by Ashley Logan
Ry's face morphs into a seriously thoughtful expression. He nods. "Yup."
"Wow."
"She always knows the stuff though," he adds with a sigh. "Sometimes I ask more, just to make sure."
"I see." Leaning back in my chair, I drink her in for a moment.
I remember thinking she was kind of short. Probably because I'd still thought of myself as tall, and I was used to Mandy, who was taller. Now that I've adjusted to living in my chair, everyone seems tall, but Stacey seems just right. Just like that kiss, and those curves, and the fact that she hasn't wheeled me to the nearest dumpster.
Oh shit, I've got a dang scenario going through my head, where everything about her is just right. I should take off before I crack a woody and my Goldilocks ass gets chased by three bears or some shit. I need to fight any of those pointless aspirations. Even if my suspicions of her being a single mom are correct, it's not like she's out looking to add a man-child to her list of dependents.
Clearing my throat, I focus only on her eyes; not that it helps. They're fucking gorgeous.
"Nope. I can't just take your word for it. I'm going to need further convincing of your divine knowledge. Exactly how is it that you can just tell that things worked out for me?" It sounds more snarky than I mean it to, but she's got to be kidding if she thinks my life is anything close to peachy.
Stacey throws me a distinctly unimpressed look. "You're alive, for starters. Something must have made you finally decide to stick around. Come on, Ry. We have to go."
If the first part wasn't a kick in the guts, the fact that I've driven her away is.
"Bye Brad," Ry calls back as his mom drags him towards the exit.
I raise my hand in a wave, wishing I'd kept my stupid mouth shut.
In the space of maybe twenty minutes, I've gone from feeling lost, to being found, to then being tossed back into the turbulent waves of my emotions.
I went too far.
I took an uplifting, surprise interaction - with a kiss no less - and damned it all to hell by pushing too hard. Of course she'd remember me as the emotionally unstable guy battling anger and depression. I was so fucking low, I thought about killing myself every fucking day. I even tried it a few times.
I'm not proud of it. I was sick and couldn't see another way out. It's pretty obvious that being alive and having a decent conversation with someone is a vast improvement in my mental state. She probably thinks I was minimizing or something.
Sighing, I roll out the entrance and park myself at the nearest vacant handicapped parking space. Checking my watch, I sigh again and rub my face, trying to get my shit together before Mom comes to pick me up. I don't want her to think I'm going backwards again.
"Someone steal your car?" Stacey asks quietly as she sidles up to me.
Trust a light-fingered swindler to assume such a thing.
"I see that you're still traveling on foot, so... No?" Smiling, I give Ry a wink as I avoid Stacey's unamused expression. "Actually I'm meeting my mom in a few minutes."
"For ice-cream," Ryan affirms.
"Yeah. Ice-cream." I give Stace a tight smile. "I'm sorry about before. I know what I was."
She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it. I just... all this time, I wondered, but then you were just there, and..." Shaking her head again, she takes a deep breath. "I'm glad that you're doing better."
"Me too." I don't elaborate. I'm sick of talking about me and my mental stability or historical lack thereof.
"How about you?" I ask, glancing at Ryan as he crouches to pick up a bottle top. "Are you doing okay?"
"We do okay," she says, smiling at Ry when he looks up at her. As soon as his attention returns to the bottle cap, her smile fades. "I wish I didn't have to, but I rely on my mom a lot."
"Me too," I say with a sigh as I see Mom's car approaching. "But I'm working on it."
Stacey smiles at me as the car pulls to a stop in front of us. "Me too."
The wind teases her dark hair, whipping it around her face. Sweeping a lock from her mouth, she tosses her long ponytail back behind her. It shines in the sun and as the wind reaches me, I catch hints of a berry fragrance good enough to eat. Or at least lick.
Right now I want to lick Stacey Lane.
Trying not to stare, because I know Mom will be watching, I roll towards the car door. I don't want the interaction to end, but at the same time, I'm dreading that I'll fuck it up again given a little more time to do so.
"Good luck with gaining independence, Stacey Lane."
"And you, Bradley Jenkins."
"Bradley Allen Jenkins," Ryan corrects her, making us both smile. I wave as they start walking away, hoping Stace will look back, and feeling like a rocket about to blast off when she does.
Turning back to the car, I open the door to find my mother biting her smile, but not her tongue.
"Pretty. She single?"
Scratching my head I think about that. She might be.
"So?" Mom says, still waiting for an answer.
Sighing, I finish putting my collapsed chair in the back and put my seat belt on. "I don't know, Mom."
"Oh. You seemed familiar with each other. You don't know her?"
I shrug. "Not really. I met her back when I was in rehab. She's a nurse at the hospital now." I gesture vaguely out the window as I retrieve my phone from my pocket. "In neurosurgery, I think. I was there when I ran into her and Ryan - her son. That's where they ended up hanging my painting."
"Hmm," Mom muses as she pulls away from the curb.
"Is that supposed to mean something? Or are you just making mom-noises?"
"I didn't say anything," she says innocently.
"Uh huh."
"Do you want me to say something?" she asks, starting to hide her smile again as she pretends to focus on the road. Shaking my head I flick through my phone to Damon's number.
"You're terrible. You know that right? You think anyone that smiles at me will want to marry me, or some shit. It's weird."
"You know Bradley, I don't really like it when you talk to me how you talk to your friends."
"Okay. Sorry. I'm going to call a friend and talk now, so brace yourself."
Swiping my phone, I hold it to my ear.
"Yello?" Damon eventually answers.
"Shit-licker! What are you doing right now?"
"Oh hey, fuckface. Right now?"
"Yes."
"Right now, I'm tickling Alexa with my whiskers," he says, his pause filled with feminine giggles. Sadly, I'm on speaker-phone and at the mercy of their sexed up games.
"Would you leave the poor girl alone for a minute? Hi Lex."
"Hey Brad. You need to borrow this hairy beast?" she asks with another giggle.
"That just makes me want to hold him down and shave him. Are you guys at his place or yours?"
"We're at Beyond," Damon replies, sounding more alert.
"Is Jackson home?"
Silence. "Um, maybe? We haven't left the bedroom all day."
"Gross. Do you think one of you fuck-bunnies could hop out the door and find the big guy? I might need you both."
"Sounds ominous," Lex says, sounding as if she's already on the move. "I'll go check."
I presume Alexa has left the room, because Damon's tone turns infinitely more serious.
"Dude, what's up? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine. Sort of. I need some help." Lowering the phone, I ask Mom to drop me off at Beyond, the crazy-hot strip club for mentally-deranged dancers like my friend Bruno, and his fiancée Scarlett. And Damon's girl, Alexa. Maybe I'd be dating a stripper too if I didn't have to sit next to my mom in church every Sunday and act like I'd never think of doing anything else.
They'd also have to want to date me, I suppose.
Mom sighs and shakes her head in a disapproving sort of way, but makes the turn to head in the direction of her son's latest hang-out. Despite hating that I'm spending so much time at a strip club, she seems to understand that the peop
le who live there are in fact helpful to my sanity. I give her a grateful smile and she can't help but return it.
Alexa's voice comes through the phone as I lift it back to my ear. "Bruno's home."
"Thanks Lex. I'll be there in five."
"SO WHAT'S THIS ALL about?" Bruno asks as soon as he opens the door. Looking me over, he turns to Damon. "I think he needs beer. What do you think?"
Shermansky's cunning eye scopes every inch of my face. "Definitely needs beer. Question is... Why?"
"Look fuck-sticks, are we having beer here, or going somewhere else?"
Chuckling, Bruno opens the door wide and points me through to the club. "We can drink in the club to save us from lugging your heavy ass up the stairs, but I'll have to bring our own beers down, because Nate just finished inventory and I don't want to throw off the numbers with how much you can put away."
I roll through the doors into the dark club as the lights flicker on. Parking up at one of the tables, I avoid Damon's blatant staring as he sits next to me.
"Shermanksy, if you keep eye-fucking me with those hazel beauties, I'll blacken them both."
Relaxing into his chair with an easy smile, he offers a one-shoulder shrug. "Just checking you for signs of wear and tear. Everything seems in order from what I can see. Is it your dick? Does it burn when you pee? You should have wrapped your tool, Jenkins."
"Fuck you."
Chuckling to himself as Bruno arrives with the beer, Damon bangs his wrist stumps on the table in a drum-roll.
"And the reason for the beer is..." The drum-roll quits and he points both stumps at me to await completion of his statement.
Sighing, I lean forward to grab a brew, twist the cap off and fire it at his head before setting the beer in front of him. I take one for myself and Bruno does the same. I close my eyes for a count when I find him looking at me with the same assessing eye as Damon.
"Jackson, I've already warned Shermansky about the looks. I'm not going to kill myself, so relax."
Settling slowly into his chair, Bruno says nothing, but salutes me with his beer.
"So... What kind of help are you needing?" Damon says, following a long, two-armed swig. "If you need me to drive you somewhere, you should say so before I start my second beer."
"I need you to drive me home later, unless Jackson doesn't mind if I crash on his couch."
"Whatever works," Bruno says, setting his drink down and raising an eyebrow. "What's the deal?"
Smiling, I down half of my beer as they linger in suspense.
"My god, you're an asshole," Shermansky says, finishing the rest of his own bottle. "You can sleep on Jackson's shitty, old, lumpy-ass couch."
Chuckling silently, Bruno folds his arms and waits.
"I want a car," I say simply.
Both men lean forward, scoping me out again.
Granted, they've stopped me from doing some stupidly self-injurious shit, several times, but still. Where's the faith?
"I don't want to run people down with it," I add, rolling my eyes. "I'm just ready to join the real world."
Neither of them say a word, but both reach for their beer. When Damon remembers his is empty, he takes mine from me and finishes it. They exchange a glance and both of them adjust themselves in their seats.
"What kind of car?" Damon says after clearing his throat.
"I'd love a supercharged '67 Camaro, but I don't want to blow my savings in one hit, so I'll suss out the market and get something reliable that can be easily converted to hand controls. Probably a Toyota. Those things never die." Opening two more beers from the case Bruno brought down, I move a fresh one in front of Damon.
Saying nothing, he looks to Bruno again as if not quite sure what to make of my announcement.
"Okay," he says, taking a sip before planting his bottle back on the table. "I'm just going to ask. Why now?"
"It's time?" I offer.
"Uh-uh. I'm willing to gift you a year of recovery before getting 'back on your feet' - so to speak, but that year was up about five years ago, dickhead. You've been wallowing in self-pity, mooning over that bitch Mandy, ripping your life apart, ripping your mom's life apart, for an extra five fucking years and now you want to jump into action. What changed? Your mom give you an ultimatum? Grow up or get out?"
"That's pretty harsh, dude. I've been battling some shit."
"And we haven't?" he argues, gesturing to himself and Bruno; his lack of hands only making his point more clear.
Sighing, I shake my head. "I'm on the right meds now. And just maybe I look to you two as shining fucking examples of how I should be living and I figured it was time I got to making an effort. You think I like living with my mom and depending on others to get myself from A to B? I'm like a fucking toddler."
"Except toddlers can walk," Bruno says with a sly smile as he takes a slow pull of his beer. "And they're more emotionally mature. I'm not buying the time-frame," he says, looking to Damon for support. "I've been a stand up role model for a long time now and you've made fuck-all progression until you got the right meds. Then I dragged your ass into paid work and..." His gray eyes widen, and he looks to Damon.
"No," Damon responds, as if reading Bruno's mind. "You think?"
"I do," Bruno says, turning back to me, his eyes intense. "Who is she?"
Feeling my cheeks warm a little, I clear my throat. "I'm doing this for me, not some girl."
"Oh shit!" Damon says with a laugh as he elbows Bruno. "We know her!" Bruno immediately begins studying me again.
"Can you assholes stop acting like you can see my life written on my fucking face? You can't." Wheeling backwards from the table, I glance at the door. "If I could storm out of here, I damn well would. But seeing as how I'm only dragging my ass upstairs, there's no point."
"Stop being so dramatic and give us a name," Damon demands. "Oh shit! Is she upstairs? You've been watching us with Scarlett and Alexa and want your own stripper?"
"I don't want a damn stripper. No offense. I love your stripper girlfriends, but that's not what I'm into."
"You seem to be into it when you're watching," Bruno accuses, narrowing his eyes.
"Well I might live like a toddler, but I am in fact a man. I like naked chicks. And stop looking at me like that. You don't even let me watch your girl, you buzz-cut beauty. But of course I like watching naked girls dance. They're great. Who doesn't like a good show?" I reason. "I've even watched your scarred-up, caramel ass spinning around a fucking pole, so don't say I'm not supportive. I'm just saying that strippers aren't girlfriend material, for me."
"Oh man, this is great!" Damon cries, shaking his stumps in the air before pointing at me and turning to Bruno. "Whoever the girl is, she isn't just some passing hottie. She's got turd-breath thinking of her as girlfriend material." One stump thumps the table as he thrusts the other at me. "Give us a name, or I'll beat it out of you."
I flex my biceps. "Like you could."
"I'll bite," he says, baring his teeth.
"Girls, girls, you're both lovely," Bruno says with a laugh before turning on me. "Give us a name or I'll ram a paintbrush in your spokes when you least expect it."
Staring at him a moment, I conclude that he will in fact stay true to his words and I will likely be embarrassed not only by flying from my chair, but from landing in a whole mess of paint.
"Fine. I'll give you a name." Turning to look at Damon, I lean back in my chair and smirk. "No-Handsky."
Because we only met Bruno in art therapy a year after our discharge, he looks between me and Damon in confusion.
"No fucking way!" Damon says, reaching out to steady himself with Bruno's shoulder. "You looked her up?"
I shake my head.
"Who?" Bruno asks, staying my beer as I make to pick it up. "Who are we talking about?"
"Stacey Lane; the naughty fucking nurse!" Damon says, raising his beer in a toast before downing half of it. Moving it to one side when he lowers it, he scoots his seat forward, rests his chin on hi
s stumps and grins at me. "Tell us a story Bradley. A sexy story, about a nurse and her patient."
"You are so fucking perverted. Nothing happened. She wasn't even a nurse back then."
"Nurse aide. Assistant. Whatever. I knew there was something there! She never took the rest of us out on secret missions."
"Secret missions?" Bruno asks, more confused than before. "Is she a nurse? Or was she in the army?"
"She was a nursing assistant at our rehab facility, but she's an actual nurse now."
Bruno shakes his head. "What secret missions?"
"Nothing. I was crippled in both body and mind. An easy target. She used me and my wheelchair as an excuse to steal the hospital's mobility van. Mostly to avoid her work, I think, but sometimes she had a purpose in mind. The first time she took me was so she could use the van to move apartments."
"What?"
Getting comfortable, I smile wistfully as I recall those times and catch Bruno up on a few of my unique misadventures.
"She made me practice transferring for a week under the guise of rehab, because she needed me to sit in the passenger seat so there'd be enough room in the back for all her shit. The physio was totally shocked when she came to teach me transferring and I was already a total pro. I can't even remember most of the other shit we did. One time, we were just driving around Buffalo when she picked up a hitchhiker and drove him to the border. He had to sit in my chair in the back, because I was in the front and Stace refused to let me give up the seat." I laugh at the recollection. "You should've seen his face. Another time, we saw a fire hydrant spraying water everywhere, so we just parked up and watched kids running through it until it was clamped off again."
"You always came back eating ice cream," Damon says smiling into the distance.
"Hush money. Hush dairy?" I ask, wondering at the appropriate wording for the bribe.
"Whatever." Damon cocks his head to one side and scratches his beard with his shoulder. "You used to come back smiling- the guy that never smiled."
"What can I say? The girl was trouble and it was entertaining. She used to steal the hospital linen for personal use and return it into my room's laundry bag to save going to a laundromat."