Belonging by Alexa Land Page A

damp and combed out neatly, a few strands of grey
standing out against the dark brown. He was back in his uniform,
Levis and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled back. Zan was
nothing if not consistent.
    “Sorry to bother you,” I said. “I just
wanted to make sure you were alright. You took a pretty nasty
tumble earlier.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “What about your shoulder? I noticed
it came down right on the machine.”
    “It’s sore, but it doesn’t
matter.”
    “You should put some ice on it.
That’ll keep it from swelling.”
    He knit his brows at me. “Did you
learn that in your three semesters of nursing school?”
    “No, I learned that from my
grandmother. How bad is it?”
    “Like I said, it’s sore.”
    “On a scale of one to ten, where one’s
no pain at all and ten’s having your balls chewed off by a dozen
piranhas, how bad does it hurt?”
    Despite himself, his lips quirked up
at the corners and a little spark of amusement lit his eyes. “Hell,
I don’t know. A four? What’s that on your scale, a couple piranhas
coming in for a nibble?”
    “Yes. Can I take a look at your
shoulder? I want to see if it’s bruised.”
    He sighed and said, “Fine,” before
turning his back to me and unbuttoning his shirt.
    When Zan pulled the right side down, I
carefully swept his thick hair over his left shoulder and said,
“Shit. Your shoulder blade is starting to bruise up, it looks like
it’s going to be pretty bad. Why don’t you go sit on the couch
while I bring you an icepack?”
    “There’s no need for all this fuss,”
he said. “So it’s bruised. I’ll live.”
    “But why not reduce the pain and
shorten your recovery time?” He looked at me over his shoulder and
started to open his mouth to protest, but I said, “Come on. Let me
assuage my guilt over startling you and making you hurt yourself by
at least minimizing the damage.”
    He grumbled about all of that being
unnecessary, but did as he was told. I returned to the kitchen and
found a zip top bag, which I filled with ice cubes and wrapped in a
clean dish towel. When I brought it to him in the den, he tried to
hold it in place by wrapping his left arm over his shoulder. I
could tell it was awkward and uncomfortable for him, so I sat down
behind him and held the bag for him as I said, “We need to leave it
in place for twenty minutes.”
    “You really don’t have to sit there
and hold it.”
    “I know, but I’m going to do it
anyway.” I pulled out my phone and awkwardly set a timer with one
hand, then put it on the couch.
    We sat in silence for a few minutes.
At one point, his hair fell across his back and I swept it over his
shoulder. It was surprisingly soft. It smelled good, too, which
wasn’t news to me since I was the one who bought his shampoo. I
could see the edge of a big, round tattoo between his shoulder
blades and was curious about it, but decided it was none of my
business so I didn’t ask to see more.
    After a while, he said, “You would
have made a good nurse. Maybe you should think about going back and
finishing your studies.”
    “I can’t, I’m way too
squeamish.”
    “Can’t stand the sight of
blood?”
    “That’s bad enough, but even worse is
vomit. It makes me throw up instantly, every time. It’s like
flipping a switch. I’m fine, I see vomit, I puke. That’s a terrible
attribute in a nurse.”
    “So, don’t get a job in a hospital. If
you worked in, let’s say, a podiatrist’s office, your chances of
encountering upchuck would be pretty negligible.”
    “I know. But I’d have to make it
through nursing school first, and that means hospital
internships.”
    “Is that the only reason you dropped
out? There’s probably some way around it.”
    “No,” I admitted, “it’s not the only
reason, it’s just the one I tell people. I messed up a patient’s
meds when I was interning and I realized that wasn’t the right job
for me. I can’t be responsible for anything