Terms and Specific Conditions - Chapter 11

 

Loud About It

They were flat on their backs, starfished, staring at the ceiling like it had answers.

The sheets were a disaster. Her hair was everywhere.

Penelope could feel her heartbeat in her toes.

“Okay,” she said finally, voice rough. Question.”

Jack’s head rolled on the pillow toward her. His hair was wrecked, cheeks still flushed, chest rising and falling like his lungs were catching up.

“Oh boy,” he said, “here we go.”

She kept her eyes on the ceiling. It felt safer.

“Is it always like this for you?” she asked.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw his brow crease. “Define ‘this.’”

She flapped a hand weakly in front of her. “This. Whatever we just did. What we keep doing. Level of…intensity. Time dilation. The whole ‘oh cool, my soul just left my body’ thing.”

There was a pause. She could feel him looking at her now.

“I mean,” he said slowly, “I don’t have a spreadsheet, but…no?”

She winced. “Okay, let me rephrase before you answer for real.”

He snorted. “That was the fake answer?”

“Shut up, I’m spiraling,” she muttered. “What I mean is–I’m reliving literally every previous sexual experience I’ve ever had and realizing, ‘wow, we were so tragically under-stimulated.’”

He huffed a laugh.

“And before I go on some unhinged TED Talk about how good this is,” she went on, “I just want to make sure you’re not about to be like, ‘oh yeah, this is just my normal Tuesday,’ because I will actually pass away.”

Silence.

She forced herself to turn her head. He was already watching her, eyes dark and amused.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I need to calibrate our baselines.”

He stared at her for a beat, then let out a short, incredulous laugh and dropped his forearm over his eyes.

“Oh my God,” he said. “No, Penelope. Jesus. Absolutely not. My Tuesdays are, like, emails and reheated pasta. They’re honored you even put them in the same sentence as this.”

“Okay, but we’re being honest,” she insisted, heat creeping up her neck. “Like, statistically. Historically. Is this…normal? For you?”

He went quiet again. The joking dropped out of his face, leaving something calmer behind.

“When I say no,” he said, “I mean…it’s not even in the same data set.”

Her stomach did a weird flip.

He lowered his arm, staring at the ceiling now too, like it was easier to talk to.

“I’ve had good sex,” he said. “Like, objectively. Pre-injury, post-injury, whatever. I’m not out here representing the Virgin Wheelchair Club.”

She snorted, because of course he said that.

“But,” he went on, words coming slower now, more precise, “most of it was me…performing. Playing the role. ‘Here is where you do this. Here is where you say that.’ It wasn’t fake. I was into it. I liked making sure they were having a good time. I’m good at that part.”

Penelope’s chest ached.

“So sex was a…project,” she said quietly.

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, thinking.

“Kind of,” he said. “A fun one, mostly. A challenge. ‘How fast can we skip past the chair being the headline and get to the part where I’m just a guy again.’”

He said it all matter-of-factly, like he was reciting patch notes.

Her fingers curled in the sheet.

“And now?” 

“Now it feels like I’ve been using an off-brand demo version and someone finally handed me the full release,” he said. “So, no. You are…not normal data, Penelope.”

Her throat got tight. “Is that a compliment?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

She didn’t say anything. There was something about the way he’d said “off-brand demo” that made her want to throw hands at every woman who’d ever treated him like a beta version.

He kept going, voice low.

“Most people I’ve been with were fine with the wheelchair when things were upright,” he said. “Restaurants. Bars. It was like, ‘oh, this is quirky, I can handle this.’ Then we’d get home and you could feel the…shift. Extra careful. Extra…monitoring. Like they were trying to prove to themselves they weren’t secretly freaked out.”

Her chest pulled tight, hot and protective.

“Sometimes it wasn’t like that,” he said. “Sometimes it was genuinely good. I’m not saying it was charity sex. I had fun. I wasn’t walking around thinking ‘woe is me, no one wants me.’”

He glanced over at her, making sure she caught that part.

“But it was always me watching them watching me,” he said. “Doing that mental math. ‘Are you okay? Are you still okay? Did that move just land as disabled-weird or normal-weird?’ My brain was always doing two things at once.”

He shifted his head on the pillow to look at her fully now.

“With you,” he said, “I’m not running that process. My brain is just…busy. With you. I don’t feel like I’m auditioning. I don’t feel like I have to get ahead of your discomfort so it doesn’t bounce back on me.”

Her brain did that bright, buzzing thing–half feral, half undone.

She stared at the small crack in his ceiling, because if she looked straight at him she was going to do something reckless like propose.

“Also,” he added, a crooked smile starting to come back, “this is the most my legs have ever been manhandled. So. That’s a new one.”

She shrugged, like this was barely worth discussing.

“They’re attached to you,” she said. “What else am I supposed to do with them?”

“Most people just pretend they’re not there. You don’t. It’s…new.”

A tiny, sharp pang punched under her ribs. Not because he sounded sad–he didn’t. That was what killed her. He sounded…resigned. Like he’d long ago accepted a version of sex where parts of him didn’t fully get to show up.

She swallowed past it.

He watched her, eyes steady.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Don’t do the face.”

“What face,” she said, already doing it.

“The one where you’re plotting revenge on everyone I’ve ever slept with,” he said. “It’s flattering, but also deeply concerning.”

She stared at him. “They're idiots,” she said, voice scraping.

“They're just…not you,” he said. “Which is not their fault. The sample size didn’t include you yet.”

Something in her eased and clenched at the same time.

She watched him for a second. The messy hair. The little red mark on his throat she’d put there. The way his hand was resting palm-up between them on the sheet like it was waiting for something.

“Hey,” she said casually, even though nothing in her was casual. “Want to go on a date?”

He blinked. “Right now?”

“No, in three to five business days,” she deadpanned. “Yes, right now. Or, like. Today. At some point between this bed and our next poor life choice.”

He looked genuinely thrown for a second, like she’d asked if he wanted to go bungee jumping instead of whatever this was. Then he recovered, mouth quirking.

“What kind of date are we talking?” he asked. “We’ve already done ‘lay here and ruin each other’s ability to function.’ Hard act to follow.”

“High bar,” she agreed. “I was thinking coffee, daylight, minimal felonies.”

His mouth tugged into a smirk. “You want to be seen in public with me?”

She flicked his collarbone. “You’re so annoying. Yes. Obviously.”

Something in his face shifted–soft and undefended in a way that made her want to crawl inside his ribs and live there.

“Okay,” he said. “Coffee date. You, me, the outside world. Brave new frontier.”

“Great,” she said, like her heart wasn’t doing cartwheels. She pushed herself up on an elbow. “But first, I’m going to steal your shower.”

His eyes dropped automatically, running a lazy line down her body like he’d been given an unsupervised viewing session.

“Yeah,” he said faintly. “Okay. That’s…allowed.”

She grinned and slid out of bed, absolutely aware of his gaze on her as she padded toward the bathroom.

—

The bathroom was small but neat, all tile and chrome. Steam clung to the mirror from his shower earlier. The shower chair sat in the tub: white seat, metal legs, backrest. Clean. Functional. A thing that lived here, like the towel hooks and the stupid little succulent she’d bought him because the shelf looked “sad.”

She’d seen the shower chair before.

Technically.

In the way you see things when you’re bee-lining for someone’s mouth and not taking in any supporting characters.

This time she really looked.

Her throat went weirdly tight.

This was where he got ready. This was where he transferred without her. Naked and half-balanced and doing the whole dance with his legs loose and useless, making sure nothing slipped, nothing banged, nothing got caught.

Her brain helpfully supplied an image: him bracing one hand on the grab bar, the other on the bench, shoulders doing all the work as he shifted his weight. The way his legs probably flopped wherever gravity put them unless he picked them up.

Something low in her stomach swooped. Over a shower bench.

Okay, relax, she told herself, turning toward the sink. You’re getting weird about fixtures now.

She turned on the water and stepped under the spray, letting it beat down on her until her brain stopped replaying the image of him in this room, on that bench, moving his body around like it was just…fact. She did the fastest version of actually washing herself, because she refused to be the person who took forty minutes in a man’s shower having feelings about grab bars.

Afterward, she wiped a clear patch in the fogged-up mirror, caught her own face, and gave her head one quick shake like that might rattle everything back into place. Then she slipped into his shirt, cracked the door, and went back out to him like a normal person who had absolutely not just imprinted on his bathroom setup.

—

They did technically make it out of the apartment.

Just…not in time for anything that could reasonably be called “daylight coffee.”

The plan had been: shower, real food, one (1) non-sexual activity like semi-functional adults. Then they’d gotten distracted somewhere between her coming out of the bathroom in his T-shirt and him reaching for her “just for a second,” and the afternoon quietly disappeared.

By the time they resurfaced, the sky outside his windows had gone from bright to that hazy late-gold that made everything feel half-dreamed, like they’d stepped out of time and were only just now dropping back into it.

Penelope lay sprawled half across his chest, tracing idle circles on his ribs.

She squinted at the window. “We missed the respectable coffee window.”

“We did.” 

She snorted. “Okay, but we were going to go on an actual date and then immediately derailed it with sex. That feels on brand but also like maybe we should try again.”

He tilted his head to look down at her. “You want to go now?”

She lifted her chin toward the window. “We’ve already failed the daylight portion. But we could still do the ‘be seen in public’ part.”

He followed her gaze, thought for a second, then nodded once.

“Okay,” he said. “You want to go find a dive bar and blow up the jukebox?”

Her mouth curved. “God, you get me.”

“I’m very attuned.”

—

It was the kind of dive bar that looked like a warehouse someone had slapped a disco ball and string lights into and called it ambience. The floor was permanently sticky, the tables wobbled if you breathed near them, and the jukebox in the corner was wheezing its way through whatever 90s track they’d just fed it.

They were at a small table near the back. Her stool was too tall for her to sit like a normal person, so she was half-cross-legged, one foot resting on top of the little bar above his front caster without thinking about it.

Rapid fire had started because Penelope was bored waiting for fries and now they were stuck in it.

“Okay,” she said, leaning forward, eyes huge and a little too bright. “Mini round. Three questions. No passing.”

She pointed at him, narrowing her eyes dramatically. “One. Most petty ick that made you lose attraction immediately.”

He didn’t even blink. “Okay, I’ve never actually told anyone this–I went out on a couple dates with a woman, and she told me she had a kid, which–fine, whatever–that wasn’t the issue…”

“So what was the issue?” She was already smiling.

“His name was… Ken.”

She just stared at him.

“Ken,” he repeated.

“Yeah, no, I heard you. I just…” Laughter was bubbling up from somewhere deep; he could see it forming in her face.

“As in… Kenneth?” she managed.

“As in not short for anything,” he practically yelled. “Just Ken, Penelope. A toddler named Ken.”

That did it.

A deep, helpless laugh ripped out of her. She was crying immediately, the kind of uncontrolled, awful-loud laugh that made people look over. She grabbed a napkin, folded it, pressed it under one eye like that might contain anything.

He didn't stop. “Imagine the kind of person who looks at a baby and is like, ‘yeah, we’re landing on Ken.’”

That made it worse.

She folded over, laughter going silent for a second, shoulders shaking so hard she could barely breathe. The napkin was useless; there were actual tears on her cheeks now.

“So that’s why you broke up with her?” she finally got out, voice wrecked.

“I did not break up with her,” he said. “I just…stopped being attracted to her very abruptly in the middle of brunch.”

She was still catching aftershocks, hiccuping a little. “Okay, yeah, that’s–no, I get it,” she said, wiping under her eyes. “Baby Ken is a lot to ask.”

Jack watched her come down from it, grinning like an idiot–obscenely fond of her for losing her mind over something as dumb as Baby Ken.

“Your turn,” he said when she was finally composed. “Worst haircut era.”

“Oh, easy,” she said. “Sixteen. Full emo fringe, but my hair is too thick so it just sat there like a sad helmet over one eye. I looked like a Playmobil went through a break-up.”

A laugh escaped him. “I need photographic evidence.”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “That folder is sealed until at least year three of this relationship.”

“Good to know you’re confident we’ll make it to the statute of limitations,” he said.

She made a face like, ugh, caught, and sipped her drink to hide the smile.

“Okay, question two,” she said. “What’s your go-to sick day movie.”

He squinted. “Childhood or now?”

“Both,” she said immediately.

“Childhood: Princess Bride.” He thought for a second. “Now: still The Princess Bride. Why mess with perfection?”

She slapped the table. “Yes! God, six-year-old me was so hot for Westley.”

He nodded, solemn. “So hot.”

She pointed at him with the neck of her bottle. “That’s how I know you’re emotionally safe. You can appreciate a self-aware parody.”

He bowed his head like, fair.

She tapped the table. “Okay, your turn.”

He thought for a second, then his mouth curved in that way that made her stomach dip.

“Most mundane thing you’re weirdly proud of.”

She beamed. “Oh, I can whistle my ‘s’ like the old man in Family Guy.”

He just looked at her, waiting.

She leaned in. “Chrisss, I got sssome popsssiclesss down in the cccellar for you.”

He lost it, tipping his head back laughing.

She kept going, making creepy hands at him. “I made a photo album of you. Alphabetizzzed by ssseason… and sssshirtlessssnessss.”

He lost whatever composure he had left. She was laughing so hard her foot knocked his footplate. His chair rolled an inch; he bumped his hand up to catch the table.

At the next table, a woman glanced over, double-took at the scene: Penelope half draped toward him, one foot casually propped on his front bar; Jack’s hand steady on the table, eyes crinkled, both of them absolutely gone on each other.

The woman’s face did this little half-smile. Not pity. Not horror. Just that curious, impressed look you gave a dog carrying a stick twice its size–huh, look at that.

Jack felt it land in a completely different place than the usual stares. Logged it. Saved it.

He dragged a hand down his face, still laughing.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “This is what happens when you ignore every red flag in your twenties. You end up with… this.” He gestured weakly at her, like she was the chaos in question.

She beamed. “You’re welcome.”

He lifted his glass, still laughing. “Okay–yeah. This is on me.”

She clinked. “Love accountability.”

They drank.

The music switched to something terrible–nasal pop-punk. The bartender flipped a chair upside down onto a table near the door, half-heartedly signaling “we are absolutely not closing yet but also maybe finish up.”

“Last question,” she announced, because power had gone to her head. “Then we go do something stupid.”

He arched a brow. “Define stupid.”

“Fun stupid,” she clarified. “Not ‘you end up in urgent care’ stupid. I’ve met you.”

He lifted his chin. “Let's have it then.”

She chewed her lip, thinking. The brain was hovering with ten too-personal questions, but she batted it away.

“What’s one thing you thought would be worse about dating in a chair that’s actually…fine?” she asked. “Or better. You can say better. But only if it’s not corny.”

He leaned back, considering. The tiny crease between his brows made an appearance, the processing face.

“Honestly?” he said. “I thought it would feel like…an apology. All the time. Like I’d be constantly making a case for why being with me wasn’t a downgrade.”

Her stomach twisted, but she stayed quiet. He wasn’t done.

“And it turns out,” he said, shrugging, “if someone’s actually into you, a lot of it is just…calendar math and ramp scouting. Less Greek tragedy, more logistics. Which was a nice surprise.”

She huffed a laugh. “Low bar, but yeah.”

“And now?” she asked.

“And now.” He turned his beer in his hands. “It just feels like we’re dating and the chair happens to be in the frame. You’re not having a quiet, noble time about it. You’re not squinting at me like ‘is this worth the difficulty.’”

“What am I squinting like?”

“Like if I roll away from you mid-sentence you’ll bite me.”

She laughed, because it was true.

He tilted his head, still working it out. “Turns out ‘loudly into me’ is a much better metric than ‘politely unbothered.’” A beat. “I didn't realize how much I wanted that until you imprinted on me and started stealing all my snacks.”

That landed somewhere she didn’t have language for yet. Right under her ribs. Soft and sharp.

She covered it by grinning. “Well, that’s good, because I also didn’t realize how much I wanted a man who could carry all my shopping bags on his lap like a pack mule.”

He gasped. “Using me for my cargo capacity. Wow.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it,” she said. “Okay. Let’s go do something stupid.”

He eyed her warily. “Define.”

She pointed with great authority at the corner. “Photo booth.”

He followed her gaze. It wasn’t even a real booth, just a cheesy backdrop and a ring light, but there was a basket of props and a sad little sign: TAG US FOR A FREE SHOT.

“That’s not stupid,” he said. “That’s…Instagram marketing.”

“We’re going to break it,” she said. “Come on.”

She hopped off her stool, nearly overshooting. He caught the edge of her jacket and her wrist in the same hand, steadying her as she wobbled. She landed, grinning, then immediately slid her fingers down his forearm to his hand and tugged.

He let her pull him across the sticky bar floor, his wheels making a soft tack-tack every time the rubber peeled up off the beer glue.

At the “photo booth,” she grabbed the most cursed props–oversized heart-shaped sunglasses for him, a tiny sparkly tiara for her.

“No,” he said when she went for a feather boa. “I draw the line at molting.”

“Coward,” she said, looping the tiara into her hair. “Okay. Logistics.”

She looked at the flimsy stool in front of the backdrop, then at him, then at herself.

“Okay, you in front, me behind,” she decided. “Like a two-headed idiot.”

“You’re really selling it,” he said.

She ignored him. He rolled into place, lining himself up with the backdrop, and she climbed up behind the stool and perched half on it, half on the back of his chair, one thigh over his shoulder.

The screen counted down: 3…2…

She leaned in and shouted, “MAKE A SEXY FACE,” right in his ear.

The first photo was both of them collapsing into laughter. The second was him in the stupid heart glasses giving the camera a smolder while she licked the side of his face. The third was a blur as she tried to adjust and almost fell off.

“Jesus, Pen,” he spluttered, grabbing her knee to steady her. “You’re gonna take us both out.”

“Die doing what we love,” she said, breathless. “Being hot and stupid.”

The fourth picture snapped with him looking up at her, mid-laugh, and her looking down at him with something that was not funny at all.

She didn’t see it until they were back at the printer, watching the strip slide out with a whir.

“Okay, frame one,” she narrated. “Chaos. Frame two, we’re clearly too powerful. Frame three, hazard. Frame four…”

Her voice trailed off.

Frame four was the one that hit her.

In it, her hand was on his shoulder, his hand was still braced on her knee, and they were both caught in this in-between moment. His mouth was open like he was about to say something dumb. She was looking at him like she already knew what it was and loved him for it.

She felt the thought before she thought it:

I can kiss him right now. For no reason. Just because I want to.

It hit her so hard she went a little blank.

They’d kissed before. Obviously. They were here because of several very strong, very not-platonic decisions. But there was something about seeing him like this–laughing, accessible, hers–that made the realization land in a new, heavier way.

There was no more “should I?” barrier. No “is this crossing a line?” They were past that line. She could kiss him just because he said something funny. Or because he existed.

She looked at the real him.

He was studying the photo strip with affection and horror.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “We can never let anyone see these.”

“I’m putting frame four on a mug,” she said faintly.

He grinned, looked up. “Please do not put my stupid face on crockery.”

Something about that–him saying my stupid face like it already lived on her things–tipped her over.

She didn’t decide.

She moved.

One second he was joking; the next, her hands were in his shirt and she was dropping onto his lap, kissing him like she was finally catching up to herself.

He made a surprised sound into her mouth, hands flying up to catch her so they didn’t slide backwards.

“Okay,” he managed when she gave him half an inch of air. “Wow. Hello.”

She laughed, a little breathless, forehead resting against his. “Sorry. No. I’m not sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said quickly. His hands tightened on her waist. “Definitely don’t be.”

“I just had a thought,” she said.

“Oh god,” he murmured.

She slid her hand up behind his neck, fingers tracing the soft edge of hair at his collar.

“I realized I can kiss you now. Just because I want to,” she said, like she was confessing a crime.

Something warm and startled flashed across his face.

“Yeah,” he said. “That is one of the perks of this arrangement.”

“And I got…overwhelmed,” she said. “With opportunity.”

He laughed, helpless, head tipping back.

“Good. I like your commitment to seizing the moment. Seizing my face. All of it.”

She smiled so wide it hurt.

“Okay,” he said, mock-serious. “But I do need, like, a two-second warning next time so I can hold the wheels. I almost rolled into that ficus.”

She glanced over his shoulder. The potted plant was absolutely not that close.

“You were nowhere near the ficus,” she said.

“I felt spiritually near the ficus,” he said. “Emotionally in the ficus.”

She snorted and kissed him again, quick and soft.

“There,” she said. “Two-second warning. I’m about to do it again.”

“You just did,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m gonna do it all the time now,” she said, cheerful and slightly menacing. “Inconvenient places. Mundane moments. DMV. IKEA. Break room. Live in fear.”

“That’s not fear,” he said. “That’s…motivation to leave my house more.”

She laughed, and something bubbled up in her chest that felt suspiciously like joy.

He shifted her a little on his lap, abs engaging, shoulders working, making room for her without thinking. His legs stayed where they fell when she landed–knees splayed a bit more–and the visual hit her in that deep, greedy part of her brain that’d been quietly losing its mind over him since day one.

He caught the look on her face, that little flick of heat she still sometimes tried to hide. He didn’t flinch.

Instead, he leaned forward, nudged his nose against her cheek, and said, soft and amused, “Yeah. You can kiss me whenever you want, Penelope. That’s kind of the whole point.”

Her breath caught.

“Okay, gross,” she said. “But you said it. You can’t take it back.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” he said.

So she did it again. And again.

Outside the booth, the bar kept being the bar–glasses clinking, music whining, someone yelling at the pool table. In their little pocket of too-bright photo booth lighting, she sat in his lap, fingers in his hair, kissing him like she’d finally understood the fine print.

He kissed her back like he’d been waiting for her to read it.