Chapter Forty-Four #2
“I’ve always wanted to do a bungee,” she told me as she turned the coffee pot on. “I mean I’m absolutely terrified by the idea, but I want to do it anyway.”
“The fear is kind of the point,” I said, nodding.
I ran across a lot of fellow adrenaline junkies in my travels. The majority of them, come to think of it, being men. It was intriguing to find a woman who wanted to dip her toe into it.
“Exactly,” she agreed. “I want to make myself do it. Have some stories to tell the grandkids one day. I don’t think they’d want to hear me confess I spent most of my twenties doing puzzles and birdwatching.”
“Birdwatching is kind of lit, though,” I said, shrugging. “The world has some cool-ass birds.”
“I always wanted to see the Umbrella Cockatoos in Australia,” she told me as she dug an armful of ingredients out of the fridge. Eggs, little bits of veg, some cheese, milk.
It looked like an omelet was in my future.
My stomach let out a painful grumble at the prospect.
“They’re loud as fuck,” I told her. “And daring. They’ll walk right up the railing at a restaurant and pluck food off of your plate. Cute as hell too. Got pictures of them I can show you once I get my phone back. Actually, prolly have a video of them on my channel.”
“Channel?” she asked as she grabbed a bowl.
“I post videos of my travels. The views pay for them and the house.”
“Oh, interesting. Is it all extreme sports stuff?”
“Nah, it’s a little bit of everything when I travel. The sports shit gets the most views, but I post it all. A scrapbook of all the shit I’ve seen and done for one day when I can’t anymore.”
“Keep having accidents like this one and it might be sooner rather than later. Sorry!” she said, whipping around with wide eyes.
At what? The possibility that she might have offended me? What was that about?
“Nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart. You’re right about that. I don’t usually get very hurt. This was out of the norm.”
But now I would have to be even more careful than usual. Because everything was going to be weaker than before. Even if I went through all the physical therapy offered to me. Some shit just never got back to one hundred percent.
“Well, that’s good. It must suck being so hurt all over,” she said as she started to add shit to the bowl that I was reasonably sure wouldn’t make an omelet.
Not that I was an expert at this sort of thing, since most of my meals came cooked to me by restaurants.
But the flour seemed more like a baked thing.
“It’s not great,” I admitted. “It’ll be better when the shoulder and ribs ease up. I can deal with the leg if every movement doesn’t make me see stars.”
“I wish I could offer you an icepack or something. But I don’t… oh, actually,” she said, abandoning her concoction to rummage through the freezer, producing some sort of… I don’t know… band. “This might be better than a normal icepack,” she said, coming over toward me. “May I?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, scooting forward to let her drape it around me, then fasten it with the velcro on my good side.
“Oh, nice,” I said as the cool started on my ribs immediately, dulling the pain.
“What’s this for?” I asked, then watched as her eyes went round and her cheeks went all pink.
Which was cute as fuck. “Oh,” I said, figuring it was a period thing.
“Right. Well, I’m glad I ended up with a girl looking after me, then,” I said.
“I actually have some CBD cream too,” she said.
“I will leave that with you when I head out today to see if it helps. I think it does, but maybe that’s just a placebo thing.
Oh, and I have a heating pad. Would that be better?
I know for me, it can go either way. But that’s not, ah, my ribs, I guess. ”
“It’s all soft tissue,” I said. “It might help. But, fuck, did the numbness the cold caused bring some immediate relief.
We talked about little things then. Like the doggy daycare she worked at, and how Samson liked going to work with her. About how she met Kingston and Savvy.
By the time she was pulling the muffins—that was what she’d been making with the flour—out of the oven, the omelets and breakfast potatoes were just finishing up too.
“This is fucking amazing,” I told her after digging in, hungrier than I’d realized as soon as I got a taste of the food.
Omelets with mushrooms, onions, spinach, and mozzarella. Muffins with chocolate chips because she said she didn’t have any fresh fruit. And the potatoes that were crispy as fuck.
Hell, she even made good coffee.
“So, are your cooking skills exclusive to breakfast food, or…”
“I can cook lunches and dinners too,” she said.
“In that case, you can fucking empty my bank account to buy groceries if you can produce more of this,” I told her, pointing my fork at my food.
Her smile was big, but she ducked her head, like the praise embarrassed her.
“So, if you could have anything for dinner, what would you want?” she asked.
“Sweetheart, whatever you think your best dish is sounds good to me,” I told her, polishing off the muffin that I saved for last.
“I could even start to pack some lunches for you,” she offered. “To eat while I’m gone.”
“That’s asking a little too much,” I said, shaking my head.
My sister and sisters-in-law would likely be dropping by for lunch anyway.
But AJ’s face fell at that. “I don’t want you getting burnt out doing too much,” I added.
“Better just to stick to the two meals. And maybe a dessert here or there.”
“That I can manage. I don’t make a lot of dessert because I don’t usually have anyone to share it with, and knowing me, I will eat a whole tray of brownies meant for twenty people by myself.”
“I can definitely help you polish off some brownies,” I said, already salivating over the thought, even though my stomach was pushing the boundaries of full.
AJ was just gathering up the plates as I squished down the guilt I felt at not being able to help, when there was a loud rap at the door.
And AJ dropped everything in her hands into the sink with a loud clatter, her whole posture going ramrod straight.
Interesting.
“Who the fuck could that be?” I asked, half to myself. “Push me to the door,” I said.
“I’ll answer it,” AJ said, but she looked like she’d rather be covered up to her eyes in tarantulas than do that.
“Push me to the door,” I demanded, starting to scoot myself.
“Yo, it’s Mark,” Mark Mallick, my brother-in-law’s voice, called from the other side of the door.
“Christ, you scared the fuck outta us,” I told him as AJ opened the door.
“Sorry,” he said, giving AJ one of his charming smiles. “You look like shit,” he said to me.
“Thanks, man. Nice seeing you too. What’s all of that?” I asked, nodding behind him.
“Kingston said you could use some adaptations to make life easier for a while. I got a bunch of rails for the bathroom. And some other shit. I know it’s early, but I wanted to get it done before AJ left for the day. Hey, AJ,” he said.
“Hi,” AJ said, gaze lowering. “I, ah, I’ll get out of your way,” she said, rushing back off to the kitchen.
“She’s real pretty,” Mark said with a devious little smirk.
“Don’t even fucking start,” I demanded.
Mark Mallick was known for a few things.
Being a loan shark enforcer. Running his own lawn service and handyman company to wash the dirty money from the loan-sharking thing.
And, of course, running bets. Only within the family.
Usually about who was gonna get hooked up next, or who was gonna have a baby, or what gender the baby might be.
Mark had a pool going for everything.
Even though he literally never fucking won a bet.
“Start?” he asked, lips twitching. “Already got all the bets placed. Heard the set-up, and that AJ is gorgeous. It was a natural progression from there.”
“I’ll put my money on It’s not gonna happen.”
“Oh, come on, man. Even I’m not that stupid,” he said, grabbing his shit, and making his way down the hallway.
The rest of the day was eaten up by Kingston coming back over and taking me to the orthopedic doctor, who mostly agreed with the Swiss ones, but gave me some hope that my ribs would feel a decent bit better in another week and a half.
My fingers, he thought, would take three or more months to get their strength fully back.
Four to six weeks in the sling for my rotator cuff, since it was minor.
The pinched nerve was subjective with some people getting mostly better in weeks, while others had flares for years.
And the leg, yeah, the leg was going to keep me down for a while. Then take a while in rehab too.
It seemed like we were looking at three to six months recovery.
“You could at least try to act like it won’t be a complete nightmare to be stuck in Navesink Bank with us,” Kingston said as I stared out the window on the way home.
“That’s not it,” I said. Though, yeah, to some extent, I guess it was. Being stuck. That had never been a good feeling for me. It wasn’t about my family. It was just the entire concept of putting down roots.
“You could get to really know your nieces and nephews,” he said. “Sit at Charlie and Helen’s table again. Talk to your siblings for more than five snatched minutes before you catch a flight.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. While, inwardly, I knew that all of those things would make it harder to leave when it was time.
But that was shit I didn’t want to think about.
So I focused on what AJ might be making for dinner instead.
And if I might see her walking around pants-less and braless again.
Fuck.
Maybe I was going to lose money on that bet with Mark…