“That set us back, didn’t it?” Cheyenne asks.
I nod. “Yeah, I think it did.”
She sits down next to me and buttons the snaps of my pants leg. When she’s done, she’s sitting just a little too close to me. “You need ice on that.”
“Yeah, I’ll ice it when I get home.”
“You have a ride?”
I shrug. “No, I’ll just take the bus, then walk, same as always.”
She frowns. “Ben, you can’t. You’ll hurt yourself worse.”
“Well, I can’t drive with my knee fucked up, and I’m still working on teleportation.”
She snorts and smacks my shoulder. “Smart ass.”
“Better than being a dumbass,” I retort.
“Well, you’d be a dumbass not to just ask me if I can drive you home, then, wouldn’t you?”
I swallow my pride. “Cheyenne, would you mind driving me home?”
She smiles brightly. “Why sure, Ben, I’d be happy to.”
So I wait, leaning against the frame of the door as she wipes down the machines, shuts off the lights, and then locks the door behind us. She hikes her gym bag higher on her shoulder, and I, out of the instinct drilled into me by my mom and dad, take it from her.
“Ben, I can—” she starts to protest.
“And so can I. I have a shit knee, but I’m not useless.” I hang the bag from my right shoulder and lean on the cane.
She lets me carry her bag, shooting me a smile that’s somehow different from the ones she usually gives me. This one is…more personal, somehow. Less politely professional, containing a note of…I don’t know what. I can’t read Cheyenne, most of the time.
She opens the back door of her F-150, takes the bag from me, and tosses it onto the backbench, then climbs up into the driver’s seat. It’s not a big truck, not jacked up as high as my Silverado, but the step up and in is still going to be hellishly difficult. I set my cane—my stupid fucking cane—inside, grab the handle and the seat and lift myself into the seat using only my upper body.
“Clearly nothing wrong with your core muscles,” Cheyenne says, a strange note in her voice.
I glance at her, surprised by the comment, but she focuses on putting the truck in gear and backing out. I have to be crazy, because it almost looked like she was blushing there for a moment. But that’s stupid. There’s no way a forty-year-old fox of a woman with a grown daughter would be blushing over a twenty-two-year-old kid.
I give her directions to my apartment, and the ride is surprisingly comfortable, no awkwardness. She tunes the radio to The Highway, an XM country music station, and “Cowboy Side of You” by Clare Dunn comes on. I surprise myself by knowing the lyrics. But then, you don’t grow up in Nashville, and then live in Texas, without hearing some country music, even if it’s not really your thing.
We pull up to my apartment, and she hops out, circles around and hovers near me as I slide out. God, I hate being a damned invalid, having her hover over me in case I fall. But a part of me, way deep down, kind of likes having her close, having her hover. Because it means she cares.
And shit, I’ve been lonely for a long fucking time.
I have to lean on the cane more than I’d like on the way up to the front door of my apartment, which, fortunately for me, is on the ground floor. Cheyenne is beside me, not really hovering now, more just…there. In case. I unlock the door, shove it open and let it bang against the inner wall. I hobble through, and glance back at Cheyenne, who hasn’t crossed the threshold.
“Hey, so…you want to come in for a second?” I ask.
She hesitates. “I…” Her eyes go to mine, and then she smiles. And it’s that other smile. Still bright and warm and genuine, but…intimate. I don’t know how else to describe it. “Sure, for a few minutes.”
I flick a switch to turn on the lights in the kitchen, and then the lamp in the living room. And that’s the apartment. Kitchen, living room, a bedroom. Tiny, but mine. Well, Dad’s. He’s been subsidizing me while I got started in the FXFL, the experimental minor football league. Except now…I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I didn’t tell him about the hit I took, or what it means. I’ve been avoiding it.
And fuck, my place is messy. Dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor in the doorway to my room, unmade bed, a pizza box on the counter.
I grimace and glance sheepishly at Cheyenne. “This place is kind of a mess. Sorry.”
She just grins. “You’re a bachelor. I’d be worried if it wasn’t.” She lifts the lid of the pizza box with a thumb and forefinger, glances in and closes it again quickly; it’s been there a while. “And you should see my place. It’s not much better.”
See her place. Huh. I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the thoughts that inspires. I think of a cute little two-bedroom house in the ’burbs somewhere, and then I think of a king-size bed, maybe a blue quilt, and a bra hanging on the bathroom doorknob. I feel my cheeks heat and turn away from her before she sees.
“I do have some pizza that’s only from yesterday,” I tell her, grabbing the box from the fridge. “And some Killian’s.”
Her eyes light up. “Now that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”
So that’s how I end up sitting on my couch, finishing off a large pepperoni pizza and a six-pack with my physical therapist, watching Die Hard 2.
More confusing, though, is our arrangement on the couch. I’m in the corner, feet propped up on the coffee table, and she’s sitting right up against my side, body twisted to face the end of the couch, legs curled up under her, watching the movie. And my arm…it’s along the back of the couch. Not around her, per se, but close. Very close. And my pulse thunders in my veins, my hand itches to go lower, to curl around her shoulders. I mean, that’s crazy talk, right there. But the desire is there.
And I can’t help but wonder what she’d do if I did let my arm slide down onto her shoulders. Maybe nothing, maybe she’d welcome it, maybe she’d get upset. But no, she’s not that kind of person. She’d find a way to let me down gently, and that’d be that.
Halfway through the movie, she gets up to visit the bathroom, and with my nerves jangling, I let my arm slide just a bit lower on the couch back. She comes back, her eyes flicking to me, to my arm. But she sits down anyway, and she settles in close once more. And now…my arm is around her. She sinks lower in the couch, and actually leans in closer to me.