16
This Summer
I FIND A TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR pharmacy in Palm Springs and drive toward it through the first soft rays of sunrise.
Afterward, I get back to the apartment before most other stores have opened.
By then the parking lot of the Desert Rose has started to bake again, and the cool hours of predawn(relat e before dawn) shrink(make smaller) to a distant memory as I climb the steps, loaded with grocery bags.
“How are you doing?” I ask Alex as I shut the door behind me.
“Better.” He forces a smile. “Thanks.”
Liar.
His pain is written all over his face. He’s worse at hiding that than his emotions.
I put the two ice packs I bought into the freezer, then go to the bed and plug in the heating pad. “Lean forward,” I say, and Alex shifts enough for me to slide the pad down the stack of pillows where it can sit across his midback.
I touch his shoulder, helping to slow his descent as he leans back.
His skin is so warm.
I’m sure the heating pad won’t be comfortable, but hopefully it will do the trick, warming the muscle until it relaxes.
In half an hour, we’ll switch to the ice pack to try to bring down any inflammation.
I may have read up on back spasms in the quiet, fluorescent-lit aisles of the drugstore.
“I’ve got some Icy Hot too,” I say. “Does that ever help?”
“Maybe,” he says.
“Well, it’s worth a try. I guess I should’ve thought of that before you leaned back and got comfortable again.”
“It’s fine,” he says, wincing. “I never really get comfortable when this happens. I just sort of wait for the medicine to knock me out, and by the time I wake up, I usually feel a lot better.”
I slide off the edge of the bed and gather the rest of the bags, carrying them back to him. “How long does it last?”
“Usually just a day if I stay still,” he says. “I’ll have to be careful tomorrow, but I’ll be able to move around. You should go do something you know I’d hate.” He forces another smile.
I ignore the comment and search through the bag until I find the Icy Hot. “Need help leaning forward again?”
“No, I’m good.” But the face he makes suggests otherwise, so I shift beside him, take his shoulders in my hands, and slowly help him ease upright.
“I feel like you’re my nurse right now,” he says bitterly.
“Like, in a hot and sexy way?” I say, trying to lighten his mood.
“In a sad-old-man-who-can’t-take-care-of-himself way,” he says.
“You own a house,” I say. “I bet you even ripped the carpet out of the bathroom.”
“I did,” he agrees.
“Clearly you can take care of yourself,” I say. “I can’t even keep a houseplant alive.”
“That’s because you’re never home,” he says.
I twist the top off the Icy Hot and get a glob onto my fingers. “I don’t think so. I got these hardy things, pothos and ZZ plants and snake plants—they’re, like, the kinds of plants they stick in lightless malls for months at a time and they still don’t die. Then they move into my apartment and immediately give up on life.”
I steady his rib cage with one hand so I don’t jostle(push) him too much and, with my other, reach around to carefully massage the cream onto his back.
“Is that the right place?” I ask.
“A little higher and to the left. My left.”
“Here?” I look up at him, and he nods.
I tear my gaze away and focus on his back, my fingers turning gentle circles over the spot.
“I hate that you have to do this,” he says, and my eyes wander back to his, which are low and serious beneath a furrowed brow.
My heart feels like it drops through my chest and soars back up. “Alex, has it ever occurred to you that I might like taking care of you?” I say. “I mean, obviously I don’t love that you’re in pain, and I hate that I let you sleep in that abominable chair, but if someone’s going to have to be your nurse, I’m honored it’s me.”
His mouth presses closed, and neither of us says anything for a few moments.
I pull my hands away from him. “Hungry?”
“I’m okay,” he says.
“Well, that’s too bad.” I go to the kitchen and rinse the leftover Icy Hot off my hands, grab a couple of glasses, and fill them with ice, then return to the bed and arrange the remaining grocery bags in a row. “Because . . .” I pull out a box of donuts with a flourish, like a magician producing a bunny from a hat.
Alex looks dubious(hesitating).
He isn’t a big sugar person.
I think that’s partly why he smells so good, like even the obsessive cleanliness aside, his breath and body odor are always just sort of good and I’m guessing it’s because he does not eat like a ten-year-old. Or a Wright.
“And for you,” I say, and dump out the yogurt cups, box of granola, and berry mix, along with a bottle of cold-brew. The apartment’s way too hot for drip coffee.
“Wow,” he says, grinning. “You’re a real hero.”
“I know,” I say. “I mean, thank you.”
We sit and feast, picnic-style, on the bed.
I eat mostly donuts and a few bites of Alex’s yogurt.
He eats mostly yogurt but also devours half of a strawberry donut. “I never eat this stuff,” he says.
《People We Meet on Vacation》
by Emily Henry 从朋友到恋人
只是搬运工加个人笔记。
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