“I could manage.”
“Don’t be so stubborn.” Eva gave Lily her best no-nonsense look, and Lily sighed before following her out of the room. “Keep putting pressure on it. Raise it above your head.”
“Wouldn’t have thought you were first aid trained,” Lily said, but she did as she was told as Eva pulled the first aid kit out of a cabinet beneath the sink and set it on the table.
“Are you trying to say I’m not the caring type?” Eva raised an eyebrow, and Lily chuckled. “I didn’t do it for the school,” she said, not looking Lily in the eye as she wrapped her fingers around the soft skin of her wrist, bending her head to examine the extent of the injury. “They don’t even know. I don’t want them sending kids to my room to stick a Band-Aid on a papercut.” Eva shuddered at the thought. “I did it for my mother. In case she ever needed it.”
“So you are the caring type,” Lily said, and Eva’s fingers twitched, just barely resisting the temptation to poke her.
“Only for her,” Eva said, and when she glanced up she found Lily’s gaze on her, their faces mere inches apart. Eva swallowed, not realizing they were so close—close enough for Eva to be able to smell her shampoo, to see the delicate curve of her cheekbones, the flutter of her eyelashes as she winced when Eva swiped an antiseptic wipe across the wound.
Lily cleared her throat, and Eva looked away, fingers shaking as she reached for a bandage.
“It must be hard.”
“It’s not a round-the-clock job. She’s independent. In fact if you asked her, she’d say she doesn’t need me at all.”
“Still. You’ve given up a lot.”
“And I’d do it all over again,” Eva said without hesitation, ripping off a piece of tape with her teeth to secure the bandage in place. “There. Now we’re even.”
“We don’t have to keep score, you know.” Lily sounded amused. “That’s not what friends do.”
“Friends?” Eva couldn’t hide the disbelief, and Lily grinned, some color coming back to her cheeks. “Let’s not get too carried away.”
“Friends, colleagues, casual acquaintances. I’ll take you not wanting to murder me when we pass one another in the hall.” Lily stretched out her hand, looking at Eva’s handiwork.
“I don’t think it needs stitches,” Eva said, “but if it bleeds through, you should think about getting it checked out by a professional.”
“Yes, doctor. Hey, that still works.” Lily smiled at her own joke, and Eva rolled her eyes.
“Has the blood loss gone to your head?”
“Possibly.” Lily reached for the box of cookies on the table. Eva shook her head when Lily offered it to her. “What was your doctorate on?”
“I specialized in targeting receptor signaling pathways as a potential treatment for cancer,” Eva said, the words rolling off her tongue.
“Oh yeah? Which pathways? p53? Notch? RAS?”
Eva blinked—she hadn’t expected Lily to have the slightest clue what she was talking about—and Lily grinned at the look on her face.
“Not as dumb as I look,” Lily said, and Eva threw a pointed glance at the bandage wrapped around her hand. “Uncalled for.”
Eva felt her lips twitch into a smirk. “How did you know all of those?”
“Used to work in pharma, remember? I was part of a few projects targeting cell signaling.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t enjoy it.” Eva leaned against the kitchen counter, realizing it was the first time she’d ever inquired about any of her fellow teacher’s lives.
“I liked the research well enough. Not so much the rest of it. I’m curious, though,” Lily said, and Eva braced herself. “What do you think I did before teaching?”
“Modeled for the Gap?”
“You think I could be a model?”
“That’s what you took from that?” Eva shook her head. “I think you need to sort your priorities out.”
“My priorities are fine, thank you.” Lily was smiling, her hand seemingly forgotten.
