Her Melting Point

The Punchline

"How's your bleeding?" he asked softly.

Jackie thought dully that he'd opened the door the second time to throw out Stephen's jacket, and maybe even his boots. The doorbell jangled again; and Alexander quickly tweaked something on his phone, and it was quiet.

"Jackie?"

She slightly released her nose and peek down at her thighs.

"It's better," she said nasally; and another drop plopped down.

"Pinch it again. Is it broken? It was his elbow."

"I don't think–"

Loud banging of a fist into the door replaced the electronic toll. A low angry rumble rolled in Alexander's chest.

"He's worried," she muttered.

"Fuck him," Alexander snarled. "Fucking idiot." Their eyes met. "Should I take you to the surgery?" he asked.

"No!" Jackie couldn't hold back a panicked yelp. "Just get me ice." He rose, and she hurriedly grasped a handful of his bottoms. "But first give me a cloth. The blood–" She almost gagged.

He pulled out a new Swedish cloth from a drawer, wetted it under the tap, and handed it to her. He then went to the fridge and clanged with the freezer.

"You've got no ice," he said. "Just ice cream."

"That's to be expected," she joked in the same adenoid manner.

Judging by his tense shoulders, he didn't see the humour in the situation. Jackie wiped the blood from her thigh, settled the cloth on her knees, switched hands, and tried to rub her fingers against the cellulose.

"I left frozen peas here last night," he murmured, rummaged in the drawer, and fished out half a bag of the vegetables.

While he was wrapping it in a tea towel, she realised that it was quiet in the cottage; and then another knock came, definitely made by a different person.

"Ms. Burns!"

The voice was muffled - but it unmistakably belonged to the Reverend Holyoake.

"Oh shit," Jackie exhaled. She needed to think fast; and no matter how she looked at it, there was no good way out of it. "Please open the door for him."

"Whom him?" Alexander asked. 

He picked up her chin, lifted it, and carefully arranged the compress on her nose. Jackie hissed from the cold and the ache.

"The vicar," Jackie said.

He picked the cloth out of her hand; cleaned the smear she'd missed on her knee; and started gently wiping her fingers.

"What vicar?"

Jackie reckoned he was no less shaken; he just didn't show it, as usual.

"Alexander, open the door, please," she said firmly.

He blindly swiped on his phone, unlocking the door remotely; and went back to cleaning her hand.

"I apologise for the intrusion," the Reverend said, still somewhere in the hall; and then stuck his head into the kitchen. Only the Reverend Holyoake could look like a fashion model when dressed in track bottoms, a tee, and a tatty, half-zipped hoodie. "Stephen Bassey had just rushed into our cottage, and–"

Holyoake stopped, his mouth half-open, drinking in the scene: Alexander was kneeling in front of Jackie, only in his trousers; sponge-cleaning her hands, and kissing her knuckles between his touches; while Jackie pressed a perfectly neat, rectangular cold compress to her nose, the lower half of her face covered in fresh blood.