The man curses under his breath and runs to the paper towel dispenser, grabbing a giant wad of paper towels. He goes the the fridge and pulls out a new water bottle, handing it to me. I gratefully take it, drinking more than half in the first gulp. He gives me a pitiful look and helps me up, leading me to the table. We both stare at the mess on the floor, then at each other. I open my mouth to speak, but he shakes his head and walks over to the vomit, kneeling down next to it. He makes a face and takes a deep breath before plunging the paper towels into the mess.

I can feel myself starting to gag, so I turn away until he's finished. When I hear the water from the sink, I turn around and study the man washing his hands. Once I get a good look at him, I realize there's something oddly alluring about him. He's not necessarily charming, but there's something that attracts me to him. I notice that he doesn't look as old as I originally thought he did. He looks about my age, give or take a year. His buzz cut makes it difficult for me to guess. Suddenly he turns off the water and looks up at me. My breath hitches and I quickly look away, pretending not to notice him staring at me.

He walks around the counter towards the bar stools, but he stops halfway with a grunt, doubling over. I watch in alarm as he lifts up his pant leg and reveals a painful looking gash dripping blood down his shin. "Oh," I gasp, my nausea returning. "How..how did you do that?" I warily ask. He leans his weight on the counter and winces. "Must have been when I knocked over the junk in your shed." I think back to the loud crash from earlier, nodding my head. "I can get you something for it, if you want," I offer. He smiles lopsidedly and takes a careful seat on one of the bar stools. "Yes please," he answers.

I jog to the cluttered hallway closet and push through piles of sewing string and batteries until I find the adhesive bandages. When I come back into the room, I see the man bent over, mopping the water from the floor. "Oh, you don't need to do that. I could've taken care of it," I say, setting the large bandage on the counter next to him. He shrugs and limps to the bar stool again, ripping off the seal of the bandage. As he fiddles with the bandage, his frustration becomes increasingly tangible. He glances at me, embarrassment tinging his cheeks. "Do you know how to do this?" He mumbles, not meeting my eye. I chuckle and take the bandage from his hand, straightening out the folded mess. "You have to take off this part here." I say, pointing to the area I'm talking about. "And this..you're supposed to pull these apart." Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him staring at me instead of the bandage.

I suddenly start to feel self conscious. I go back to patching up his knee, trying to ignore his stare, but it's no use. I meet his gaze, but surprisingly enough, he doesn't look away. I loudly clear my throat to get his attention, but it still doesn't work. I sigh, running a hand through my hair and looking back down at the fleshy wound. He continues to stare at me, and I start to feel incredibly uncomfortable. "What? Is there something on my face?" I finally ask, snapping him back into reality. His sheepish grin tells me he wasn't aware of the fact that he'd been caught staring. "No, uh, Sorry," he says in a nervous, bashful tone. "It's just...you're just really good with your hands, is all." My eyes widen and I look up, snorting once I see the man's mortified face. We stare at each other for a few seconds before we both burst out laughing.

I can't stop laughing. I'm not only laughing about the unintentional innuendo, but also about the entire situation. Everything about this is bizarre. Never in my life have I had a handsome stranger show up at my back door, clean up my vomit, and bleed on my floor. And as strange as this sounds, it's incredibly amusing, so I just keep laughing.

There are tears in my eyes, and I can hardly breathe. I look over at the stranger and find him in a similar situation. His face is red and he's laughing silently, slapping his knee. Eventually our laughing fit dwindles down to a small chuckle. We make eye contact and give each other lazy grins, breathing hard. The man runs his hand over his shaved head and wipes the tears from his eyes. "God, why was it even that funny?" He asks. I shrug and put a hand over my heart, feeling the unsteady beating in my chest. I must be really out of shape if something like laughing raises my heartbeat that much. The man suddenly looks at his watch and frowns. "I really need to get back to work. I'm a little bit behind right now." I nod and watch him limp to the back door. He turns around and looks back at me. "Oh, and I'm sorry for scaring you." He says it with a kind smile, but you can't miss the mischief twinkling in his eyes. I roll my eyes and grin, shooing him away with my hand. He laughs and looks at me one last time before disappearing into the backyard.

As soon as he leaves, I start to feel the emotional exhaustion from the burglar scare, despite my giddiness in meeting the stranger.  My body starts to feel heavy, and my temples are throbbing. I figure I don't have anything else to do today, so I head off to my room for a long nap.