through here.”
We take a minute and pull out a box of bandages and some triple antibiotic ointment. When Emma pulls out the alcohol, though, I start to get a little nervous.
“What’s that for?” I ask.
“It’s for your cut,” she says. “We need to make sure it’s clean before we bandage it, otherwise it might get infected.”
“Isn’t that what that ointment is for?” I ask.
“It’ll just take a second,” she says.
I would much rather run at top speed into the side of a cement building than have alcohol poured on a cut. There’s a difference between dull pain and sharp pain, and what she’s about to do is on the razor’s side.
“I really think the ointment’s going to be enough,” I tell her.
“Don’t tell me you’re actually scared of a little antiseptic,” she says. “Big, strong guy like you—that’s got to be pretty embarrassing.”
“Say what you want,” I tell her. “I don’t even care. That shit hurts.”
“You just got punched in the eye!” she exclaims.
“Yeah, and I think I’ve been through enough for the evening,” I tell her.
“Fine,” she says. “By the way, this is totally going in my tell-all: the story about how Damian Jones got into a fist fight with my dad, and then, when I went to tend his wounds, he cried like a little bitch.”