by Lorrie Kruse
“Hey, wait up.”
Matt stopped and looked over his shoulder. Green Shirt wheeled toward him. “You aren’t leaving, are you?”
“I’m sure the hell not staying.”
“Damn.” Green Shirt coasted the final feet. “I was finally having fun out there. You’re good. Best competition I’ve had since joining the team.”
Competition his ass. Matt turned away and made another push toward the car.
Green Shirt laughed. “No way. I couldn’t have been that bullheaded. Was I really that stubborn?”
“Stubborn?” Abby asked, sounding puzzled.
“Yeah, Ryan said I was just like Matt here when I first joined the team. But I can’t believe I was such a baby.”
Matt abruptly changed course and wheeled back to Green Shirt. “Who you calling a baby?”
The guy held his ground, his smile never wavering. “You went through therapy insisting you were going to walk again, didn’t you? Probably tried to go back to your old job.”
Matt took another push closer. “You have a point or are you just naturally a prick?”
“I’ve been there. Broke up with my girlfriend because it was easier to claim I was doing her a favor than to adjust to my disability. Then I spent the next four months drunk on my ass until I found out cocaine was more effective at deadening the pain. You’re not there yet, are you?”
Not waiting for an answer, Green Shirt shook his head. “No, and if you listen really close to what I have to say, maybe you can save yourself from the mistakes I made. Cocaine doesn’t take away the problems and neither does the alcohol. It just makes a whole new set of problems. I OD’d. Ended up in a treatment center after I got out of the hospital. My counselor got me hooked up with these guys. It’s weird. Playing wheelchair basketball is so far removed from my old life, but when I’m out there, I feel like my old self again.”
“Yeah? Well, I felt like a loser.”
Green Shirt grinned. “Maybe that’s what you were in your old life.”
He wanted to slap the grin off Green Shirt’s face. No. What he really wanted to do was cream him on the basketball court.
“So, are you going to come back in? Give it another try?”
Abby touched his shoulder. She kept her hand there, feeding him courage through her palm. She leaned close and whispered in his ear. “Tour de France, Matt.”
Pent up frustration burned through him. He needed a release. “The slave driver said my options are to play another game or go a couple months without sex. I guess I’ll try the game again.”
Abby swatted his head. “A couple months? Try a lifetime.”
Matt fell in beside Green Shirt. “Does it really get better? Or are you feeding me a line of shit?”
“It gets better. Day by day.” Green Shirt looked over his shoulder and grinned. “I’d say your life can’t be too bad considering your girl stuck with you.” He shook his head. “What are the chances of you dating a physical therapist and then finding out you need one?”
“About a zillion to none.”
His second attempt at wheelchair basketball wasn’t much better than his first, but it didn’t bother him quite so much this time around. Especially not when Green Shirt, Alex, became his personal trainer, giving advice. At the end of the game, when everyone was going their separate ways, he realized he was actually looking forward to next Sunday, getting together for another game.
Back in Abby’s car, he felt good. Hopeful, even. As if life might not be quite so bad. He even saw himself back in Fuller Lake one day, back at the jobsite with his father.
He leaned back against the car seat and let his head roll toward Abby. So pretty in her cheerleader fresh way. He liked that Alex believed a guy like him had a chance with a girl like her. “So, I did like you wanted. I played basketball. I get sex now, right? I mean, that was the deal.”
Her eyes remained on the road. “I don’t remember making any such deal.” She glanced his way. “I will agree to you taking me out for dinner, though.”
He shrugged. Not like he’d honestly thought she’d say yes. “It was worth a shot.”
She put her hand on his, and he decided he liked it there. “Honey,” she said. “You aren’t ready for me.”
“That sounds a lot like a challenge. You know how much I like a good challenge.”
“Yeah. And I’ll remind you, last time you took me on, I beat you. I am the Yahtzee champ.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t seen me in bed yet.”
§
“I shouldn’t have made that sex crack.” Matt squeezed and released the beer can and then squeezed it again just so there’d be noise in the apartment. “Stupid, stupid.”
Abby had played along, acted like it was all a joke, just like he’d meant it to be, but she’d been quiet after that. Then she’d declined his invitation to come up for a drink when she’d dropped him off at the apartment. A polite, “I’m sorry. I have plans. But I’ll call you.”
And he’d believed her that she’d call.
He squeezed the can but didn’t let go this time.
Five days.
He downed the rest of the beer and then smashed the can against the countertop.
Five days and no word from her.
He twisted his mouth. He hadn’t called her either. Last he’d heard, the phone lines worked both ways.
Instead of going to the phone, he went to the fridge.
You forget you weren’t going to do this anymore? There’s a health club less than five miles away. Or you could earn the two hundred Dad sent for doing another bid.
Or you could call Abby like you really want to.
He went to the phone and dialed Abby’s number before he could talk himself out of it.
One.
She probably wasn’t home, anyhow.
Two.
Unlike him, she had a life.
Three.
At the same time he pulled the phone from his ear, he heard her breathless, “Hello.”
He thought about hanging up, anyhow. But then he remembered how empty his apartment was. And how lonely he’d been this past week.
“I’ve got a movie here that I don’t want to watch alone,” he said, “and a pizza I don’t want to eat alone. What do you say you come over and cure that alone problem?” World’s best pick up line.
“I have to go somewhere, but I can be there in a couple hours.”
Instead of being happy she’d agreed to come over, all he could hear was her saying she had to go somewhere. Plans with some guy, he figured. Which probably explained why he hadn’t heard from Abby all week. He tucked the phone between his shoulder and chin and wheeled closer to the fridge. “That’s okay. Tonight’s probably not a good night, anyhow.” He laughed to make it sound like it really was okay.
“I’m sorry.”
“No big deal.” Just as well, he decided as he chugged the beer after disconnecting the call. Who needed a cheerleader when he had his good friend Miller to keep him company?
§
Abby flipped on the right blinker as she approached the turn that would take her to Hot Springs. A left turn would take her to Matt’s. Where she could be headed if she would have visited her mother right after work. Mom was expecting her. Matt wasn’t. She turned right.
At the next intersection, she again had the urge to turn left, to go around the block and head straight to Matt’s. She punched the accelerator and sped through the intersection, but her thoughts stayed with Matt.
He’d sounded like he was in good spirits, but there’d been an edge to his voice. Something beneath the words that said he didn’t want to be alone. “Beneath the words?” she muttered. He’d outright said it. Come over and cure that alone problem.
Another intersection brought forth another chance to question herself. Straight for Hot Springs. Left for Matt’s. Intuition told her, despite his teasing words, the edge really had been there. At the last second, she turned the wheel. Just to check to be sure he was ok
ay. Then she’d be on her merry way.
Matt greeted her at the door with a beer can tucked between his legs. Even though she had no interest in drinking a beer, nor did she have the time, she nodded at the can. “Do you have another one of those for me?”
“In the fridge. Help yourself. Grab me another while you’re at it.”
She took two cans from the nearly full twelve pack. She popped open her own and broke off the tab. She felt only slightly guilty when she took stock of his garbage as she threw the tab away. He was eating well, but he was drinking better. Would he one day add cocaine to his daily diet like Alex had?
Time was ticking by and she had to visit her mother. Leaving Matt with an almost-full carton of beer didn’t seem like a good idea, though. She could take the beer hostage. Claim she was really thirsty. 5Except that’d slow him down only until he made his way to the corner bar.
She could take Matt away from the beer. Which meant taking him to visit her mother. An insane idea. He was a big boy. If he wanted to spend his night drunk, who was she to try to interfere?
Matt tipped his head back as far as he could and tapped the beer can pressed to his lips, trying to get the last drop. A poster child of someone who shouldn’t be left unsupervised with an almost full twelve pack of ice-cold beer. She put the beer she’d gotten him back in the fridge.
“Hey, the deal was you get a beer and I get a beer.”
She turned her can upside down over the sink. “Now we’re even. Go brush your teeth and splash on some aftershave. We’re going out.”
“Where are we going?” The relief that showed in his eyes said they could be on their way to the toothpick factory to hand count inventory and he wouldn’t care.
“Out.” She shooed him with her hands. “Get moving.”
She watched him wheel off to the bathroom. Had it really been only a week since he’d found his way into her life again? It felt like he’d been there so much longer.
But it had been only a week. And now she was taking him to meet her mother. What in the world was she thinking?
Her eyes went to the closed bathroom door. She wasn’t thinking. That was the point. Instinct was guiding her and nothing else.
He emerged from the bathroom a short while later. His hair was still a touch too long, but it was clean and now freshly combed, as well. With the hint of a smile, he looked quite handsome. When he got closer, she decided he smelled good, too.
“Where are we going?” he asked as she led him to her car.
“To visit my mother.” Then, we’re going to find an all night psychiatrist and have my head examined.
As soon as she walked into the room, her mother sprang from the bed where she’d been sitting cross legged. She held a blue blob of clay in her hands. “Abby, look.”
Such a difference from how her mother had been at Eastlawn, Abby thought. Coming here really had been a good move.
Helen noticed Matt. She took a step back, hugged herself, and looked away.
“Mom, this is my friend, Matt. He won’t hurt you.”
Helen turned further away.
Great. This was sure to be an exciting evening.
“Can I see what you have, Mrs. Fischner?” Matt asked.
Still turned away, her mother looked at him. He flashed a smile that could have melted a snowman. Her mother looked away again. Her arms tightened around herself.
“It looks pretty cool,” Matt said. “Can I see it?”
Her mother snuck another glance at him. Her eyes tracked him from head to toe. “Why are you in a…chairwheel?” She grimaced as the wrong word came out.
“I had an automobile accident. I hit a tree.”
“I hit a tree.”
“I know. Abby told me.”
Helen held out her hand, displaying what could have been a bird. Or it could have been a turnip.
“What a nice blue jay,” Matt said.
Her mother beamed. “Yes. A blue jay.”
Abby raised one eyebrow as she stared at him. How had he gotten a blue jay out of the blob of blue clay?
Her mother handed it to him. “You like it, you take it.”
He ran his finger over it like he was petting a real bird. “Thank you. I’ll put it on my windowsill at home.”
“Are you Abby’s boyfriend?”
“Just a friend,” he said but his eyes raked across Abby, and she felt her stomach flip.
Her mother frowned. “Too bad. Abby needs a boyfriend.”
What Abby figured she needed was to duct tape her mother’s mouth. She put her arm around her mother’s shoulder and steered her back to the bed. “I think we need to find an activity.”
“You do need a boyfriend,” her mother insisted while Matt attempted to hide a laugh behind a fake cough.
“Are those coloring books?” Matt asked as he nodded at the bookshelf next to her mother’s bed. “I haven’t colored since I moved to Milwaukee.”
“You color?” her mother asked.
“Heck, yeah. One of my favorite things.”
Next thing Abby knew, Matt and her mother were sharing space on the bed table and he looked like he was enjoying himself. Abby watched Matt through new eyes. This man was truly amazing.
They stayed an hour longer than she’d planned, but Matt hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d cheerfully done every activity suggested. When it came time to leave, her mother asked, “You’ll come back?”
“As long as Abby says it’s okay.”
Her mother speared her with pleading blue eyes.
Abby held up her hands. “It’s not up to me.”
Matt grinned. “I’d say that’s a yes. I’ll come as often as I can convince Abby to bring me.”
Her mother leaned close to him, cupped her hand around his ear, and whispered something. His eyes connected with Abby’s while he listened, a natural smile forming. He nodded and told her mother, “I might take you up on that.”
“You come back,” her mother reminded Matt as they headed for the door.
“You can count on it.” He held up the blob of blue clay. “Thanks again for the blue jay.”
What did she tell you? Abby silently asked as she and Matt headed down the hallway. The question burning inside her, she said, “You were very good with her. Thank you.”
He shrugged. “No thanks are necessary. Your mom’s pretty cool. I had fun.”
“Still, you were amazing. So patient.”
“I appreciate you bringing me. It was nice being with a family again.”
Her footsteps faltered. “Family?”
Matt stopped pushing against the wheels and looked up at her. “Yes, family. A small one, but you’re a family just the same.”
She started walking again. Family, huh? She’d never thought of her mother and her as anything other than mother and daughter, but he was right. They were a family.
She waited until they got into the car before she asked. “Okay, so what did she whisper to you?”
“Can’t tell you. She swore me to secrecy.”
“Ma…att.”
“Do you realize how cute you are when you say my name that way? The way your nose crinkles up?”
“My nose doesn’t crinkle.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
They drove a block further before he spoke. “I still have that pizza and movie at home. Interested?”
“Certainly.” She looked his way and saw him grinning. A wave of heat pressed through her. She looked back at the road and tucked her lip between her teeth while her heart fluttered beneath her breastbone. Interested indeed.
§
Fifteen minutes after Abby left, Matt transferred into bed and slid his arms beneath his head. He felt good. Real good. Good enough he didn’t feel the need to drink his bedtime beer sitting on the nightstand. Tonight had been the best night he could remember in a long time. He smiled at the thought of Helen’s whispered message. Abby likes you. Ask her out on a date.
Did feeding Abby a frozen pizza and watching
a rented movie count? he wondered as he closed his eyes. To be on the safe side, he figured he should call Abby tomorrow and ask her out on a real date. Maybe they could take her mother somewhere. Start out with the park, maybe. Then ice cream.
His eyes popped open. What in the hell was he thinking? He couldn’t ask Abby out. Him and the cheerleader? No way.
He and Abby were friends. That’s all. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the feel of Crystal in his arms. Instead, he saw her in Derrick’s arms, Derrick’s mouth attacking hers. His best friend and his fiancée. Refusing to leave his thoughts now that they’d invaded.
“Damn it,” he whispered as he reached for the beer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
June turned hot over the next two weeks. Even with her hair pulled up, perspiration formed on Abby’s neck. She smoothed her hand over the top edge of a sheet of wallpaper that seemed as wet as she was. As soon as she pulled her fingers away, the paper curled away from the wall. She stood back and surveyed her work.
Twenty minutes of her life gone, and all she had to show for it was one crooked strip of peeling wallpaper with an air bubble bloating a patch of flowers. What had seemed like a great idea when she’d been watching the home-improvement channel now seemed foolhardy. At the very least, she should have saved this project for when the weather turned cooler instead of sweltering in an airless kitchen on a Saturday afternoon. She could have called Matt and asked him to go to the lake. But no, she’d come up with this stupid idea instead.
She wiped her hands on the old kitchen towel and then unrolled another length of paper. She grabbed her ruler. Forty-six and a half inches? Or was it fifty-six and a half? She turned to re-measure the strip on the wall. The top edge had rolled back even further.
“No,” she cried out and pressed her hands to her face. The telephone rang. Her fingers stuck momentarily to her face as she pulled her hands away, the skin pulling slightly before the glue released its hold. She watched as the paper on the wall peeled back further. Deciding she’d had her fill of papering, she reached for the phone.