Box number four

Mike entered limping through the automatic doors of the emergency department of General Hospital, supporting his body weight against the wall so as not to put weight on his left leg. The impact against the concrete curb had been sharp, and although the pain was bearable—nothing that indicated an open fracture—that constant twinge in his ankle made him fear a grade two sprain or, worse still, a bone fissure that would require a cast. He needed an X-ray and something to calm the pain. He sat down in one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room, with his foot resting on a second chair, and waited to be called.

Twenty minutes later, a reception nurse told him to go into examination room number four. Mike walked dragging his leg down the fluorescent-lit hallway until he reached a small white room with an exam table, an empty X-ray viewer on the wall, and a dressing trolley with medical supplies. He sat on the edge of the exam table, with his legs hanging down, and waited.

The door opened and he came in.

The male nurse must have been about thirty, with short brown hair and bangs falling over his forehead, and a square jaw that could cut glass. He wore the hospital’s navy blue uniform tight to his body, and that tightness left nothing to the imagination: his shoulders filled the fabric of the coat, his pecs stood out under the cloth, and his sinewy arms showed from the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. The uniform pants fell straight from the waist, but they tightened as he walked over compact, firm glutes that Mike, despite the pain, could not help following with his gaze when the nurse turned around to close the door. And the package—the package could be sensed as voluminous under the fabric, marking a bulge that the pants could not hide. But what really took his breath away were the lips: thick, defined, with a perfect Cupid’s bow that gave him an obscene appearance, as if that mouth were designed to do things that should not happen in a hospital.

“Mike, right?” said the nurse, looking at the tablet screen in his hand. “I’m Adrián. I’m going to give you something for the pain before they take you to radiology. What happened to you?”

Mike took a couple of seconds longer than normal to answer. He forced himself to look into Adrián’s eyes, which were light brown with golden flecks.

“I hit my leg against a curb. The ankle. It hurts but I can handle it. I think it might be a sprain or a fissure. I need them to do an X-ray.”

Adrián nodded and left the tablet on the trolley. He approached the exam table, and Mike could smell his cologne—something citrus with a woody base—mixed with the smell of disinfectant alcohol in the room.

“I’m going to put in a peripheral IV for intravenous pain relief. It works faster than oral. Give me your left arm.”

Mike extended his arm. Adrián took a rubber tourniquet from the trolley and placed it above his elbow, tightening it until the veins in hi...