‘You should just go and finish up, Nora,’ Sam suggests. ‘I’ll look after Jules.’
‘Are you sure?’ Her eyes meet mine.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say, uncertainly.
And so we find ourselves alone. Me, Sam and my ankle, which, as I stretch out my leg on the bench, I now realise is an odd shape.
‘It’snotgoing to be a watermelon,’ he says, apparently reading my thoughts.
‘Really?’
‘A grapefruit at most.’
My knee doesn’t look good either. A bloodied mess, albeit a superficial one.
I sigh. ‘They were a new pair of leggings too. From Lululemon.’
He looks up and suppresses a smile. ‘Hateit when that happens.’ I let out a little laugh. ‘Mind if I take a look at this?’
I swallow whatever stone it is that seems to have lodged in my throat. ‘Go ahead.’
He examines the ankle from above first and I say a silent prayer of thanks that I shaved my legs last night.
‘Any numbness?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘Can you wiggle your toes?’
I do as instructed and think I might be trembling. ‘Yeah.’
‘Is it tender . . . here?’ He gently touches the bone and looks up to my face, to see my reaction. As my eyes meet his, something erupts behind my breastbone.
I shake my head mutely.
‘It’s more . . . here,’ I say, pointing to the top.
At that, he slides his palms down the sides of my trainers and his warm fingers graze my skin. I am transfixed by his hands and how beautiful they are, even after all these years.
I move hesitantly and, although it hurts, the pain is not unbearable. I’m already thinking the ankle can’t be broken.
This is nothing like the one other bone I fractured, my elbow, which I broke in the early 2000s, when I was wearing a fashionable but frankly dangerous combination of wide-leg pants and stiletto heels. Still, what do I know? Maybe I have a high pain threshold.
‘Are you able to roll these up?’ he says, taking his hands away.
I slowly bend my leg and roll the leggings all the way up and over my knee. There is an angry graze on the skin. Blood everywhere. I’m never going to hear the end of this from Gavin.
Sam turns away to root through the first-aid kit and then, when he doesn’t find anything he’s happy with, goes to the sink and turns on the tap. Outside, people are still in the party spirit. The games are over now, the Prosecco is in full flow. There’s a barbecue lit and a few of the kids, not yet worn out, are bouncing a ball back and forth over the net.
Sam returns with some kitchen roll and warm water. He places them on the table and sits next to me again, before dipping a wad into the bowl and squeezing out the excess. He gently holds it against my knee. There’s a sharp sting, followed by a disconcerting wave of pleasure. Fireflies begin to flutter somewhere in my belly. These feelings are insane. I don’t understand what’s going on at all.
But as he begins to bathe my wound, dipping his makeshift cloth in the water and returning it to my skin, air seems to be suspended in my chest. Each time he gently presses it against me, there’s an odd shift of energy. The throbbing pain in my ankle is no longer the dominant force. Instead, all my focus is on the goosebumps travelling along my leg.
‘For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is broken,’ he says, glancing up.
‘Can you tell?’
‘Well, you should still get an X-ray. Orthopaedics isn’t my speciality.’
