Armpit Portals & Other Hate Crimes
They’re halfway through a shared basket of fries when the shadow falls across their table.
Polo shirt. Name tag. Expensive watch. Vibes of “regional sales manager who says girl boss unironically.”
Cam.
Of course.
“Hey, excuse me,” he says, leaning a hand on the back of Penelope’s chair like he owns it. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Jack shifts just enough to angle his chair toward him, easy, relaxed. “Alright, Cam,” he says, half-grinning. “Make it good.”
Cam blinks at having been pre-read, then focuses on Penelope, smile dialed up.
“I just had to come over and say you’re, uh… you’re really beautiful,” he says. “And it’s so nice what you’re doing.”
Penelope’s spine goes cold.
“What… I’m doing?” she says.
“Yeah,” Cam says, with the confidence of a man who has never heard himself. He nods toward Jack’s chair without looking at him. “Being out. Helping him. Are you his nurse or…?”
He lets it hang there like he’s offered them a compliment.
Jack’s face doesn’t change much. Just the tiniest brightening, like somebody handed him a toy.
“Oh, good question,” Jack says. “What do you think?”
Cam blinks. “Uh… sorry?”
“If you had to guess based purely on vibes, is she A) my nurse, B) my girlfriend, or have I been kidnapped and she’s making me eat fries as part of an elaborate experiment?”
Penelope chokes on a laugh.
Cam smiles, relieved to have a quiz. “I mean, I’d say A, right? No offense. You just… seem very dedicated.” He gives Penelope a meaningful look that makes her want to set something on fire. “That’s really admirable.”
Jack nods thoughtfully. “Okay, strong choice. Follow-up question: on what planet do nurses sit this close to their patients on their night off?”
He tips his head toward Penelope’s leg–her knee snug against his thigh, her foot hooked casually on the front bar of his chair.
Cam opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks down at her foot like it’s betrayed him.
Jack keeps going, pleasant as a podcast host. “And when’s the last time you saw a nurse stealing this many fries off a patient’s plate? Because if that’s standard of care, I’m being shortchanged.”
Penelope, delighted, steals another fry on principle.
Cam laughs, but it’s starting to sound unsure. “I just meant–like–you don’t see a lot of people… willing to take something like this on?”
“Oh, totally, very big of her to slum it with the guy who sits,” Jack says, nodding like they’re discussing quarterly projections. “when there are so many average men out there bravely standing.”
Cam shifts from foot to foot. “Man, I’m not… I wasn’t trying to insult you.”
“Oh, I know,” Jack says, smile bright and sharp. “That’s the fun part.”
Cam frowns. “The fun…?”
“Yeah,” Jack says. “If you were trying, you’d have led with something better than ‘are you his nurse.’ That’s like entry-level clueless.”
Penelope nearly chokes.
Cam just stands there like his brain is buffering.
“Anyway, to answer your original question: no. She’s not my nurse.” Jack tips his chin toward Penelope. “She’s my girlfriend. Very demanding on my end. She’s doing God’s work.”
That hits. Penelope feels something warm catch in her ribs.
Cam’s eyes go a little wide. “Oh. Right. Wow. Okay. That’s… great, man.”
Jack’s smile goes almost sweet. “I know, right? Thrilled for me.”
Cam lets out a strangled laugh, clearly trying to find the exit ramp. “Well, hey, congrats, you guys. Seriously. I’ll, uh… leave you to it.”
“Appreciate it,” Jack says, a little too loud, and it lands like he’s shooing Cam away.
Cam nods too fast, mutters something like “yeah, yeah, for sure,” and retreats back toward his cluster of polos.
For a second, they sit in the little bubble of space he leaves behind. Penelope can feel her pulse in her throat, her ears, the pads of her fingers.
Then she looks at Jack.
He’s already looking at her, mouth twitching.
“Cam,” she repeated, dropping her voice into a mocking baritone.
Jack loses it–laughs, full and unguarded.
“‘Are you his nurse,’” she says, dropping her voice into a faux-earnest tone. “‘Hi, I have no social awareness and would like to subscribe you to my newsletter.’”
He wheezes. “To be fair, he probably thought he was being supportive.”
“Oh, absolutely,” she says. “He’s going to go home and tell someone, ‘I saw the cutest little inspirational couple tonight, I think they let him have fries as a treat.’”
Jack grabs his chest like he’s been shot. “Don’t say ‘let him have fries.’”
She grins, vicious and delighted. “I’m sorry, do you have to check with your case manager before you order another beer?”
He groans, laughing. “You’re evil.”
“Yes,” she says. “But only for you.”
He’s still smiling, but she sees it–the tiny flicker under his eyes. That half-second where the joke brushes something old and sore. Her chest squeezes around it.
“Hey,” she says, nudging his knee lightly with her own. “For the record, there has never been a single second where I have looked at you and thought ‘patient.’”
He snorts. “What, just ‘problem’?”
“Absolute problem,” she agrees. “But like… in the hot, ruin-my-life way, not the tragic backstory way.”
That pulls a real one out of him. “That’s reassuring.”
She studies his face for a second. The way the lines by his eyes go deeper when he smiles for real. The way his shoulders are looser now that Cam is gone.
“Also,” she adds, snagging a fry, “you being like that with him?”
“Like what?” he says, feigning innocence.
“Funny. Politely brusque.” She rolls the fry between her fingers. “It was obscene.”
His eyebrows jump. “Obscene?”
She pops the fry in her mouth, chews, lets her gaze run down and back up him, then meets his eyes square-on.
“God,” she says, the words almost surprising her on the way out, “I’m so attracted to you it’s genuinely inconvenient.”
He just looks at her for a beat.
Then that slow, wrecking smile shows up–the one that looks a little like he can’t believe this is his life.
“Yeah?” he says, under his breath.
“Yeah,” she says. “You make it very hard to act like a nurse in public.”
He laughs, head tipping back.
“Good to know,” he says. “In case Cam comes back. I’d hate to misrepresent my care plan.”
She snorts, reaches over, and hooks her ankle around the base of his chair, pulling herself–and him–a tiny bit closer.
His hand slides over her knee, thumb pressing into the inside of it.
“Come home with me,” he says. Not even a question.
Her mouth curves. “Obviously.”
⸻
They’d made it halfway through a movie before Penelope stopped pretending she was following the plot and let it dissolve into background noise–gunshots, dramatic strings, someone whispering a secret–none of it landing because whatever was going on in her head was louder.
She was sideways on Jack’s couch now, socked feet tucked under herself, a bowl of popcorn parked between them like a flimsy boundary. Jack was propped against the armrest, one hand hooked behind his head, the other fishing for the good pieces without looking. His chair was parked a few feet away, brakes on, like a very obedient pet.
“This is not working,” she announced.
“The movie?” he asked. “Or our relationship? Just checking the scale of the problem.”
“The movie,” she said, kicking his thigh lightly. “The relationship is thriving, thank you.”
“Wow,” he said. “Strong word for someone who just watched me almost choke on half a kernel.”
“That was hot,” she said. “Very vulnerable. Very real.”
He rolled his eyes, but his mouth tugged up.
She twisted, set the popcorn bowl on the coffee table, and turned back to him with the kind of look that meant she was about to commit to something ill-advised.
“Okay,” she said. “New game.”
“Oh, god.”
“Trust me.”
“That,” he said, “is historically dangerous.”
“Rapid Fire,” she declared.
He waited. “Is that… the whole title?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s minimalist. The rules are: you have to answer fast, no thinking. Like, three seconds, tops. No follow-up explanations. We alternate questions. They can be normal, weird, or unhinged. If you really hate one, you get one pass. One.” She held up a single finger, eyebrows up. “Choose wisely.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, curious now. “And the goal is…?”
“Chaos,” she said immediately, then shrugged. “And honesty. People are more honest when they don’t have time to… put on the job interview voice.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “So you’re trying to trick me into vulnerability.”
“Yes,” she said. “Obviously. Do you want to play or are you a coward?”
He made a show of considering it, eyes on the ceiling. “You are constitutionally incapable of letting something be casual, you know that?”
“And yet,” she said, “you’re still here. Interesting.”
His eyes dropped back to hers. “Fine,” he said. “I’m in.”
She brightened, tucking one knee up so she was fully facing him. “Okay, I’ll start. Remember: fast.”
He angled more toward her, the slight shift knocking one knee lightly into the other.
“Hit me.”
“Favorite cereal, no lying,” she fired.
“Lucky Charms,” he said immediately. “But I pretend it’s like… Raisin Bran if anyone asks so they think I’m an adult.”
She grinned. “Coward. Okay, your turn.”
He barely paused. “First impression of me. And don’t say ‘wheelchair’ or I’m walking out.”
She snorted. “You literally can’t.”
“Metaphorically,” he cut in.
“Fine,” she said, heart doing something weird in her chest. “First impression?” She let three seconds burn. “Loud,” she said finally. “In a good way. Like… your presence walked into the room five minutes before you did.”
He blinked, then let out a soft, surprised laugh. “Okay, that’s… unexpectedly nice. Your turn.”
She pretended to jot an invisible tally in the air. “See? Vulnerability.”
“Don’t make it weird,” he said, but his face had gone just a little pink at the tips of his ears.
“Too late.” She leaned in. “Weirdest thing you cried about post-breakup with your ex.”
He looked horrified. “That’s the second question? We went cereal then emotional homicide?”
“Three seconds,” she warned.
He groaned. “Fine. I cried when my DoorDash guy forgot the extra sauce.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, delighted. “Oh my god.”
“It was the principle,” he said. “Also it had been a very long week.”
“I love you,” she blurted, then immediately backpedaled, eyes widening. “As a concept. As a… person. Generally.”
His brows shot up, amused. “Noted.”
She cleared her throat. “Moving on.”
“My turn,” he said, eyes sharp now. “Weirdest crush you’ve ever had. Like, embarrassing level.”
She didn’t even hesitate. “The fox from Robin Hood,” she said. “Childhood rewiring. No follow-up questions.”
He stared at her. “You just said that so fast.”
“No follow-up questions,” she repeated, jabbing a finger at him.
He laughed. “You realize this explains so much about you.”
“Yes, and we’re ignoring it.” She took a breath, pulse kicking up a little. Okay. This was the whole point. Say the normal stuff, the stupid stuff, until the other things didn’t feel like dropping a grenade.
Next question.
“Okay, real talk,” she said, dropping her voice. “Scale of one to ten, how annoying is it when strangers ask you what happened?”
Jack tipped his head side to side, like he was weighing it on an invisible scale. “Mmm…”
“Four,” he said finally. “Sometimes a seven. Depending on the day.”
Her chest squeezed. “When is it a four and when is it a seven?”
“Follow-up,” he said gently.
“Right,” she said. “Rules. Sorry.”
He shrugged one shoulder, like it was fine, but his eyes stayed on her, more alert now. “My turn.”
“Okay,” she said. “Be kind.”
He considered her for a second, then went in a totally different direction. “If you had to get a tattoo tonight, no planning, what would it be and where?”
She relaxed. “Oh that’s easy,” she said. “Tiny frog in cowboy boots on my butt cheek.”
“That’s incredibly on brand.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling bolder. “What’s one thing people do because they think it’s helpful, but it actually… isn’t?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Wow. Going straight for the hate crimes.”
“It’s the game,” she said lightly, even though her heart was thudding. “I’m just an innocent vessel of the rules.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, eyes dropping to her tucked-under feet and back up.
“The armpit portal.”
She blinked. “The what now.”
“When someone decides to ‘hold the door’ by planting themselves in the middle of it, arm braced across the frame,” he said, miming it with his free hand, “and then just… waits. So I either have to squeeze under their armpit like a raccoon in a parking garage, or make them move and feel like a jerk.”
She laughed, but she was listening. Really listening.
He smiled at her. “Ten out of ten confidence, zero structural awareness.”
“So what do you actually want people to do?” she asked.
“Leave me to it,” he shrugged. “Or just hold the door from the side and give me space. It’s not that deep, but people get weird and start doing performance architecture.”
She nodded once, absorbing that. “Okay,” she said softly. “No armpit portals. Got it.”
He watched her for a second, something curious in his expression. “My turn.”
“When did you realize you were…like this?” He gestures at all of her. “Loud, feral, emotionally competent, terrifying in meetings.”
She blinked. “Wow.”
“Three seconds,” he reminds her.
“My family is insane. Everyone’s a main character, everybody’s loud, and affection is just… elaborate roasting with snacks. I think I developed a personality out of sheer survival. Like, ‘adapt or be emotionally assassinated over dinner.’”
He’s already grinning.
“I realized I was loud and feral,” she goes on, “the year everyone kind of… stopped fucking with me and started handing me the aux cord instead. That felt suspiciously like a promotion.”
Jack laughs, low and pleased. “Yeah, that tracks as a supervillain origin story.”
He bumps her ankle lightly with the back of his hand. “Okay. Your turn, menace. Hit me.”
She swallows. The questions she really wants to ask are all crowded together now, elbowing each other for space.
“What,” she says slowly, “is the thing you’re most scared people assume about you because of the chair?”
His jaw works once, like the question has landed harder than he expected.
“That my life is… smaller,” he says. “Lonely. Sad. That they see me and fill in a whole story about what I’ve lost instead of noticing what’s just… here.” He shrugs. “That no one sees me as… an option. For things. For jobs, relationships, whatever.” He looks at her. “Which is dark for Rapid Fire. By the way.”
Her throat goes tight. “Yeah, well,” she says. “You’re the one who keeps bringing emotional depth to my silly little game.”
“Sorry,” he says, tone wry but eyes serious.
“I like it,” she says, before she can stop herself.
His gaze flicks to her mouth, just for a second, then back up.
“My turn,” he says quietly. “How curious are you actually? About disability stuff. Like, on a scale of one to ‘has a hidden Google doc.’”
Her face goes hot so fast it’s almost dizzying. “Rude,” she says weakly.
“Am I wrong?”
“No,” she admits. “I’m… extremely curious. Terrified of being weird about it. So I just pretend to be normal and then overthink everything and then somehow end up less normal.”
He smiles, small and real. “You can ask me stuff, you know.”
“I know,” she says quickly. “I just don’t want to… poke at things that hurt.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Sometimes it does. But it hurts more when people act like it’s radioactive.”
That hits somewhere low in her chest.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “Then… can I ask one that’s like… medium weird?”
“Medium weird is my sweet spot,” he says. “Go.”
She takes a breath. “Did you ever think,” she asks, the words coming out softer than she intended, “right after… everything… that no one was going to… want you like that again?”
He exhales, slow.
“Yeah,” he says. “For a while.” His eyes go distant for half a second, then refocus on her. “There was this phase where I felt like my body had turned into a group project no one signed up for. And I just assumed no one would look at me and think… ‘yes, that.’” His mouth twitches. “So I decided I’d be the guy who was fine about it. Joke-y, unbothered, very well-adjusted. Easier that way.”
“Easier for who?” she asks.
He gives a little huff. “Everyone else.”
Her chest is buzzing now, full of things she absolutely should not say this early, like: I look at you and think yes, more than is probably legal.
Instead she says, “For the record, I do not experience you as a group project.”
“Oh no?” he asks, voice lighter. “What do you experience me as, then?”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “We’re in Rapid Fire, I’m not allowed to answer that.”
“I feel like the game is over,” he says, but there’s something warm and a little fragile in his eyes now.
“No,” she says quickly. “One more. Then we can retire it and pretend we’re normal.”
He laughs. “Okay. Make it count.”
She swallows. “Okay, this is going to sound dumb because we… kind of covered this already,” she says. “But… what can you feel? Like, for real. Not in the middle of me being distracted out of my mind.”
One corner of his mouth kicks up. “Yeah, you were preoccupied,” he says softly. “Sure. We can do the non-horny version.”
Her face goes hot. “Great, love that for me.”
“It’s pretty much what I told you,” he goes on. “Chest, arms, upper back, ribs. Nothing below the belly button in any reliable way. Sometimes I get… weird ghost stuff. But mostly it’s like… my body is on airplane mode from the waist down.” He watches her carefully, like he’s waiting for even a flicker of flinch that never comes.
She picks at a loose thread on the throw pillow. “I just… want an accurate map,” she says finally. “If I’m ever trying to make you feel good and not, like, earnestly patting your ankle for no reason.”
His breath hitches, a small, helpless sound.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s… very okay with me.”
She shrugs, pretending her pulse isn’t in her ears. “Okay. Good.”
He stares at her for a long moment, the air between them thick and humming.
“My turn, because you got two,” he says, voice gone a little rough. “Then we’re actually done.”
“Fine,” she whispers.
He doesn’t look away. “On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to bolt once this gets less ‘quirky disabled boyfriend aesthetic’ and more ‘hey, this actually affects every plan we make’?”
Her chest cracks open a little. “Oh,” she says. “That’s… not fair.”
“Three seconds,” he says, but it’s soft.
She doesn’t need three.
“Zero,” she says. “No hesitation.”
His shoulders drop, like she’s just pulled a weight off them he hadn’t admitted was there. Something in his face shifts, open and unguarded and so, so fond.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Game over.”
“Game over,” she echoes.
Neither of them reaches for the remote.
After a minute, he squeezed her foot where it was tucked under his thigh.
“Hey,” he said. “For the record? The Cam thing earlier? That’s… not new.”
She made a face. “Yeah, I kind of guessed.”
“The ‘wow, what a saint’ calculation is a regular headline,” he went on. “Or the ‘I could never’ one. Cam just skipped straight to assuming you were hired help, which is honestly a bold opening move.”
Her jaw flexed. “I hate him.”
“You hate everyone,” he said mildly. “But the way you looked at him like you were mentally shoving him into traffic? That was new data.”
She groaned into his shoulder. “Don’t make it sweet.”
“It’s not sweet,” he said. “It’s selfish. I like having someone get territorial on my behalf. You’re like a chihuahua in a purse who will absolutely bite someone.”
She laughed and shoved at his chest. “A chihuahua. That’s what you’re going with.”
“Small, scrappy, poorly socialized,” he said. “Yeah, that tracks.”
She made an outraged sound and climbed fully into his lap, knees bracketing his thighs. “Take it back.”
His hands found her hips automatically. “Absolutely not.”
The movie kept playing. Neither of them was watching.
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