"It's the humidity."
"The humidity doesn't make you sweat through your shirt at seven in the morning." She gently grabbed his wrist—the left one, the one he was guarding—and felt him flinch. "Show me the hand. Now."
"You're being dramatic."
"And you're being a stubborn jackass. Show me."
For a long moment, he didn't move. She watched the war play out across his face—pride versus pain versusthe dawning realization that he couldn't actually hide this.
Finally, with a sigh that seemed to deflate him entirely, he extended his hand.
Lily unwrapped the bandage and immediately wished she hadn't.
"Holy shit, Alex."
The wound was ugly. A deep gash across his palm, edges ragged and swollen, the skin around it an angry red bleeding into purple. Something yellowish wept from the cut, and when she leaned closer, she caught that particular smell—sweet and wrong—that meant infection.
"The ghost net," he said quietly. "When I was documenting the damage. I wasn't paying attention."
Yesterday. The dead turtle. The devastation on his face when he'd seen what the net had done to the reef he loved.
He'd hurt himself and hadn't said a word.
"This happenedyesterday? And you just—what—decided to keep it a secret?"
"I cleaned it. Applied antiseptic." A defensive shrug. "It should have been fine."
"Well, it's not fine. It's the opposite of fine. It's—" She stood abruptly, her mind racing. "Why am I explaining coral infections to the marine biologist? You know better than this."
He scowled. “I said I’ve got it handled.”
“Men,” she muttered, crossing to the first aid kit, yanking it open. "Your hand looks like a horror movie prop and you're pulling the machismo card? Typical. I swear, you’re all the same. Won’t ask for directions, won’t ask for help, won’t admit when their hand is about to rot and fall off.”
“It’s not that bad?—”
“Shut up. I'm trying to figure out how to fix this."
She heard his chair scrape back.
"Sitdown," she said without turning.
"I need to check on?—"
"You need to sit your ass in that chair and let me help you." She turned, arms full of supplies, and leveled him with a glare. "I mean it. Sit."
"I'm not a golden retriever, Lily."
"Golden retrievers are trainable. Jury's still out on you."She pointed at the chair. "Sit. Drink water. Let me work."
He sat.
Small victories.
Cleaning the wound was awful.
Alex stayed rigid while she worked, jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. He didn't make a sound—not when she flushed the cut with antiseptic, not when she picked out the debris still embedded in the wound, not when she pressed fresh gauze against raw flesh.
But his breathing changed. Faster. Shallower. And his good hand had a death grip on the water bottle she'd shoved at him.
