Chapter 4: The Knife
At 21:08 the kitchen was the only lit room. Warm light fell across the clean stone counter. Paul stood at the wooden board in a white shirt buttoned to the throat and navy trousers, no jacket. The knife moved in even strokes. Sauce simmered in a small pot. He stirred once, clockwise.
Nine-oh-eight. Sauce needs four more minutes. Vegetables in at nine-twelve.
Three knocks, uneven. He set the spoon down and checked the wall clock.
Nine-fourteen.
He dried his hands and opened the door. Alice stood in the corridor in a faded oversized T-shirt and cargo trousers, curls loosely tied. Her right wrist still carried the clinic bandage, now streaked with red and blue paint. Her left hand was wrapped in a floral tea towel. The cloth was dark with blood.
“Now I know you’re a doctor.”
A beat.
“I was trying to cook.”
Paul looked at the towel for one more second, then stepped aside. He did not invite her in. He only created space. She looked at the gap and walked through it.
In the kitchen he took the full first-aid kit from the upper cupboard and set it on the stone. Everything was already in its place. Alice stood beside the counter. The hem of her T-shirt hung off one shoulder.
“You keep a full kit in the kitchen.”
He pulled on latex gloves. “Give me your hand.”
She offered the left. He took her wrist and drew it into better light. The cut ran across the palm, red and still seeping.
“This will sting.”
He pressed an alcohol-soaked pad firmly against the open wound. Alice flinched, breath catching, teeth sinking into her lower lip until it flushed. Paul’s hands stopped. His eyes locked on the bitten mouth. The pupils widened. Recognition struck and held.
His gaze dropped without permission. The thin cotton of the T-shirt clung. No bra. The outline of her nipples was clear. He swallowed. The muscle in his jaw stood out.
Stop biting that damn lip. And for God’s sake, put on some proper clothes.
His gloved fingers tightened harder than necessary around her wrist. Alice felt the pressure and the quickened breathing. She leaned a fraction closer.
He laid the first steri-strip with precision, though the fingers were stiffer than usual. She watched them.
“You do this differently from the nurses.”
“They’re faster. I’m more accurate.” He did not look up.
The final strip went down. He smoothed the edge and released her hand as if it had burned him.
He stripped the gloves, threw them hard into the bin, and wiped his hands on a towel longer than required. He stepped back and jerked his chin toward the door.
“Bandaged. Now get out of my space.”
Alice did not move. She crossed her ankles and folded her arms, the T-shirt pulling tighter across her chest. “Kicking out a patient?”
“You are a walking disaster hazard. Call your gallery boyfriend next time.”
She took one step closer. “Who?”
“The well-dressed one. Smells like he bathed in a duty-free shop.”
A second of recognition. “Nick? Nick is not my boyfriend.”
“Right.”
“He owns the gallery that shows my work. That’s it.”
Paul stirred the sauce once. “Right.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said ‘right’ twice in the same way.”
Nobody buys a Burgundy Grand Cru and hand-wrapped flowers for someone they don’t sleep with.
“If he’s just your gallery owner, that’s his business.”
She studied the set of his shoulders. “Does it matter to you either way?”
He looked at her for one second. “No.”
Alice leaned her elbows on the stone and dropped her voice. “Are you kicking me out because I mess up your pristine kitchen… or because my lack of underwear makes you lose focus, doctor?”
Paul’s spine locked. The spoon stopped mid-air. Breathing halted.
“Out.”
On the way to the door she looked at the black leather sofa, the shelves ordered by height, the sauce still simmering. She inhaled once without meaning to. Her stomach answered, loud in the quiet kitchen.
She glanced down, then up into his face. “I’ll just order something.”
Paul looked at her, then at the pot. His hand closed around the spoon. He stirred once, slowly, and set it down.