Free Blowback by Stephanie Summers

gotten myself all gussied up for him, and the white skirt was perfect in my mind to complete the look I was going for. I normally wore jeans, over-sized band T-shirts, and a lot of black, but I wanted to try something different. Maybe the way I usually looked wasn’t quite enough to hook him. Was it possible he saw me as “just one of the guys”? Maybe going with a soft and feminine look would be the key to taking our friendship to the next level.
    Standing, I brought my hand to shield my eyes from the strengthening breeze and looked down the street, but Jet was nowhere to be found. I’d apparently gotten myself all fixed up for nothing. He was always there by four thirty if he was coming, and it was already almost five.
    “You look really pretty.”
    His voice was like a ray of sunshine bursting through the clouds. He’d come from around the back of my house. I hadn’t even thought to look for him that way. I whirled around to face him, his voice drawing me to him.
    Just as I turned, he slunk to the ground, holding his side. My heart jumped into my throat, stifling my breath when I saw him. Beneath his crimson-stained fingers, I could see the tattered bits of his T-shirt exposing wounded skin.
    “Oh my God.” I gasped. “What happened?”
    Rushing to his side, I dropped to my knees. My skirt would be stained by the grass for sure, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was making sure he was okay. My skirt could be replaced. He couldn’t.
    “Just a scratch,” he said. His normally pale complexion turned ghostly white and his hand trembled at his side.
    “Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked. I barely had my license, but there was a car in the garage. I was only allowed to take it out in an emergency when my mom wasn’t home. This seemed like it fit the bill.
    “No,” he said. His voice was stern. I knew unless he was bleeding to death, there was no changing his mind.
    “Let me see,” I demanded.
    “I just need to get cleaned up. Can I do that here?”
    “Of course,” I said and rose to my feet. “Come inside. I’ll get the first aid kit.”
    “I don’t want to bleed all over your floor. Just turn the hose on me and bring me a Band-Aid.”.
    “Get your ass up and inside,” I said, pointing toward the door. I was not playing. This was some serious shit, and it was no time to crack jokes.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    He struggled to stand, and if it hadn’t been for me helping him up, I wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to do it on his own. How he’d managed to get to my house was a mystery to me. His wound appeared to still be oozing a small amount of blood under his fingers. He held his side as we made our way inside the house and to the kitchen. I left him sitting in a chair while I ran upstairs to get the first aid kit and a washcloth.
    What could have possibly happened to him? My first thought was that he’d gotten into a fight as he was prone to do at times, but he’d never come out on the bottom of one as far as I knew. I’d never actually seen him fight, but I’d heard it wasn’t pretty when he did.
    When I returned to him, he lay on the floor, still clutching his side, but he’d taken off his shirt. My body tensed, stopping me in my tracks as I got an eyeful of him. His body was made of defined abs and hard pecs and all those muscles that made girls go stupid when they see them. Most boys that age I’d seen with their shirts off were nothing more than a little skin over bones. If they were lucky, they maybe had a little definition. Even the jocks I knew weren’t all that big. But Jet… Jet looked like a grown-ass man sprawled out on my kitchen floor. I often fantasized about what he looked like with his shirt off, but reality blew my fantasies away.
    Shaking the fog from my brain, I grabbed a bowl, ran some warm water into it, and got down to the business of washing the blood from his body and hands. He winced when the alcohol hit his tender flesh after I’d