3. MAX
MAX
Lucas began coming in during visiting hours every day, though the times varied.
He’d sit at my bedside and we’d chat or watch awful TV together or he’d just listen to me bitch about my recovery.
It was...companionable. Sometimes we texted each other memes, though I sent more than he did because, well, I had nothing else to do, while he had a job.
My physical therapist, Jeff, was in my room stretching me when Lucas came by on day seven.
I had been cursing the therapist out steadily the whole time.
He took it without a flinch, clearly used to being hated by his patients.
“Five more,” he told me calmly, “and then I’ll get out of your hair and you can see your friend. ”
I obediently kept my knee straight and lifted what was left of my leg.. My leg shook. “Fucking hell, five?”
“Four, now.”
I glanced at where Lucas was leaning one shoulder against the wall, watching us.
I didn’t much care about impressing the PT, who was paid to watch me suck at this, but I felt bad about slacking in front of the guy who’d gone through all that effort to save my life.
Not that Lucas, with his bright, open manner and kind face, seemed capable of disapproval.
No matter how I acted toward him or anyone else, he just kept smiling at me.
It got kind of disconcerting, actually. What was he so happy about, anyway?
“Max,” said the PT, spinning his finger in the air in a move it along gesture.
I focused back on him and lifted my nonexistent leg again. Then again. And twice more, sweating and groaning by the end of it. “Jesus Christ,” I whined.
Jeff patted my shoulder. “Good job, Max. You’re keeping things stretched and building up some strength. You should be out of here before too much longer, at least as far as my sign-off goes.”
“Hallelujah,” I deadpanned.
He grinned and glanced over his shoulder at Lucas. “He’s all yours, dude.”
Lucas smiled at him and then turned his green eyes to me as Jeff made his way out of the room. “Hey. How are you feeling?”
“Like I just let a sadist significantly younger than me beat me up.” I gave Jeff’s retreating back the finger and Lucas chuckled.
“But better. They’ve started weaning me off the constant painkillers, which is both a blessing and a curse.
I’m not high all the time and I can think clearly, which is nice.
But the interim over-the-counter stuff and nerve meds feel like they do fuck-all for the pain when it gets bad, and they barely touch the phantom pains at all. ”
He grimaced. “That’s rough. Are you sure you shouldn’t ask for the hard stuff for a little while longer?”
I shook my head firmly. “Nope, not interested. The last thing I want is to come out of this minus a leg and plus an addiction.” The doctors had encouraged some oral opioids, but I wasn’t chancing it. If it ran in the family, as I suspected it did, I sure didn’t want to find that out the hard way.
“Makes sense.” He pushed off the wall and came to my bedside, where he dropped into the padded chair there. “Have they told you when you can be released yet?”
I shook my head. “You heard the PT say I was almost ready. That’s about as close as anyone has come to giving me a timeline. I’m getting really fucking antsy,” I added, squirming in bed, trying to get more comfortable.
Lucas watched me with his soft expression, running a hand through his long hair and gathering it back in a ponytail before letting it fall around his shoulders again.
I wondered what that hair felt like. I bet it was silky.
“They aren’t interested in keeping you here any longer than you need to be here, trust me,” he said reassuringly.
“I know, I know. I just…” I waved a hand. “The bills, you know?”
He nodded. “And I bet you miss home and your own bed.”
He didn’t know I was essentially homeless.
It hadn’t come up, and even if it had, I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to confess.
He could probably have guessed something was up from the suitcases that sat in the corner of my room if he’d thought about it, though.
Most people didn’t bring two weeks’ wardrobe to a hospital where all they wore was the stupid gown.
“Um, yeah,” I managed to lie. “So much.” Technically it was true that I missed my hotel bed, even if that wasn’t my bed any longer since I was sure it had long been rented out to someone else.
And I guessed I missed my bed back in Concord a little, even if I had no intention of ever going back there.
Unaware of my internal justifications, Lucas just patted my hand with his warm one. “How’s the food been?”
“Shit, as usual.”
“Ah, hospitals.” He sat back and folded his hands over his flat midsection. “They never change.”
“You ever been in one?” I asked curiously.
He shrugged. “Had my tonsils out when I was a kid. That was a long time ago, though. Hardly counts. But I work with enough hospital staff to have heard about how special hospital food is for patients.”
“How old were you when you had your tonsils out?”
“Oh, maybe eight?”
And then I couldn’t resist asking: “And how old are you now?”
“Why Mr. Dion!” he gasped theatrically, “you never ask a lady her age!”
I snorted a laugh. “As if anyone ever accused you of being a lady.”
He grinned at the insult. “I’m thirty-five. How old are you, since we’re asking?”
“Thirty-two.” Sometimes I felt younger, especially as far as feeling like I had been just about to finally start real life in San Francisco this year.
But sometimes I felt older, too, like when I thought about my childhood and how I’d had to be an adult practically from the age of six, when my father left.
“I’ve been told I’m an old soul, though. ”
He considered me reflectively. “Yeah, I can see that,” he said after a moment. “You have this air about you of…” He waved a thoughtful hand in the air. “...of having seen shit.”
Ouch, direct hit. “You could say that,” I agreed.
Was I really going to do this? I was going to do this.
I owed the guy some real talk before he decided I was good like he was and latched onto me any harder.
“My mom’s an addict. Always has been. And I…
” I gulped. “I started off as a stripper back in New Hampshire.”
He blinked at me. “Stripper? Like…” He made a shirt-taking-off gesture, and I nodded. “Wow.”
What was he thinking of me now? I tried not to look either self-conscious or defensive as I said, “It was a living. And it let me build enough money to take compsci courses during the day and start a new career.”
“No, no, I get it,” he assured me hastily. “No judgment.”
People were always judging when they said that. I held back a sigh, wondering if I’d ever see Lucas again after tonight or if I’d just officially weirded him out a step too far. “Yeah, so…”
“So,” he agreed. Then, to my surprise, he reached out and took my hand in a light grip. “Sounds like you’ve worked your ass off most of your life. No wonder you feel old. I feel like I’ve been coasting compared to you.”
“Dude, you’re a fucking paramedic. I don’t think that’s coasting.” I fought not to squeeze his hand. That would be weird. “You save people’s lives. You went to school for it—lots of school, right?”
He nodded, looking down at our joined hands. “Yeah, quite a bit.”
“Sounds like dedication to me.”
That soft smile was on his face again when he looked up. “Then I guess we’re both solid specimens of adulthood.”
Me, an adult? I’d rarely been accused of that before. People didn’t take strippers seriously, to say the least. Even thirty-year-old ones. “If you say so,” I managed to say after a too-long pause.
“I do.” This time it was him who squeezed my hand, and then he released me all of a sudden. “Sorry, I should have asked before touching you.”
“Why?”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “Not everyone’s comfortable with being touched, especially in a personal manner like hand-holding, and you’re kind of a captive audience, stuck in that bed. Hard for you to stop me if you didn’t want it.”
Too. Sweet. Why was this guy hanging out with me? “I don’t mind,” I said, flexing my fingers and trying to get back a little of the comforting feeling of his hand in mine.
He gave me a tight-lipped smile that said he was unconvinced, but he didn’t argue.
“So,” he changed the subject abruptly, “I brought you some books.” He dragged his messenger bag over to the chair and started rifling through it.
“I know you said you liked sci-fi, and I don’t know if you’re into Star Trek at all, but I have a big selection of novels based on the various serieses so I grabbed a few in case you’d want to read them.
” He produced an overflowing handful of paperbacks and started sorting them into my lap.
“Original series,” he said about one pile.
“DS9,” he labeled another. “Next Generation” was the last. Then he paused, looking up at me shyly.
“You’re not under any obligation to read any of these.
I just wanted to give you the option because you told me how being here is driving you stir-crazy. ”
He’d brought me reading material because I mentioned that I was bored.
Suddenly, I felt tears pricking at my eyes.
I fought them back through force of will.
I was not going to cry over this, even though it was maybe the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me.
Did I know much about Star Trek? Not really.
Did I care that I wasn’t already well-versed in it?
Not a bit. I’d read the hell out of anything he’d brought me.
I carefully placed a hand on top of the stack nearest me and caught his eye.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping my sincerity was clear in my voice. “I really appreciate this.”
“Really?” He sounded dubious. “I know these are supremely geeky and probably not to your taste…”