“I guess I’m just checking to see if you’re going to come at us with a chainsaw.” He glances into the trees towards the toilet. “Christ, speaking of which. I forgot to move those trees for you.”
“It’s OK,” I say, even though it’s been a massive pain in the ass. Literally, some mornings.
“Let me.”
While I stand on the veranda watching, he carefully unbuttons his shirt and pulls it off. As he hands it to me, my eyes glance down to his abs—abs—and back up to his broad chest and shoulders. There’s a six-inch scar just about his waist, which somehow makes the view even more attractive. He catches my gaze, raises his eyebrows, and heads into the forest.
This is your boss, I remind myself. But it doesn’t stop me from watching intently as he manhandles two fallen trees out of the way. It only takes him a few minutes. When he gets back, there’s blood running down his arm.
“What happened?” I cry out.
“Just a scratch,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Bull.” I run inside and grab the first aid kit from under the sink. I take out an antiseptic, a Band-Aid, and a wad of cotton wool.
“Seriously, it’s nothing,” he says, as I dip the cotton wool in a cup of water. I touch the wound, and he winces.
“Easy, tiger.” I rest my free hand against his taut bicep, and he tenses as I clear away the wound.
“I’m very heroic, aren’t I?”
“Definitely my hero,” I mutter. “Saved me pulling spiderwebs from my hair every morning.”
“Not just a eunuch professor?”
“I never said you were a eunuch.”
“You were thinking it.”
I give a nervous laugh as I finish cleaning the blood away. What does Bradley want me to say? That I couldn’t stop staring? That I haven’t seen a man’s abs in the flesh since I was twenty-one? Neil never looked like this with his shirt off.
I hand him a cotton ball. “Hold this on the scratch.”
“Hey, you’re supposed to call it a wound. A gash. Make me feel tough.”
“You’re a very tough boy,” I say, searching for a Band-Aid. “And definitely not a eunuch.”
“I should hope not.”
At the sound of the voice behind me, I fumble the first-aid kit, and its contents spill across the grass. Grace is standing in the doorway, smiling. I wonder how much she heard. “Don’t you guys look cozy.”
“Sorry, I was just?—”
“Nursing my shirtless husband back to health. I gathered that.”
“I was just unblocking her path to the WC,” Bradley explains. “Got a cut on my arm.”
“I see. And you didn’t think to get changed before coming down.” She’s looking at me, half-smiling, as if I’ve just made an admirably aggressive move in a game of chess. “You look like a wounded soldier. And you’re the good-hearted nurse. I feel like I’m in a romance novel.”
“Not everything’s a novel,” Bradley mutters.
“Oh, I know. Some things are poems. Some are paintings. Some are music.”
I finish covering the cut with antiseptic, press the Band-Aid onto his arm, then step away as if he’s made of explosives.
“Some of it is just real life, Grace.”
“I don’t believe that, Bradley,” she replies. The smile falters. “I came down to inform our helpmeet about tomorrow.”
