They sat in silence for a moment while he worked. The stillness allowed her body to remind her how exhausted she was.
“Why don’t you want me to know?” he asked as he dabbed a medicated wipe against her skin. “Do you think I can’t handle it?”
“No, I just…”
“What?”
“The way you look at me now. I don’t want that to change.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him smile. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
She shrugged in response.
“How do I do this?” he asked, pulling her superglue from the case.
“Push the edges of the cut together, draw a line of glue across the top, then hold it till the glue dries. About a minute.”
She suppressed a wince as he pressed his fingertips firmly against her skin. The familiar smell of the adhesive filled the space between them.
“Does this hurt?”
“It’s fine.”
“Do you ever get tired of being tough?”
She rolled her eyes. “The pain is manageable, thank you.”
He leaned away to examine his work. “It looks messy,” he told her. “You should have saved the life of an EMT.”
She took the glue from him and screwed the cap back on. She didn’t want it to dry out. Who knew how soon she might need it again, the way this trip was going.
“I’m sure it will do the job,” she said. “Just hold it for a little longer.”
“Alex, I’m sorry about just now.” His voice was quiet, apologetic.
She wished she could turn her head and look at him straight on.
“I don’t know what that was,” he continued. “I can’t believe I was so rough with you.”
“I wasn’t exactly pulling my punches.”
“But I’m not injured,” he reminded her sourly. “Not a scratch on me, as you put it.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely true anymore,” she told him, brushing her fingers against the skin of his chest. She could feel the faint welts her nails had left.
He inhaled sharply, both of them caught for one second in the memory, and her stomach contracted. She tried to turn her head, but he held her face still.
“Wait,” he cautioned.
They sat motionless in the charged silence while she counted to sixty in her head twice.
“It’s dry,” she insisted.
Slowly, he lifted his fingers from her jaw. She turned to him, but his face was down as he searched the kit. He found the antibacterial spray and applied it liberally to her wound. Then he pulled out the roll of gauze and tape. Gently—and without looking her in the eye—he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and repositioned her head. He taped the gauze in place.
“We should sleep now,” he said as he pressed the last piece tight to her skin. “We’re both overwrought and not thinking clearly. We can reopen this… discussion when we’re rational.”
She wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. They weren’t acting like themselves. They were acting like animals—responding to a near-death experience with a subconscious imperative to continue the species. It was primitive biology rather than responsible adult behavior.
She still wanted to argue.
His fingers rested against the side of her neck, and she could feel her pulse begin to jump under his touch. He could, too.
“Sleep,” he repeated.
“You’re right, you’re right,” she grumbled, flopping back against the rumpled sleeping bag. She really was bone-weary.
“Here.” He handed her his T-shirt.
“Where’s mine?”
“In pieces. Sorry.”
It was already too warm and stuffy inside the Humvee. She tossed his shirt aside and grinned remorsefully, feeling the glue pull. “For people with quite limited resources, we are not being very careful with our things.”
He must have noticed the lack of air circulation as well. He leaned over and opened the back hatch again. “Like I said—we’re overwrought.”
He lay down next to her, and she curled into his chest, wondering if it would really be possible to sleep with him half naked beside her. She closed her eyes, trying to will herself into unconsciousness. His arms wrapped around her, tentatively at first and then, after a few seconds, more securely, almost like he was testing his resolve.
If she’d been any less tired, she might have made the test harder for him. But despite her heightened awareness of his body and all the little volts of electricity that sparked where her nerve endings met his bare skin, she quickly drifted. As she surrendered to oblivion, one strange word circled through her head.
Mine, her brain insisted as her thoughts faded to black. Mine.
? ? ?