Shutdown

by Winter Travers

  “You’re pretty good at this personal nurse thing.”

  She rolled her eyes and backed out of the parking spot. “I don’t really think I’m doing enough to be called that. I think I’m more of a friend who’s helping you.”

  “Friend?”

  I could work with that. I was worried Mave would be stuck in her head about being my nurse but if she didn’t see herself that way then I didn’t need to worry about jumping that hurdle.

  She glanced over at me and smiled. “At least, I think so. Don’t you?”

  “That what you want to be?”

  “Are you being coy with me right now?” she laughed.

  I turned my head and laughed. “I’m good with whatever you want, Doc. Friends works for me right now.”

  “Right now?” she asked.

  I shrugged and closed my eyes. “You never know what the future holds, Doc.”

  “Have we gone from grumpy Roc to wise, sage Roc?”

  “Gotta keep you on your toes, Doc.” I sunk into the seat and felt the familiar fatigue settle over me. “Wake me up when we get home.”

  “Okay,” she replied softly. She turned the radio up louder, and her soft voice lulled me to sleep.

  *

  Mave

  Outside, I was chill and sang softly to the radio.

  Inside, I was a damn mess.

  I wasn’t trying to be flirty when I had said I was a friend helping him out. That wasn’t at all what it sounded like. I was a horrible flirt, and I had just proven it by not even knowing when I was flirting.

  You never know what the future holds. Say what?

  I had no idea what in the world that could mean.

  Did Roc like me?

  Was he going to tell me to hit the road?

  Were we going to cuddle on the couch more often?

  When he was back to normal, was I going to keep coming over?

  Ah! I had no idea was going to happen, but it seemed like Roc had it all figured out. If only he would share with me what was going on inside his head.

  Roc woke up before we got home, and he reached across the center console. He grabbed my hand and threaded his fingers through mine.

  “You okay, doc?”

  I looked down at our intertwined fingers. More than okay. “Yup. Almost home.”

  We had about five minutes before I pulled into the driveway, and I wished he had woken up and hour ago to hold my hand.

  “Had a good time with you today, Mave. Probably the best time I’ve had in a while.”

  I glanced over at him. “You travel the country and get to see places I’ve only ever thought about. I doubt going to a museum and a barbeque place was that good of a time for you.”

  “You’d be surprised, Doc.”

  Things were changing, and it was happening fast. So fast my head was spinning.

  I pulled up in front of the house and rounded the front of the SUV. Roc had the door open already and waited for me to grab the wheel chair from the back. I rolled it next to the open door and moved in front of Roc.

  Once I had his legs out of the truck, our normal routine changed.

  Roc reached up and brushed my hair from my face and cupped my cheek.

  “Roc,” I whispered.

  “I wanna thank you for today, Mave. Thank you for being with me and not making me feel like a burden.”

  “You’re not a burden,” I whispered. Roc was anything but that.

  His arm circled around my waist and he pulled me close. I was between his legs, and I rested my hands on his shoulders. “I gotta kiss you, Doc.”

  “Oh?” I gasped.

  He nodded and closed the gap between us. His lips brushed against mine, and I sighed into him. His kiss was strong and demanding.

  You know when you wonder what it would be like to kiss someone and then it finally happens and you pray to God it doesn’t suck?

  Kissing Roc didn’t suck in the least. Not even a little bit.

  His lips moved over mine, his tongue gently easing into my mouth, and his hand delved into my hair. My hands drifted around his neck, and my body relaxed into his.

  “Mave,” he whispered against my lips.

  I hummed lightly and enjoyed the feel of his hands on me.

  “You’re like a fucking dream, Doc. Been through hell with the accident and now you’re like the light at the end of the tunnel.”

  I pulled back slightly and looked into his eyes. “The same goes for you, Chief.”

  “Good. I don’t wanna fuck this up though. I meant it when I said I’m not playing games or anything.”

  I nodded and bit my lip. “Neither am I.”

  He pressed another kiss against my lips. “Good. Now get me the hell out of here and we can get to work on the food for tomorrow.”

  “Think we can sneak a couple of more kisses in while we are doing that?”

  Roc laughed loud and pulled me into a hug. “You bet your ass we will.”

  *

  Chapter Thirteen

  Roc

  “You want me to grab anything?”

  I looked down at the pile of food in my lap. “Uh, pretty sure I got everything.”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Harlyn scolded. “You have to admit, it’s pretty convenient for you to be in that wheelchair when you need to carry stuff. Just pop it in your lap and you just roll outside with it.”

  “Whoa.” Mave walked into the kitchen and looked at the pile of food and plates in my lap. “Are we trying to break more of your legs?”

  She had been running around making sure everything was ready for the barbeque. I had barely been able to give her a morning kiss before she was off and running. She looked gorgeous, and all I wanted to do was kick everyone out and finally have my way with her.

  It was taking all of my self-control to take things slow with her.

  Harlyn snatched two bags of chips from my lap. “Of course not. I was just having Roc hold these for me while I made sure we had everything.”

  “Harlyn discovered the convenience of me sitting down wherever I go.”

  I shook my head and adjusted the food in my lap. I was going to make it outside, but I was going to have to take it slow.

  Mave giggled and grabbed the rest of the buns off the counter. “Gotta love your ingenuity, Harlyn.”

  “See, Mave appreciates my brain.” Harlyn managed to grab her wine cooler and two spoons off the counter.

  We had a shit ton of stuff that needed to go outside and it looked like we were going to make the last haul in one trip.

  I rolled my eyes and turned my chair toward the patio door. “Probably cause it ain’t her lap all of this shit is in.”

  “Touché,” Harlyn laughed.

  Mave slid open the door and stood to the side for me to roll out. “Do we have everything now?” she asked as I rolled by.

  I looked up at her and wished I could have kissed her right then and there but Harlyn was behind us. “I fucking hope so. I don’t know why the hell you went to the store before I woke up this morning.”

  “Oh, uh, you saw that?” she laughed nervously. Her cheeks heated red and she bit her lip.

  “Woke up when I heard you walk in the front door. The fifty rustling bags in your arms was a little loud.”

  “I knew I should have closed your door when I left,” she mumbled.

  “Can we eat now?” Remy yelled. He was sitting in one of the new patio chairs with a beer in his hand and sunglasses over his eyes. “I didn’t eat breakfast because Harlyn told me you make the best potato salad.”

  “Mave made it under my direction.” I unloaded the shit in my lap onto the picnic table. “Probably will taste better than when I make it.”

  Yesterday, after I got my first taste of Mave, we spent the rest of the night cooking and stealing kisses. Kisses that got hotter with each one. We ended up on the couch with the TV playing in the background with Mave half lying in my lap. Our hands wandered over each other’s bodies, and it took me telling her thr
ee times that we needed to slow down before she finally cuddled up next to me and fell asleep.

  It had been hard as hell to do, but I knew with Mave, slow was going to be the way to win her.

  Brooks closed the lid on the grill and turned around. “Burgers and hot dogs are done.”

  “Woo!” Jay yelled. He was sitting next to Remy and had Delaney sitting in his lap. “Hop up, woman. Daddy needs to eat.”

  “Could you two be more cringey? Please stop referring to yourself as daddy. I can’t handle it.” Remy shook his head and wrinkled his nose. “You make me think about shit that should never enter my mind when it comes to you and Delaney.”

  Jay flipped him off. “Just getting ready.”

  “Ready for what?” Harlyn asked. She popped a chip in her mouth and plopped down at the picnic table. “You knock her up already?”

  “No.” Delaney smacked Jay on the chest. “You need to stop telling people that. I’m not pregnant, Jay.”

  “Yet.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her head and jumped up from his chair with her in his arms. “It’s gonna happen, baby.”

  “Someday,” Delaney whispered.

  Everyone descended on the food, and it was all picked over and more than half gone by the time they were done.

  Mave grabbed a chair and sat next to me while Delaney, Harlyn, Frankie, and Brooks sat at the picnic table.

  “Potato salad.”

  I looked over at Brooks.

  He pointed down at his plate. “Potato salad.”

  I glanced over at Frankie. “He hit a wall or anything during practice? He ain’t making sense.”

  Frankie looked over at Brooks. “I think he means the potato salad is badass.” She looked back at me. “Because it is.”

  “Mave made it,” I grunted.

  The recipe wasn’t that special. It had more to do with the fact the most people just ran to the store to buy potato salad when I took the time to make it.

  “Under your supervision,” she laughed. She bumped me with her shoulder and smiled. That damn smile that made me want to toss her in my lap and wheel her into the house so we could have some alone time.

  “Well, whoever the hell made it, killed it.” Brooks shoveled a forkful into his mouth. “So feking gad,” he mumbled as he chewed.

  Frankie tipped her head to the side and watched Brooks. “I have never seen you like this about food.”

  Brooks shrugged. “It’s good.”

  “So how was the car running last week?” Enough talking about food. I needed to get an update on the car.

  “Wondered on long it was going to be until you brought up the car,” Frankie laughed.

  I shrugged and dropped my plate on the ground next to me. “I was pretty surprised that I held off for so long, too.”

  Brooks chuckled and grabbed Frankie’s empty plate from her. “Ran good. Ran real fucking good.” He dropped the plates into the garbage can by the grill and grabbed a hot dog off the serving platter. “I thought she was pulling to the right, but Frankie did some fucking voodoo magic and fixed it before the final run.”

  “To the right?” I asked.

  “He fucked up the alignment. I don’t know what the hell he did, but it had to have happened between the runs on the way back to the pits.” Frankie pointed at Brooks. “If there is a bump on the road back to the pits, speed racer here is guaranteed to hit it.”

  “Squirrel.”

  We all turned to look at Brooks.

  “There was a squirrel. It ran out in front of me, and you know I can’t really fucking veer off. Hit the fucker head-on. Pretty sure I felt his ass hit my seat when I rolled over him.” He shrugged. “Nothing I could have done.”

  “Dumbass.” Frankie shook her head. “You know the car has brakes, right?”

  Brooks scoffed. “The fucker was fast. He wasn’t there, then he was, and then he was thumping under the car. You fixed it in time for the next race so I wasn’t concerned about it.”

  Frankie looked at me. “You can have the team back. They’re going to make me go insane.”

  I chuckled. “Welcome to my world, doll. You think this gray hair comes naturally? It’s you assholes making me gray.”

  “When are you coming back?” Jay asked. “Not like that chair is keeping you out of the garage. Figure it’s only a matter of time before manage to get in the car hauler and come to races.”

  I glanced over at Mave.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess there isn’t a reason why you can’t travel. You have a doctor’s appointment this week. That will help give you a better idea of how well you are healing and when you can get fully back into work.”

  “Uh,” Jay drawled. “Aren’t you his doctor?”

  Delaney elbowed him. “I told you she wasn’t his doctor.”

  “You have a doctor staying with you but the doctor can’t tell you how you are doing and when you can get back to work.” Jay pointed his finger at Delaney. “I feel like that is some bullshit so you need to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.”

  “Yeah, because I’m totally going to take your advice when you have no idea what you’re talking about.” Delaney rolled her eyes. “Mave isn’t his doctor, Jay. She’s a doctor, but not his.”

  “Kind of like she plays a doctor on TV.”

  Now it was Remy’s turn for everyone to stare at him.

  “Oh, baby. Did you really just say that?” Harlyn put her head in her hand. “He had such good promise and then he says that.”

  Remy cleared his throat. “I meant it like she’s a doctor but not everyone's doctor.”

  Mave tipped her head to the side. “Exactly, but I’m not sure why you said the thing about being a doctor on TV,” she laughed.

  Remy took a drink of his beer. “I’m not really sure why either. It sounded right but then—”

  “Then you said it out loud and sounded like a moron,” Jay finished.

  Remy tipped his beer toward Jay. “Bingo.”

  Frankie shook her head and stood up. “You guys are too much for me. I’m gonna play basketball. Anyone else want to play?”

  The guys all agreed to play while Harlyn and Delaney said they would be cheerleaders on the sideline.

  Mave and I worked on clearing the empty dishes and food off of the picnic table while everyone went around to the front of the house to the basketball hoop.

  “You see now why I think Harlyn could do better?”

  Mave rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t.”

  “Doc, he compared you to some actor on TV.”

  “Roc,” she whispered. She leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. She popped back up and twisted the cap on the mayo and handed it to me. “He also looks at your daughter like she is the only woman he sees. He asked her if she wanted him to make her a plate. He made sure she was set before he even grabbed his own food. He loves your daughter, Roc, and yeah, he may say some stupid stuff, but don’t we all? You gotta look at the bigger picture here.”

  I couldn’t really argue with any of that. “But he said you were like a doctor on TV.”

  I couldn’t get past that just yet. I also wanted another kiss.

  “You want me to get you another beer? Might help you forget about it.”

  I shook my head. “Gonna need something stronger than that. I think you’re about the only thing that is going to make me forget that.”

  She headed back into the house and looked at me over her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  “You’re going the wrong way, Doc.” Where in the hell was she going?

  “Right now, you get a drink.”

  “And later?”

  A smile spread across her lips. “Later, you get me.”

  She ducked back into the house, and I sorted out the rest of the stuff on the picnic table.

  It was nice having Mave here. There were times when I was around the rest of the pit crew that I felt old as hell but having her here helped that. Mave wasn’t quite as old as I was, but she
got me more than the rest of the crew did.

  Mave was good to have around, and I didn’t want her to go anywhere.

  *

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mave

  “Are you excited to come back to work?”

  I glanced at Delaney. “Girl, you are crazy to think that I am excited to come back to work. If I was going up to peds, I would be excited, but I have one more week I need to be in the ER. Besides, I still have three more days ‘til I’m back.”

  It was Friday afternoon, and I was sitting on Roc’s front porch with Delaney. The race crew was in Nevada for the weekend so Delaney and Harlyn came over for dinner and to watch qualifying.

  “So, when you go back to work, are you going to still stay here?” Delaney asked.

  I nodded. “Yep. I told Roc I would hang around until he was back on his feet.”

  “And what about when he’s back on his feet?” Harlyn tipped her wine glass toward me. “My dad likes you.”

  My gaze moved to the driveway where my car had sat for the past two weeks. “He likes that I’m helping him get around, Harlyn. His strength is finally coming back, and he’s not falling asleep at the drop of a hat. Soon, he’s not going to need me for anything.”

  I wasn’t going to mention anything about Roc and me. It had been an amazing few days, but we hadn’t discussed anything about the future.

  Roc and I had a good system with how we got him around, but each day Roc was figuring out how to do most things by himself. Monday, we were supposed to go to the doctor and hopefully find out when he would be starting physical therapy. Roc was chomping at the bit to really get back to work.

  The past week, we were at the garage every day, and on Wednesday, we had gone to the local track to test out the car. Roc was back to work; the only thing he wasn’t doing was going to the races.

  I had never been that close to a drag car before, and it was an experience I would never forget. The ground had rumbled beneath my feet when Brooks had fired it up, and I thanked God for the earmuffs Roc had given me.

  Even now, two days after we had been at the track, I could remember exactly how it felt and the smells in the air.