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A knock at the door interrupted my pity party.
“Come in.” Even my voice sounded zombie-like. Wilson, freshly showered and dressed in gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt, entered.
Every single last one of those internet memes about how hot a man could be in sweatpants that clung the right way flashed through my mind. Because damn, if I felt even a tiny bit less like a zombie, I’d be longing to inspect what that gray cotton hid.
“I have some things for you.” His hushed voice was heavy with concern, like he was in the room of a patient in the ICU, not talking to an overzealous real estate agent who had put closing a deal ahead of common sense.
“Thanks.” I struggled into a sitting position, trying to hold the cloth over my red chest while not displacing the ones on my arms. I failed. My exposed right forearm blazed like a beacon, and his eyes fixed on the angry skin. Deep, worried creases cut into his forehead, and he hustled to the bedside.
“Let’s start with some pain meds.” He dug into the pockets of his pants and produced two choices. “Regular over-the-counter stuff. Or leftovers from the knee surgery I had last fall, guaranteed to knock you out.”
“Give me the real stuff.” I pointed at the prescription meds and the promise of oblivion.
He opened the bottle and gave me a tablet and a glass of water from the side table. I gratefully swallowed the pill. It couldn’t kick in fast enough; my damp cloths were warming up and drying out, and the pain had returned with a vengeance.
“Next, we have this.” He thrust forward a clear bag filled with small, expensive-looking jars.
The bright silver lids sparkled, and the heavy glass containers clinked against each other as he set the bag on the edge of the bed where I could reach it. It looked nothing like the half-bottle of bright green aloe gel I had at home, left over from a river trip last summer. Wilson’s jars looked like something you’d buy in the cosmetics department at Neiman Marcus.
I picked one small, heavy jar out of the bag. It felt cool in my hand; I turned it and inspected the Bio-ID logo etched on the lid.
“It’s a serum we developed to speed healing after a laser skin peel. It’s made with human growth factors and epithelial stem cells.”
I twisted off the lid and sniffed. The thick white cream inside had a slightly medicinal scent.
“This isn’t necessary; I have aloe gel at home.” I put the lid back on the jar and dropped it into the bag with the rest.
“Aloe and wet cloths.” He sighed and rubbed both hands over his face, digging the heels into his eye sockets like he was fighting a headache. “Skin care is what I do. If we were back in LA where I have a lab, I’d be making something with your own blood plasma, so be thankful I can’t go full Dr. Frankenstein on you. Okay?”
I grimaced at the image blood plasma conjured up. He ignored my expression, sat on the edge of the bed, and plucked off the offensive cloths, pinching them with his index finger and thumb. He tossed them away. They hit the wood-look tile floor with a loud smack, one after the other.
He leaned in, examining my burns. This close, the wrinkles of concern looked permanently etched into his normally smooth forehead. The visible sign of his worry caused my throat to tighten. His show of empathy hit me like a mule kicking me in the chest with both hind feet.
“The burn is not so bad.” My breathless words had to fight past the knot barring their way. Total lie. It was the worst I’d had in decades.
He rested one hand on my leg and squeezed. His worry lived and breathed between us, a third entity in the room, and I couldn’t ignore it. It was outsized and significant in a way the obligatory concern of my family and the whole town wasn’t.
“Let me take care of you.” His voice dropped to the same low level as mine, barely louder than the whir of the ceiling fan. “Please.”
Tears pricked the back of my eyelids. Damn his sweet, caring voice. It eroded my resolve.
He unscrewed the first of the small jars and dipped in his first two fingers, extracting a dollop of the cream. Sitting on the edge of the bed, a hand in midair, he waited for my agreement.
“If you think it will help.” At my whispered words, his shoulders fell away from his ears, and at least one of the deep wrinkles in his forehead eased.
He started applying the cream to the back of my hand. His touch was sure and smooth, but light as a butterfly wing. The cream went on cool and stayed that way. It was miraculous. He bent over my blazing skin, hiding his eyes from me as he worked.
As the pain receded, I could focus more on him. His breath caught every time he found a particularly angry patch, as if he felt my pain. Jar after jar, he coated my sunburn with his magic serum. He hovered over me, the clean, manly smell of his body wash or shampoo enveloping me.
We didn’t speak as he touched me, two fingers applying the cream and his other hand positioning me like a marionette so he could reach every inch of affected skin. I relaxed into his attention.
The town and my family might be concerned enough to worry, to talk about me behind my back, and to offer unsolicited advice, but at the end of the day, I took care of myself and Bailey alone. This was a luxury beyond price. Letting someone else fix me—help me. Tend to me.
My eyes slipped closed, holding back a flood of emotions, and I let him work at salving my burns. I wasn’t fully in my body when he finished. Between the pills he gave me and the cream, I floated on a pain-free cloud.
I managed a soft “thank you” when he dragged the comforter over the lower half of me.
“Give me a few minutes. I’ll bring you something to eat. You can’t take meds like those on an empty stomach.”
