I’d never been in love before, so it was odd to discover my
feelings for Jane. Jane, of all
people. I’ve been on dates with models
and actresses (almost exclusively) who were objectively about a million times
more attractive than Jane. Yet at this
moment, I couldn’t imagine a woman being sexier than athletic, freckled Jane.
It didn’t change a lot though. No matter what I felt for Jane, nothing would
happen between the two of us beyond friendship.
Even though Savannah was a bitch, there was a lot of truth in what she
said to me during our “date.” I could
look at my body and realize that there was no way Jane would ever feel any
sexual attraction for me. Maybe it was
possible that some woman might, if I had on the right clothes or something, but
Jane had seen me naked. Shit, Jane had
seen me shit myself. Nothing was going
to ever happen there.
But it wasn’t entirely my imagination that Jane was flirting
with me.
For example, whenever I’d make it through a very difficult
obstacle course she put together, she’d lay her hand on my shoulder and give me
a squeeze. And it seemed like she was
giving me more massages than were warranted given my pain complaints. We joked around a lot, and I felt like she
was incredibly easy to talk to.
Since Mason hadn’t returned since he punched Jeremy, Jane
started getting a wheelchair and racing against me outside. This wasn’t part of my therapy and I knew she
was doing it in her free time. The fact
that she was spending time with me during her breaks meant a lot to me.
Most of the time, Jane got herself a manual wheelchair to
race against me. What’s funny is that I
found Jane easier to talk to when she was sitting in a wheelchair herself. And the manual wheelchair was much smaller
than mine, so I was taller than her that way.
Considering I wasn’t taller than pretty much anyone anymore, I liked
that.
“I’m going to kick your ass today, Edwards,” Jane told me
one day as we were getting ready to race.
“Not a chance,” I said.
Jane was actually pretty competitive. She definitely never let me win.
We started out a few yards from the entrance to the
hospital. I looked over at Jane, whose
red hair was pulled back with a spider clip today, but there were tendrils
falling around her face and down the back of her slender neck. There was a look of determination in her
light blue eyes. “You want to do the
countdown?” she asked me.
“Sure,” I said.
“Three, two, one… GO!”
We took off. Even
though I’m competitive too, I found myself holding back a little, not letting
my wheelchair go as fast as it could.
Not because I wanted to let Jane win, but because I wanted to watch her
race. I wanted to watch her red hair
flying in the wind, that adorable look of determination on her face, and her
boobs jiggling with each push of the wheelchair. I knew I only had a short time left with her
and I wanted to enjoy it.
We had a corner coming up, and it was a sharp one. Usually Jane took corners with no problem
while I still struggled a little, but this time she took it too sharp, and her
chair turned, spilling her to the ground.
She screamed and I quickly braked and backed up to make sure she was all
right. My heart was pounding. If Jane was hurt, what could I do? I couldn’t even help her to her feet.
Jane was sprawled on the pavement, looking slightly
dazed. When she saw the worried look on
my face, she laughed. “I’m fine, Nick,”
she said. “Just a scraped elbow.”
She held up her elbow, which she had skinned on the
cement. There were little droplets of
blood rising to the surface, and I winced at the sight of it. “You should get that cleaned off,” I said. “Put some iodine on it.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Jane said, struggling to her feet. She brushed her hands off on her scrub pants
and took a few unsteady steps. “Damn, my
knee kind of hurts.”
“Can I give you a ride back?” I asked her. I almost regretted saying it as the words
left my mouth. She’d say no, of course,
and it would be awkward.
“I probably shouldn’t,” Jane said, not surprisingly. Then she hesitated. “But I guess this is a special circumstance
since I’m injured.”
“Of course.”
My heart was pounding as Jane gingerly lowered herself onto
my lap. I prayed to God that the
pressure of her body wouldn’t give me an erection. I wanted to put my arms around her, but I
couldn’t do that, so she put one arm around my neck to keep from falling off.
“Okay, let’s go!” Jane snapped. “I don’t got all day, Nick.”
I was so anxious that I couldn’t even find the breath to
reply. I put my lips on the controls and
took us back to the hospital. Jane acted
like the whole thing wasn’t a big deal and I know it wasn’t, but just the same,
she insisted on my letting her off my lap far enough from the front door that
nobody would see us together.
********************
I had been dreading my 26th birthday for months. My 25th birthday had been the
social event of the year. I’d rented out
an entire two-floor club and filled it with the most beautiful people in
Hollywood (and Mason). I’d also taken
the precaution of inviting people who would ensure a healthy supply of drugs
for the party. Most of my friends did Coke,
especially the models who wanted to stay bone thin, but plenty of my friends
were into E and some were into meth or weed or heroin. We had it all.
I got incredibly drunk and high during that party, so I only
remember pieces of it. I’m pretty sure I
had sex with at least three different women that night. At some point, someone OD’d and had to be
dropped off at the entrance to the local ER, which I always say is a sign of a
great party.
I got the feeling my 26th birthday wasn’t going
to be nearly as big a success.
Mom suggested inviting a few of my friends, but I begged her
not to. I didn’t think they’d show up,
and if they did, I didn’t want them to see me like this. It was better to keep it small, just me and
my parents, and maybe Jane and Cam and Mary.
I’d been wearing sweatsuits since I got here, so my mother
decided to make the occasion special by having me dress up a little. She brought some nice dark slacks and a crisp
white shirt. Jane helped me get into my
new outfit on the afternoon of my birthday, and I had to admit, it was nice to
wear something besides sweatpants.
Once I was dressed and in my wheelchair, Jane stepped back
to examine me. She let out a low
whistle. “You clean up good, Nick,” she
said.
I tried to laugh, feeling embarrassed by the heat that rose
in my cheeks. I didn’t have a tan
anymore to hide my red face. “Yeah,
sure.”
Jane ran her fingers through my short hair to brush it
out. “It’s true,” she insisted. “You’re actually surprisingly good looking.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Maybe it was my imagination but Jane’s fingers seemed to
linger extra long in my hair. Long
enough to make my heart flutter. “I’ve
got a special surprise for you, you know,” she said in a low voice.
I swallowed hard. “A
surprise?”
She winked at me and then skipped out of the room without
another word. It couldn’t be. There was no way my fantasies were going to
get realized tonight.
Were they?
I didn’t get much of a chance to think about it because a
few minutes later, my parents were coming in with a cake brimming with lit
candles. Mom, Dad, Jane, Cam, Mary, a
few other nurses, and even Dr. Greenly came into the room to sing happy
birthday to me. It was almost a little
touching if I didn’t think too hard about last year’s birthday.
“Blow out the candles, Nicky!” Mom said, which only made me
think of Jane and her lit candles,
which maybe I’d be “blowing out” tonight.
Nah, probably not.
I took a breath, but I didn’t have the muscles to take a
really deep one, so it took me like ten tries to blow out all the candles. Everyone was cheering me on at first, but I
could tell by the end, everyone was a little uncomfortable.
Mom cut me a slice of cake and scooped some onto a
fork. She started to hold it out to me
and I shook my head, “Not now, Mom.”
“Why not?” she said.
“It’s good cake. From
Angelina’s.” Angelina’s Bakery: Cakes
for the stars.
How could I explain to her that I didn’t feel like being
spoon-fed in front of a large group of people, even if all those people were
involved in my care? I’d rather eat
nothing than have a room full of people watch me be fed. What I said instead was, “I’m not hungry.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mom said, raising the fork to my lips
insistently.
I caught Jane’s eyes, and she got it immediately. She put her hand on my mother’s
shoulder. “He had a huge lunch, but I’ll
make sure he gets some cake later.” When
my mother looked skeptical, Jane added, “I promise.”
Mom put down the cake and I let out a breath. As she walked away to have her own slice of
cake, I said to Jane, “Thanks.”
Jane winked. “No
problem. Hey, how about that surprise
now?”
Well, the fact that she was willing to give me the surprise
now, in front of everyone, showed that the surprise wasn’t what I’d been hoping
it was. But I knew that was unlikely
anyway. “Sure,” I said.
Jane clapped her hands together and bounced a little. “Fantastic.
I’ll be right back.”
I really couldn’t imagine what the surprise Jane was going
to give me could be, until I noticed the hulking figure moving toward the
doorway to my room. About a second
later, Mason Lunt had smashed his forehead against the top of the doorway. I stifled a laugh, thinking of all the times
Mason had smashed his forehead against doorways. If Jane’s surprise wasn’t something sexy,
this was a pretty good one.
“Mason!” Mom exclaimed.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?”
Mason pushed his palm against his forehead, looking
sheepish. “I’m fine, Mrs. Edwards. I’ve got a pretty hard head.”
“That’s for sure,” I spoke up.
Mason and I looked at each other. He hadn’t come by in over a month, after he
had stormed away, but I knew he was sorry.
And he knew I was sorry. That’s
the thing with me and Mason. We’re
brothers. More than brothers.
“Happy birthday, man,” Mason said.
“Thanks,” I said.
****************
Believe it or not, the party didn’t end up being that bad at
all, mostly because I spent the whole time talking to Mason. He had started applying for law school and he
was telling me about all the assholes in the prep class he was taking for the
LSATs. “I hope I don’t end up in a class
with any of these douchebags,” Mason said.
“I can’t believe you’re becoming a sellout lawyer,” I said.
“How do you know I’m going to be a sellout?” Mason
said. “Maybe I’m going into
environmental law? Did you ever consider
that?”
And then we both laughed, because obviously Mason wasn’t
going into environmental law. Only
losers do that.
“So tell me,” I said.
“Have you fucked any of the pre-law girls? Are you seeing anyone or still celibate?”
I saw the red creeping up Mason’s neck. “Not really,” he mumbled.
“You’re not really seeing anyone or not really still
celibate?”
Mason mumbled something again and I knew the answer to my
question. He was seeing someone. I guess he felt weird telling me because of
my recent break up with Savannah.
“Listen,” Mason said.
“I better head out. It’s getting
late and I’ve got my class at nine in the morning.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said.
It was obvious that Mason didn’t want to talk about this girl he was
fucking. In the past, Mason and I never
kept secrets about girls, although we didn’t talk about them all that much
either, not after we’d already fucked them.
“I’ll come later this week,” Mason promised. “We’ll race, okay? I miss kicking your ass.”
“You wish,” I said.
“I’ve been practicing a lot.
You’re going to eat my dust.”
Mason laughed then got up from where he’d been sitting, on
my bed. After a second’s hesitation, he
patted my shoulder and said, “Take it easy, man. We’ll talk more later.”
That struck me as an odd thing to say. Was there something specific he wanted to
talk to me about?
Mason lumbered out of my room, making sure to duck his head
down this time to get out without further injury. I watched him go past the nursing station,
where Jane was sitting, writing a note.
I couldn’t hear him out there, but he said something to Jane and she
smiled up at him.
Then, as I watched in horror, Jane stood up and kissed Mason
on the lips.
I did not see that coming! Love the story!
ReplyDeleteAnother great chapter. Poor Nick! I can't believe Mason. I think I'm a little angry with Jane, she's gotta see that Nick has a little crush on her. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.
ReplyDeleteKaya
cool!
ReplyDeleteThat was a great way to end the chapter, otherwise it would be too goody-goody. I loved the fact that you let the readers get comfortable with this everything's-really-great bit and then took the carpet away from under our feet.
good writing, I love your ease.
R
I can't bear it, poor Nick!
ReplyDeleteOh shit. Poor guy, but I guess with all the shit he pulled with Savannah he can`t expect a woman like Jane consider him dating material.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the update, I can`t wait to learn how this continues - I so hope that Nick will get some romance and sex eventually, won't he?
Tina
Best chapter yet! I love the way you so smoothly handled the racing scene and transition to the party. Great twist at the end. Like everyone else--can't wait for more.
ReplyDeleteNO! Oh no no no! How COULD you????
ReplyDelete(I don't know whether I should direct that towards you or that hussy Jane. The NERVE!)
I saw this coming, but I hoped it wouldn't!
ReplyDeleteI know we all want Jane for Nick, but Jane and Mason makes since too.
Great chapter, well-written as always.