Blankly staring out the kitchen window, Renee was oblivious to the fact she had now minced the onion into minuscule fragments and only remembered she was even using the knife once it sliced through the tip of her finger, stopping only because of the nail. She snapped immediately back into reality and dropped the knife, blood already making eerie patterns on the onion pulp. Derek had heard her drop the knife and then the rush of water.
"You okay?"
"Just wasn't paying attention." She was pressing her finger with her thumb and letting the cool water rinse the sting of onion.
He put down the paper and walked over to stand beside her at the sink. "Let me see."
She pulled her hand up, examined the wound, and held it in front of his face.
Holding her hand up by the wrist, he asked, "You have any peroxide?"
"Yeah...it's in the bathroom."
Renee brushed the hair out of her face with her forearm and followed him down the hallway. She never considered herself to be attractive and usually hid herself in baggy clothes, wearing her hair pulled back all the time. Derek had in fact only seen her hair down once before, and it coincided with the one incident he had ever seen her in anything but a T-shirt and shorts. He had always been drawn to her, she had such dark, sexy legs with a smoothness that would make him want to just reach down and see if they were indeed as smooth as they looked. She had caught him a couple of times staring at her, and found it as somewhat of a compliment, especially since he wasn't fixated on the chest, as it seemed every other male was. Derek was again admiring the tightness of her tanned legs when she bent down to pull the peroxide out from under the sink. He had almost forgotten why he had needed it in the first place.
"Here, let me do it. Sit down," he said, tapping the counter. Renee leaned back on the counter and stretched up to open a cabinet from which she produced a box of small bandages. She noticed him for once looking at her chest, and caught his eye when turning back around. She swore she saw a blush, but she and Derek had been friends for some time now, and he had seen her all but naked over the years at the beach sunbathing. Derek had in fact been watching her then too, but she wasn't for the taking, so he was extra careful to hide his longings behind his sunglasses and with sporadic jaunts into the freezing ocean water. She couldn't understand how he bared the cold water, and would only venture as far as the soggy surf.
She had only recently separated from her boyfriend of two years, which was part of the reason he was over at her apartment in the first place. She had gone through some rough times in her remote past and had got involved in a trip of psychologists, antidepressants, and even a late night trip to the emergency room to chug some charcoal for some pills she had taken. Derek had for a long time wanted to hold her and tell her that he could cure all her sadness and problems. His whole body would ache when he thought about it and he wanted to tell her it would all work out. Now that his time had come to step in, he found himself nervous like a high-school boy gathering up the courage to ask for a date to the prom. He just hoped she hadn't noticed the insecure change.
He took the lid off the peroxide and glanced up at her. This time she felt herself blushing. Even though she had known Derek for awhile, she had always had a soft spot for a man?s eyes and felt vulnerable when staring into his on the occasion their eyes crossed paths.
Derek blotted her cut with a cotton ball soaked in the medicine, and was halfway expecting to feel her wince with the bubbling burn. The fact that she didn't was somewhat disturbing. He wondered why suicidals could block pain, and had figured it was because they were always in pain with their mind, so much they didn't notice anything else, but were only mesmerized by it. This type of thing only made him want to reach out for her all the more. He couldn't stand her being so sad and lost.
Her mind was in fact elsewhere. She was remembering those warm afternoons at the beach and would wish to be out in the sun again, but truly wanted nothing more but to hold him. Derek had been one of the only people who had truly been there for her, and after her fiancé called off the wedding and moved out two months ago, she found herself more and more letting her eyes and mind wander all over Derek's tight body.
Her eyes weren't the only ones doing the wandering. He was unknowingly letting his eyes wander the length of her body while he thought she wasn't looking. He loved the red on her toenails, the tattoo on her ankle, simple against the tan background, which flowed upward to her calves, so tight and perfect, knees, and he kept creeping them up over her thighs and to the border of her short, loosely hung shorts. He swore he could have seen further and beyond the shorts, but his eyes were still wandering up her body, once again noticing how tight her breasts pulled her shirt across them. Her nipples were hard, which he thought was odd because he was sure he was sweating a river because it was so friggin' hot this time of year. He snapped his eyes back to the job at hand for fear of being caught.
