“I’ll have one too, I suppose,” I said to the barman, who quickly hurried off. I suddenly got a small stab of panic in my stomach. I hadn’t intended on having drinks with Alex. But somehow I now was. I needed to change that.
“You said something about paying me back for last night?” I asked in a businesslike tone.
“Yes.” He picked up a small packet from the bar counter and handed it to me. “I’ve been carrying it around all day in case I bumped into you.”
I opened the packet tentatively. “What the . . .?”
Alex pulled the packet away from me and tipped its contents onto the bar counter. A latex glove tumbled out, a tube of cream and some plasters.
I stared at the things as strange images rushed through my mind.
“Antibiotic cream and plasters for your knees,” he said, opening the cream.
It took me a few moments to figure out what he was saying, but I finally clicked. And when I did, the implications were astounding. “Hang on, you went out and bought that especially for me?” I wasn’t sure whether I should feel grateful to him, or whether this was just weird.
He nodded and looked down at my knees. “May I?” he asked, pointing at them.
I pulled them away quickly. “Uh . . . no . . . uh . . . what?”That would just be weird!was what I meant to say.
He looked up at me and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.”
“Reaaallyy,” I said slowly and tentatively, not believing him for a second. Doctors didn’t dress like that, did they?
“Ideally you shouldn’t have let the laceration scab, as it impedes the growth of new skin cells.” He said it casually, the medical terms falling off his tongue like everyday words.
“You really are a doctor?” I said.
He smiled at me again and nodded. “So? Can I?”
“Uh . . . sure. I guess.” I sounded very unsure still. I was.
He patted his knees. “Put your legs up.”
“On you?” I asked. “No. I can’t, that’s just . . .”
“Oh, come on.” He patted them again.
“This is so strange,” I mumbled.
“Not as strange as you pulling my facemask off last night.”
“True,” I nodded, “but still.”
“It’s already getting infected.” He pointed to my knees and I looked down. Large red swollen patches had formed around the scabs and I didn’t need my MD to see that he was right.
“Okay, fine.” I lifted my legs carefully and guided them up onto him. He draped them across his knees and looked down at them. This was bizarre. More than bizarre. I couldn’t quite believe I had my legs up on a stranger at a bar. I looked around to see if anyone was looking at us, but no one seemed to have noticed.
“Okay.” He snapped on the latex glove in a way that looked like he’d done this a million times before. And then slowly, gently, he started applying the cream. I watched this semi-stranger in fascination. He seemed to be concentrating so hard, as if my knees were the most important things in the world to him right now. Then he unwrapped the plasters and started placing them onto the wounds with total precision. I flinched when his fingers grazed the back of my knee and sent a shiver through me, despite the hot balmy weather. I couldn’t quite work out if this was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me, or whether this might actually be the one of the nicest things that anyone had done for me in a while. When it was all over I pulled my knees away just as my drink had arrived.
“Thanks,” I whispered quietly, half under my breath. There’d been something very intimate about that moment and it was leaving me feeling a little lost for words.
“Pleasure,” he whispered back. “It’s the least I can do. Take the cream and apply it three times a day,” he said in a very doctor-y voice. I nodded and pulled the packet towards me. We sat in silence for a while, until the magazines on the counter pulled my focus. Just as I’d suspected, they were a variety of women’s mags in various stages of well-readness;Elle,Cosmo,Woman’s Weekly,Woman’s Own,Marie ClaireandOK!.
“I hope you’re not looking for more samples.” I gestured at the magazines and he laughed.
“No. God, no. I think I learned my lesson about that,” he said with a smile. He reached up and ran his hand over his cheek. “I must say, it really is very soft today.”
“That’s because you ripped off the top three layers of skin,” I said, taking the first sip of my drink.
