Chapter Eleven
Clint
I’d expected to sleep like a baby, but hospitals were not peaceful places. The nurses didn’t seem to sit still for a second, rushing between patients making sure we were all here and alive through the night.
The next morning, I was given some kind of pain medication and a prescription to get crutches from the pharmacy.
I didn’t even want to think how much I would spend on a taxi to go from the hospital to the pharmacy and then home, but I didn’t really have a choice.
My family wasn’t here. My friends had all turned their back on me when my money disappeared.
Maybe the whole thing would be covered under some worker’s compensation insurance, but how long would it take to see the money?
A quiet knock sounded and I turned to see Jessie standing in the doorway. “Can I come in?” Her voice sounded strange. The Jessie I knew owned every room she walked into. This Jessie was tentative and nervous.
I nodded eagerly and patted the bed next to my hip. “What are you doing here?”
She walked into the room, fiddling with her fingers and sat tentatively on the edge of my bed. “The nurse said you’d need somebody to take you home and get you settled. I wasn’t sure if you had anybody, any family that is, after the story that you told me. I wanted to help.”
I stared at her. “This is too much for me to ask.”
“You aren’t asking, I’m offering.” I opened my mouth to argue but she cut me off. “I should have trained you better the way you did for me. That is on me. I’m going to help you get better”
I hated that she blamed herself.
“I shouldn’t have walked where I did.”
“I still owe you an apology, and I think helping you is better than some empty words. You can’t drive with your ankle like that. You’ll need someone to take you to work, get groceries. All of it.”
I hadn’t thought about all of that. “Thank you.”
An hour later, we were pulling into the parking lot of my building. “Okay, we got your crutches. Is there anything else before we get you upstairs?”
I shook my head.
“The elevator is broken, I should warn you of that now.”
“You live on the second floor right? How hard can it be?”
I fumbled with my crutches until we got to the foot of the stairs. Then we stopped and looked at each other. “If you walk up the stairs on crutches you could lose your balance and fall.”
I frowned. “So, how do we do this?”
She grabbed the crutch from under my arm closest to her and took its place, slinging my arm around her neck. “Let’s try this.”
One step at a time we started our way up the stairs. Her body fit perfectly against mine, I just wished it was under better circumstances.
Between the lack of sleep and the stress of the situation, my body was begging to collapse to the floor and stay there. We finally made it to the front door and I fumbled with the keys, leaning more heavily on her than I intended.
I managed to get the door open and we shuffled into my little kitchen. It was strange having Jessie in my space, but stranger that I was starting to think of this place as home.
“Fuck, that was a lot of stairs.” I was not above complaining at this point. My ankle was throbbing and I was sweaty and flustered.
“You can say that again.”
I put a hand on the table to shift my weight off of Jessie but my hand slipped and I lost my balance.
“Shit, Clint.” She scrambled to catch me, but in a tangle of limbs and crutches, we both went down. My back hit the floor and I was distracted from catching my breath by the very soft body that landed on mine.
“Freaking hell,” she said. Her soft chest was pressed against my hard one, mouth inches from mine.
The throb in my ankle disappeared into the background as I studied her, watching her eyes flit from my lips and back to my eyes.
Her breath smelled like cinnamon, and her hair was falling forward around her face, framing her in silky auburn locks.
I wanted to run my fingers through it. To have all the bullshit about jobs and money fade into the background and just taste her lips.
Find out if they were as soft as they looked.
If her kiss matched her personality, fierce and assertive.
Or if she would let me take the lead and slide my tongue into her mouth.
The thought was sending all my blood away from my broken bone and towards the very eager one between my legs.
There was no way she couldn’t feel it, stiffening against her thigh.
“You okay?” Her voice was low, as if whispering the words would let the universe forget we had no business kissing under a table.
I nodded, lifting my head from the floor to be closer to her. The slight movement sent one of the crutches that was leaning against the table clattering to the floor and the sound made us both jump.
Reality came pouring back and Jessie pushed herself off me, smacking the back of her head against the underside of my thrift store table. “Dammit, that smarts.” She pushed back, sitting with one leg crossed, the other out along my side, her hand on the back of her head.
I pushed up to my elbow and put a hand on her leg. “Are you okay?” We stared at each other for a moment. Me with my broken ankle, her with what would likely be one hell of a lump. Both under the table on my dingy, yellow kitchen floor.
She nodded then pursed her lips, trying to suppress a laugh. The sound escaped her lips anyway and once she started she couldn’t stop. She was gorgeous when she laughed. The lines of stress around her eyes turned into carefree crinkles. I wanted her to always feel this way.
I couldn’t help but join her. What else could I do? She was adorable and this situation was so ridiculous.