Chapter 19
Fifteen minutes later, as I walked toward the living room, clothes on, hair brushed, and mostly dry, with a coat of mascara on, I heard my mom talking about how she was normally much more put together, but she’d had to rely on a subpar hairdresser for the last month. Me, she was talking about me.
“Considering you just had a serious accident,” Elijah said, “you look amazing. You’re a beautiful woman, Mrs. Scott.”
I couldn’t hear my mom’s response, it was quiet.
I wondered what she said to that. My mom was a beautiful woman.
It wasn’t until years after my dad had left, when I was older, that I’d wondered why she hadn’t put herself out there again, found love.
She’d just buried her head in work and seemed to forget about that side of life.
Mom had a stern expression on when I rounded the corner. Was she angry I had sprung a visitor on her? I hadn’t warned her this time. If he was going to stand me up again, I hadn’t wanted her to know.
“Hi,” he said, meeting my eyes.
That tiny greeting and eye contact made my cheeks heat up again—not only from thoughts of the shower but from what he had seen minutes ago. “Hey,” I said, trying to play nonchalant. “I’m going to grab some water. Mom, do you need anything?”
“I’m good,” she said.
I brushed by Elijah and went to the kitchen. He followed me.
I retrieved a glass. “Can I get you some water?”
“I’m not here to be waited on. What can I do?”
“My mom has a physical therapy appointment today.” I glanced over his shoulder at my mom, who was searching for something on the couch beside her.
Probably the remote. I lowered my voice.
“Maybe you can help me put her in the car in about thirty minutes. That would be very helpful. And then you can go back to that job you hate.”
I gave him a smirk to show I was mostly teasing. I didn’t want to poke at a sore spot, but Elijah liked to joke, so I was pretty sure he could handle it.
“Yeah,” he said. “You probably think I’m a complete ingrate. I really am.”
“You’re not. You shouldn’t do something you don’t like.” I walked the thirty steps to the living room, picked up the remote off the end table, and handed it to my mom.
She immediately turned the television on to the unnecessarily loud volume that she liked, and I returned to the kitchen without saying anything about it. “Does your dad just go around starting businesses for people without much input, or what?”
“Actually, yes. He has a very successful, large car dealership, and it was his dream that each of his kids run their own business doing something they love. My older sister has a salon he helped her start and market.”
I took the glass I had retrieved earlier and filled it with ice. “What about Michael? Where is his forced career?”
“For now, he’s helping with the boxing gym ’til he figures out what his passion is.”
“And his passion is not boxing, I take it?”
“That would be too convenient.”
“It really would,” I said, using the dispenser in the refrigerator door for water.
Elijah leaned back against the counter while I drank several gulps, then refilled my glass.
“What?” I asked, because he was staring at me.
On the television, the sounds of the wheel spinning on The Price Is Right filled the room.
“You”—he gave a long pause, then nodded toward the front door—“are sexy as hell.”
And there went my cheeks, heating up again, probably bright red.
Someone must’ve hit the one-dollar space on the wheel because there were screams of joy on the television.
I patted my pockets and realized I didn’t have my cell phone.
It was probably in my bedroom. I pointed toward his pocket.
“You need my phone number to avoid future towel greetings.”
“If a phone number is going to take those off the table, I’ve decided I don’t need it.” His words were obviously a joke because he freed his phone and handed it to me.
I entered my number, then texted myself his name so that I had his.
When I handed him back his phone, he said, “What do you think about our homework this week?”
“We don’t have to do the homework this week.
She hasn’t guessed, Elijah. One more session and we’re done and she’s none the wiser.
Then Michael doesn’t have to do big, bad therapy.
He wins.” I was still trying to think of a way to help Tara convince him outside of this bet, but I hadn’t thought of anything yet.
He tucked his cell back into his pocket. “Maybe he should do therapy. I feel like it has brought me closer to a complete stranger. Imagine if we were in love.”
I swallowed. “Imagine.”
He smiled.
“You should tell your brother you changed teams.” I knew Elijah was the answer to change his mind.
“Maybe I will,” he said. “You don’t want to do the homework?”
“Aren’t you doing the homework right now?” I asked.
“This is last week’s,” he said.
“Close enough.”
“You have to tell her if we don’t.”
“You really are a people pleaser, aren’t you? Worried about getting in trouble.”
He thought about that statement, like my saying it out loud made him realize that’s exactly what he was doing. “Maybe not doing the homework should actually be my homework.”
The homework this week was a scratch-off date night game that I was pretty sure Dr. Franklin had invented.
She had pulled one sheet out of a bundle of them.
If we thought it was fun and it helped us, she’d probably offer to sell us the whole pack.
We were not going to do a scratch-off date night.
Especially because I knew the risk that the last thing we scratched off on the sheet would probably be some creative sex game.
This exercise was for already-established couples, after all.
People she was trying to help communicate their needs in a relationship better.
The last thing would probably read, Tell each other what you like in bed and then get in bed and do those things.
Or maybe something like, Think of a place you’ve never had sex. Go to that place and do the sex.
A voice in my head said, But that scratch-off would give you an excuse to have sex with this beautiful man.
I shook my head. If I needed an excuse, then I knew I shouldn’t.
It was too complicated. He lived here and was obviously stuck here for a while paying off a loan.
I didn’t live here. My whole life existed somewhere else.
He thought therapy was a joke, I didn’t.
He would have sex with me if a scratch-off told him to because he wouldn’t want to disappoint our pretty therapist. I wouldn’t.
I would do it because my body was starting to react every time he was around, and that was a recipe for heartache.
At least heartache on my side. And one-sided heartache was the worst kind.
“My mom is still in a lot of pain, which makes her kind of”—I looked once over my shoulder, although I wasn’t sure why, the television was so loud that I could hardly hear the conversation we’d been having until this point, and I knew she couldn’t hear us—“grumpy,” I finished.
What I didn’t say was that even when she wasn’t in pain, she was pretty grumpy.
He didn’t need to know all that. I protected my mom from those things.
“Is that why, when I called her beautiful, she said, I don’t need pretty words?”
“She said that?”
He nodded.
“She’s an excellent bullshit detector.”
“I don’t bullshit.”
I laughed. “I think you’re a professional bullshitter.”
“Rude,” he said.
I smiled. “Just have some patience with her. That’s all I’m saying.” That was my daily mantra.
“You don’t think I’m patient? I taught you to box, didn’t I?”
“Rude,” I said, mimicking him. Then I used his boxing technique to playfully land a jab on his stomach.
He swatted my hand away with a smile, and as I was leading him back out to the living room, he said, “Do you really think I’m a professional bullshitter?”
“Yes, I think you say things people want to hear. And also, I think you and your brother like pranks and bets that not everyone is always privy to.”
The smile that had been lighting his face slipped away. “Glad to know you think so highly of me.”
I stopped behind the love seat adjacent to the long couch where my mom sat. “Mom, what do you want to wear to therapy today?”
She looked down at the pajamas I had helped her into the night before. “Not this.” Then her eyes went to Elijah. “Are you staying?”
“For a bit,” he said. “If that’s okay.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“To see Sutton. And to meet you,” he said.
Like I said, she was an excellent bullshit detector, and at that answer, she narrowed her eyes in his direction. “Is she paying you?”
I groaned. “I’m not paying him. He’s not a medical professional. He’s my friend.”
“Since when? Sutton only has one friend around here, and she would actually be helpful to me. Why didn’t you ask Tara to come instead? I know her.”
“Can I be honest with you?” Elijah said.
“It would be nice if you’d start,” she said.
“I met your daughter about a month ago. We ended up on the wrong end of a bet. But I’m beginning to think that it was actually the right end because I kind of dig her.”
My throat tightened. Was that true? And what did it even mean?
“Dig her?” Mom said, with skeptical eyes.
“Okay,” I said, holding up a hand to stop Elijah from trying to get on my mom’s good side.
I wasn’t sure claiming to like me was the flex he thought it was.
And I wasn’t sure my mom had a good side, but his people-pleasing nature was going to have him jumping off cliffs to find it.
“He’s here. He’s going to help us with a few things because he is, in actuality, my friend.
” I approached her. “Put your arm around my neck.”
I braced myself on the back of the couch as she wrapped her arm around my neck, and I used my body weight to shift her to the wheelchair. Elijah, taking a second to catch on to what was happening, rushed around to hold the wheelchair from behind as I transferred her.
Once she was in the seat, I mouthed, “Wait here” to him. He nodded.
“You want to wear sweats?” I asked Mom as I wheeled her back to her room.
“That would probably be best,” she said.
I shut her door after wheeling her inside her bedroom. That’s when she said, “I don’t like him.”
I sighed. “Why?”
“He’s a smooth talker. The type to make big promises and never follow through.”
“He’s nice,” I said, feeling the need to defend him. He really had been nice.
“He reminds me of your father.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard her attribute any negative qualities to my dad. The fact that she was doing it now, in relation to a guy I’d just brought home, the first one ever, made me think it was purposeful. It rubbed me the wrong way. “You don’t even know him,” I said.
“I know his type.”
“Okay,” I said. “You should try to use the bathroom before we go.”
“I hate this,” she said.
“Me too,” I agreed.
It took too long to get my mom ready, and now we were running late.
And Elijah was probably just standing or sitting or pacing, I had no idea, in the living room, waiting.
It really was pointless to have him here.
He couldn’t change my mom’s clothes or take her to the bathroom. He just had to stand around waiting.
“Sorry,” I said, when we came back out. He was looking at pictures on the wall. He turned at my words.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You were a cute kid. I like your corduroy pants. Not common when we were growing up.”
“My mom was into vintage. She was stylish.”
“Still am,” she said. “When I can dress myself.”
I nodded toward the front door, and Elijah got the hint and opened it.
“Keys,” he said as I pushed my mom in her chair through the opening. I handed them over to him, and he locked up behind us. At the car, he kneeled next to my mom. “I’m going to help you.”
“Sutton can help me,” she said.
“I’m going to help you,” he said again, firmer this time.
She nodded and he easily scooped her up and put her in the car.
A wave of gratitude rushed through me as I watched. Mom buckled herself, and before I could move, he was collapsing the wheelchair and carrying it to the trunk.
I rushed after him. “Sorry, thank you.”
“Why are you saying sorry? And you’re welcome.”
I had an overwhelming desire to hug him, but I kept my hands to myself. He popped the trunk and placed the wheelchair inside. Then he was heading toward the car’s back door.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting in the car.”
“No. I mean, you shouldn’t. You don’t have to. You should go back to work.”
He just smiled at me, climbed into the car, and pulled the door shut behind him.