Page 49 of Sick of You

I waited for him to crack a joke, attempt alliteration, anything, but he just covered the gauze with his other hand.

“Come with me.” Still feeling like a complete sucker, I made him follow me to the nearest nurses’ station, apologizing to the charge nurse as she passed. I held out my hands and he obeyed, placing his hand in mine.

For a moment, I let his hand simply rest in mine, warm, willing, waiting. It was nothing—and it was everything.

I could have offered a comforting touch Saturday night, and maybe he wouldn’t have bitten my head off. It could have been just this easy.

Of course, a comforting touch hadn’t been enough to help that first day in the break room.

I gently set his hand on the counter and reached into the nurses’ station for gloves. I carefully pulled off the medical tape and gauze, rather messily done, and took a look. The scratch was straight and clean. “What happened?” I asked again, going for my best clinician voice and not concerned sycophant voice.

“Broken glass.”

“Sure you don’t need stitches?”

“It’s shallow.”

I gently turned his hand and prodded his skin to make sure he was right. The cut was too long for regular bandages, but it wasn’t deep enough to worry about any tendons or nerves. Seemed to have nicked a superficial vein or two. I delivered the diagnosis and the good news: “Yeah, you’re lucky. Did you get antiseptic on this?”

“No.”

I traced a line above and below the cut. “Feels all right?”

Davis cleared his throat. “Feels great.”

I stupidly read too much into that—and the fact that his voice was strained—and met his eyes. He was studying me far too intensely.

If he’d looked at me that way Saturday, I would have proven to him I wasn’t on a date with Dr. Donaldson. Because I would have kissed Davis.

A nurse arrived at the desk, sighing as he dropped into a chair there, and I tore my gaze from Davis’s. We were not on a balcony with a sunset view of the city and sickly sweet champagne. We were in a hospital, and I was actively treating him.

Which looked a lot like holding his hand. Even if I was wearing gloves.

Yeah, see? This was exactly why I belonged in research.

I asked the nurse for the adhesive, and he went hunting through the supply drawers.

“Um, I don’t think I’m on the insurance yet,” Davis said.

“It’s all right; I’m probably out of network anyway.”

“This is going to be pricy then, eh?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I assured him. “There’s a cash discount.”

“What, like, I can slip you a fiver under the table?” He finally cracked a smile that looked like himself, and my heart seemed to settle.

“Just pay for the supplies.” The nurse handed me the antiseptic and adhesive, and I set to work repairing Davis’s hand. “So, why were you picking up broken glass with the back of your hand?”

“No, it—a window broke.”

“Here?”

“The gym at my building.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise. Well, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Davis lived in a much nicer building than mine, historic though mine was. But weren’t gym windows usually reinforced glass? And I could only imagine the mess the glass would have made. “How did that happen?”

“Brick.”

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