CHAPTER 7
Chris
Unloading the last bag of pea gravel by my garden shed, I stow my hand truck inside the little building for the day and wipe the sweat off my brow with the hem of my shirt.
The wind chills the damp skin on my belly, making me shiver now that I’ve stopped moving and the sun has moved behind the clouds.
My knee gives a throb as though it’s shouting at the cold to stay away.
If my body and the weather cooperate, I should be able to finish the pathway to the oak tree in the back corner of the yard this week.
One last project before a long winter of holing up inside and catering to my arthritis.
It doesn’t get as cold here as other parts of the country, but I’d probably move to a less humid location if it weren’t for the amount of college teams in the area.
At least my sunporch is insulated and heated, so I can work on my mosaics and watch Gale out the back window when I give her yard time.
Three cheers for brooding being an effective motivator.
Locking up the shed, I turn to head toward the gate that opens to my front yard, where I backed my truck up to unload my bounty from the hardware store.
One more bag and I’m calling it quits for the afternoon.
The ache in my joints from the full day of manual labor is proof that anger can only fuel the stamina required for overzealous distractions for so long.
Surveying my house, it looks like a crime scene when I think about what went down in it over the weekend with Remy.
I can’t believe I just assumed he’d be down for a repeat of our college activities. Instinct kicked in, some meatheaded alter ego that used to work for me in college, and I ran with it.
Gale races over, nudging a stick against my hand.
Wrangling it from her, I give it a toss deeper into the yard.
She zips down one of the paths I set a few years ago and then does a ninety-degree turn to dart into the grass where the stick landed, her usual eccentric flight path.
I can read dogs, apparently, but not people.
I thought he looked at me like…
Shaking my head, I sigh and start toward my truck again.
I had myself convinced that he was avoiding me and just being polite when I left the center last week, but then I came home and marinated in it.
Shallow breathing, wetting his lips, the way he gets all jittery like he can’t even form a sentence—I started thinking that maybe I just got all up in my head.
That maybe there was something still there.
When I saw him walk into Mahoney’s with fucking pain-in-the-ass Pajamies of all people, the cloud of jealousy and petulance that hit me was an eye opener.
I have no claim on him. It’s not like he wasn’t free to be as stupid as he wanted to be and end up with Jamie, even though I didn’t know it wasn’t the case at the time.
I swear, when he walked up to the bar, though, he gave me that look.
The one he used to give me each time I showed up in his room.
It was like I was the best thing he’d ever seen.
I haven’t seen that look in fifteen years.
Needless to say, it made me go a little savage, instantly determined to pull out all the stops.
I needed to know if it was real. When he told me he wasn’t with Jamie, I thought I won the damn lottery.
There was no question—Remy was going to be mine for the night. Again. Just like we used to.
He wanted to be too. I was sure of it. Until I wasn’t.
Stopping at the tailgate of my truck, I reach in and grab the bag of Sakrete I bought. Dragging it to the end of the bed, I stare down at it blankly.
‘And then what?’
I asked myself that very question recently, so I couldn’t even feel slighted about it. How can you begrudge a guy for passing on casual sex with an old hookup?
It’s just… Was it because of the way I am now? I want to shout, ‘I object!’
Disabled people are more than their disabilities. I just wish in my case that were true. Ugh. I sound like a damn incel. Poor me and my broken dick and back. Pinching my eyes closed, I curse under my breath, disgusted with myself on a whole new level.
Something black whirs past my periphery.
I open my mouth to shout at Gale over whatever she decided to take off after, but then snap it shut at the sight of Remy in my front yard as though my moping summoned him.
A burst of hope inside my chest goes off like a firework, taking me aback.
He looks so good in the light of day. Good on the eyes, good to see him, and just good in general.
There’s something pure and honest about him, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of vibe that’s a breath of fresh air.
I’ve spent the last couple of days blaming my obsession on my lack of interaction with people.
Breathless and tingling, I know now it’s so much worse than that.
I like what I see. I like it a lot, and I have a snowball’s chance in hell of having it.
The hesitant look on his face and slow, cautious steps give me the feeling that I’m about to be treated to a pity party.
“Hey,” he calls.
“Hey.”
“I hope it’s okay that I dropped by. Have you got a minute to talk?”
A minute? Yup. Pity visit. Called it.
“I’m surprised you remembered where to find me without your sat nav.”
Hoisting the bag of concrete mix onto my shoulder, I bite back a grunt at the pressure it puts on my spine. It would be nice to look like something he should regret walking away from for this minute. Apparently, my petulance still has teeth.
“No,” he chuffs. “He flew back home yesterday.”
This time, I grunt on purpose because I don’t know how to do whatever small talk this is.
Turning on my heel, I start toward the backyard.
The urge to hide is strong, but that’s not the impression I want to leave him with either.
Glancing back twists my hips the wrong way, though, making me instantly regret it.
I wince, sucking in an involuntary breath between my teeth.
Remy hustles a few steps forward. “You’re in pain.”
I’m not in the mood to air my updated biography with him, so I continue on my path without looking back again. If he follows, he follows. It’s not like it’s a requirement that you have to be face-to-face with someone when they come to add another layer to their rejection with a polite explanation.
“What else is new?”
The grass crunches behind me as I head toward the sunroom door. I guess it was too much to hope that he’d just run off again like he did the other night.
“Your yard is amazing.” The compliment has me preening, but then he asks, “Did you do all of this?”
“It wasn’t that difficult.” That’s a lie that I can’t hide behind now that he has a full view of me hobbling along in front of him.
I worked my ass off on this yard for years, picking good days to get shit done.
Powering through bad days when I was so desperate to get out of the house that I refused to let the pain dictate my life. “Slow and steady wins the race.”
“Have you looked into getting the broken hardware in your back replaced?”
Pleasantries and reminders that I’m not what I used to be. Great. I wish he’d just get on with whatever he came to say. I guess this is the price I have to pay for acting like a Don Juan.
I set the bag down on my workbench in the sunroom, regretting now that I’d left the door propped open earlier when I find Remy standing in it. Is this the universe’s cruel way of making me pay for realizing fifteen years too late that I was an absolute heathen toward him back in the day?
“Yeah. Several times,” I try to say without sounding curt, sweeping off my bench for something to busy myself with. “But apparently, spinal surgeons aren’t keen on doing surgeries that could potentially paralyze the patient. Can’t say I am either.”
“Well, that’s why I stopped by.”
My hand stills with the dustpan brush in it. Please tell me he doesn’t have some miracle suggestion like every single one of my parents’ friends that they tell about ‘Poor Chris.’
“You’re a spinal surgeon now?”
“No.” He kicks at a kernel of dried cement on the floor with the toe of his sneaker and then immediately blushes like doing so vandalized my home.
That blush of his really isn’t something I needed to see right now, warring with my attempt to appear aloof.
“I wanted to ask if…you’d like me to show you some exercises that might be able to help, in case you don’t want to come back to the center. ”
That’s why he’s here? Not to give me some further explanation about why he shot me down? I did call it right. He is here out of pity, just not for the reasons I thought.
“I think I manage just fine.” I use some of the anger boiling under my surface to heft my newest paver stone off the bench and set it on the stack of the ones by the far wall that I finished.
“I kind of gave up on exercising a long time ago. I count this as a workout when I can.” I gesture to the general area of my sunroom and the backyard.
“You made these?” he asks, the wonder in his voice soothing some of my nerves as he inches forward. I nod, dreading what it will cost me to do so, but he surprises me, letting out a breathy sound. “Oh, my gosh. They’re beautiful. Like…that’s not even the right word.”
The look of awe and appreciation on his face as he reaches out and traces a fingertip over a design in one of the stones has me wanting to puff my chest out.
I don’t know why it’s so important to me to impress him.
I’ve gotten used to people either ignoring me like I don’t exist, throwing curious glances as though they wonder what happened to me, or worse, looking wary because of my size, like my broken gait must have been caused by violence.
“Just…wow,” he chuckles, the sound seeping into and warming my skin. “How do you know how to place all the pieces so perfectly?”