Chapter 4 #2
“Then don’t run out on me—again! Never took you for a fucking bunny, but you just keep running from me.”
Kelly stiffened, squaring her shoulders. “I am not some scared little bunny rabbit!”
Grumpy’s lips twitched, and this time it wasn’t a muscle spasm. “There’s my fierce Kell Bell. Now get your sexy ass back over to this couch. We have a lot to talk about, starting with you telling me everything you have to go through to take care of your mom and Bubble.”
“Bubbe,” she corrected on a laugh.
“That’s what I said.” He watched Kelly drop her purse onto his coffee table. “Now, take your shoes off and give me your feet. I can at least give you a foot massage while you talk.”
Kelly glanced down at her shoes like they might bite him. “Really?”
“Don’t question my sincerity when it comes to taking care of you. I’ve been doing it for a decade.”
Kelly slowly lowered herself onto the couch. Toeing off her shoes without looking away from him, she asked, “So I haven’t been imagining it. You have been doing things for me over the years. Things I didn’t ask for and you didn’t tell me about.”
“Clearly not enough if you’re still struggling this much,” he growled. It took more energy than he cared to admit, but he was eventually able to get himself situated on the couch to face her. Their legs crossed over each other’s until their feet were in each other’s lap.
Kelly wiggled his “old man slipper”. “I’ll do yours if you do mine.”
“Deal. Now, tell me about your struggles taking care of your mom and Bubble Lady.”
* * *
Kelly didn’t know where to start. Hell, she wasn’t even sure this was real and not just some fantasy her overtired mind had cooked up for herself. Sitting on Grumpy’s couch giving each other foot massages? Best sixty-nine position she’d ever been in.
“Mom’s got rheumatoid arthritis. It’s severe, especially at her age. And the woman’s Jewish, so saying she’s stubborn is an understatement.”
Grumpy grunted, and somehow got his prosthetic eye to look at her just as accusatorily as his real one.
“Are you calling me stubborn, Sir Grumpsalot?”
“Touché,” he conceded. “Continue.”
“She also has osteoporosis after falling about five years ago.”
“I remember that. You called an ambulance for her in the middle of the night.”
Kelly nodded. “Is this okay?” she asked, indicating his foot in her hands. “I don’t want to push too hard.”
“I’ll say ‘ow’ if you do,” he deadpanned.
Kelly stuck her tongue out at him. “Yes, that’s when she fell.
I think that was the first time I realized you were my neighbor.
Imagine my near heart attack when I’m standing there in an old t-shirt and pajama shorts and you’re there in all your muscley glory looking like a fucking god—ow!
” She jumped when he pinched the bottom of her foot.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I push too hard?”
Kelly’s eyes narrowed on the man. “You know, your club’s wrong about you. Under that surly attitude is a sarcastic jerk.”
Grumpy pouted before lifting the bottom of her foot up to his mouth and kissing it. “Better?”
“Much.” Kelly started up her own massage on his foot again.
“Anyway, combine the two, and you basically have unpredictable flares and struggling mobility. She keeps herself occupied making candles and soaps all day. Which is good, because it keeps her entertained while I’m at work.
But her sales could be better and don’t contribute enough to the overall bills to actually make a difference.
Not to mention that I have to box and ship everything when I get home.
” Kelly made a face. “It sounds negative when I put it all together like that. Honestly, I wish she’d ask for more help than she does.
I don’t like leaving her alone, but one of us has to work to pay for Bubbe’s care.
Not to mention our cost of living. Honestly, if my mom hadn’t paid off the house with the settlement she got when Daddy died, we’d be in a lot worse shape.
” Kelly looked pointedly at Grumpy as she added, “And yet the maintenance and upkeep for a house as old as ours seems to have declined over the past decade instead of increasing.”
“Weird.” The man’s expression didn’t even flinch!
“Yeah. Weird. Like I swear we had a loose railing, then it mysteriously repaired itself. Any idea how that happened?”
He continued to massage her foot. “Nope.”
“Uh huh. And my mom’s garden? I certainly haven’t been weeding it like I’m supposed to.”
“It is a mystery.”
She should not find him lying to her face so endearing. “And my roof?”
“I hear those are self-repairing nowadays.”
Kelly snorted. “How about how no snow ever seems to land on my driveway, sidewalk, or car?”
“Self-melting snow.”
“And my car that runs in perfect condition?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it perfect, but it certainly runs better than any other Yugo ever built.”
Kelly shook her head, unable to keep the smile off her lips.
Yugoslav cars were notorious for manufacturer failures.
A decade ago, she’d been hard pressed to figure out how she could work her finances to afford a new car.
Then, slowly, day after day, her Yugo started working a little bit more, like a watching a transplant patient gain strength now that they had a working organ.
She tapped his chest very gently with the toes of the foot he wasn’t massaging. “Thank you.”
He met her eyes, his steady. They really had done a great job matching the light brown of his prosthetic to his real one. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to do more over the past six months.”
“How have you been doing anything at all?” Kelly questioned. “I thought I was going insane, or questioning if I had another stalker.”
The dark look on his face made Kelly question if he didn’t approve of her calling him a stalker or her wondering if another man had romantic interest in her. “Prospects,” he said shortly. “Told them to stay silent and invisible, but to ensure you were taken care of.”
Kelly’s hands froze on his foot. “Really? Even after I walked out on you?”
“You leaving changed nothing. Not my feelings for you or my desire to take care of you.”
Her chin trembled as she looked away, shamed. “I should have done a better job taking care of you.”
“No, you shouldn’t. You’re human, Kells. Trust me when I say there was a part of me that was grateful you left.”
Her head snapped up, anger replacing her shame. “What the hell does that mean?”
He nudged her with his foot as she had done him. “It means I’m human, too—and vain enough that I didn’t want the woman I’ve been in love with for the past ten years to see me with a tube up my dick or my jaw screwed shut.” He waved a hand in front of his left eye. “Not to mention all this.”
“I didn’t leave because of that,” she reminded him softly.
Grumpy nodded. “I know.”
“Your voice is starting to get gravely again.”
“Dry mouth,” he shrugged, like it wasn’t that big of a deal. “Consider it an irritating side effect of having a mouth full of metal.”
Kelly pulled her feet back towards herself. “I’ll go refill your glass.”
He caught her ankle. “Only if you get something for yourself, too.”
“Fine, but you also have to eat another pot pie.” She pointed to the container on his left.
“You don’t fight fair.”
She smiled at him as she got to her feet. “I know. Do you want anything else while I’m up?”
Grumpy shook his head, blindly reaching for the container.
Kelly was tempted to help him, but restrained herself.
His mom had babied him to the point where he’d kicked her out of the house.
She’d watch, let him struggle and adjust, and if he still needed help when she got back, she’d help him then.
Unfortunately, it was the opposite sort of care with her mom.
She’d flood the house before she admitted she couldn’t reach the faucet to turn it off.
Kelly grabbed a glass of water for herself too as she refilled his.
He was just getting the container situated in front of him as she settled herself back on the couch.
Kelly stretched over and placed his water cup on the TV stand.
She’d have to be careful if he moved because it was now in his blind spot.
Kelly took a big gulp of water as she worked up the courage to ask, “Is it weird that we’ve both proclaimed to love the other and we kind of just glossed over it?”
“No weirder than anything else that’s happened over the past six months.”
She nodded, giving him that. “Fair point. You were serious, though, right? I mean, you weren’t just saying it because I word vomited it to you?”
The look Grumpy gave her could slay dragons.
Kelly held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I believe you.” She smiled, warming inside. “It feels good being able to say it, you know.”
“Wish we’d said it earlier.”
She knew that feeling. “Not sure it would have made a difference. Honestly, I’m not sure what difference it makes now.
I mean, what does it really change? I suck at relationships, Grumpy.
Yes, a good number of mine ended because I found out he was sleeping around—which is something we still need to talk about in regard to your past relationships—but in all fairness, I think it was me. I was the common factor, you know.”
Grumpy finished chewing before responding. “You mentioned before about always being the caretaker. Was that in regard to romantic relationships, too?”
Kelly nodded. “It sounds silly or ridiculous. I’m thirty-eight years old!
But the only relationship I’ve ever had where the man didn’t ask me for things was when I dated George—Captain Hunter,” she clarified.
“And mostly that was because he forgot me most of the time.” At the look Grumpy gave her, Kelly quickly came to George’s defense.
“Because he was working so much. Honestly, I was too. It’s not fair to put it solely on him.
I think we were both just lonely and occasionally being together was better than not being alone. ”
“I’m very tempted to light something on fire and then gut the man when he comes to put it out.”