Page 10 of Alphas Like Us

I try not to smile because it’ll just agitate him. “Web M.D. says you’re okay, but I haven’t yet.” I squat and unzip my trauma bag. “I still need to see the wound. What’d you cut yourselfon?”

Maximoff stops protesting, and he unbuttons his jeans. “I don’tknow.”

I frown and open the packaging on a pair of gloves. “What do you mean, you don’tknow?”

“I was off-campus last night with some guys on the swim team. It was dark.” He steps out of his jeans. Bandage is wrapped around his muscular thigh, gauze thick beneath. He dressed his woundperfectly.

Maximoff notices me staring, and he starts smiling. “Better than you would’ve done,huh?”

I snap on one medical glove. “I’m still better than you at everything, wolf scout. Don’t getexcited.”

“Excited around you? Yeah, I’m never evenclose.”

I didn’t mean it sexually, but here weare.

I look up, just as he looks down, and he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Shit, our banter hasn’t exactly taken this routebefore.

Since I’m older and wiser, I decide to eliminate the strange tension with “professionalism” and I ask, “Did you clean thewound?”

“Yeah.”

“Take a seat on your desk chair.” I stand and slide my trauma bag closer with my foot, just as he sits like a fucking board. His gaze plasters to my movements. I lean over his chest, the smell of chlorine rushing towards me, and with my ungloved hand, I grab hisFundamentals of Philosophytextbook.

“What are you doing?” he asks, hating to be in the dark.Clearly.

I put the textbook in his palms. “Read, take notes, study. Don’t watchme.”

“Farrow—”

“Trust me, wolf scout.” I crouch, snap on my other glove, and start undressing his bandage that edges close to his gray boxer-briefs. I pause not even one-fifth through when I catch him staring andoverthinking.“You don’t need to overanalyze what I’m doing, Moffy. Just focus on your ownshit.”

He glares. “My leg is my own shit, thanks forasking.”

I roll my eyes into a smile. “You’re welcome.” I continue unwrapping the bandage while his gaze is attached to mine.Trust me,trust me, I try to emote until he finally gives in and reads his text with a frustratedbreath.

I concentrate on his wound, blood seeps through—fuck.I unwrap faster. “You bandaged your thigh without stopping the bleedingfirst?”

He glances down. “It wasstopped.”

I reach for my suture kit. “When’d you cutit?”

He shuts his book and thinks. “Uh…” Maximoff pinches his eyes. “Three, four in the morning. I wasout—”

“With your swim teammates, I heard that part.” I kneel on one knee for a better angle. Blood completely soaks the gauze, and I try to gently pull it off thecut.

He winces and grips the edge of the desk. “Fuck.”

“Sorry.” I discard the gauze in a plastic bag and squeeze his cut closed with my fingers. A couple inches higher and that would’ve sliced through his artery. “You werelucky.”

“I know.” He rubs sweat off his forehead with his arm. “I wasn’t drunk last night, if that’s what youthink.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.” I pull out more supplies. “You’ve been bleeding out consistently since early this—what’s your pain level from one to ten?” I cut myself off and ask since he’s sweating and gritting histeeth.

His nose flares, wincing. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t take apainkiller.”

“It does matter.” I planned to disinfect the wound first, then administer a shot of lidocaine, then suture, but I change the order and hurriedly unpackage a syringe andneedle.

He white-knuckles the desk, the room deadens while I work and he concentrates on breathing. I give him a shot of lidocaine to numb the wound. Then I wipe the area with an antiseptic and irrigate withsaline.