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“I’m okay.”
“Will you just let me take care of you, please?” Chandler asked a little louder than she’d been speaking a second ago.
“You want to take care of me?” Belle asked back.
“It’s why I’m here, Belle. I didn’t just come here to help the Ice Park. I came here to help you. I like your dad – he’s nice to me, even though he knows the whole story and doesn’t have to be – but I’m here for you.”
“The guys are going to drinks, but I don’t want to.”
“Okay,” Chandler said with an expression that told Belle she didn’t understand where she was going with that.
“I’d like to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Good.”
“Do you want to come over? See my place? I need to ice my knees before I go to bed. We can watch something on TV; have something to eat, if you’re hungry. I think I have a frozen pizza in the freezer I can pull out for us.”
“Frozen pizza?”
“I haven’t gone shopping for my place, only for my dad’s, and the store is closed now. We don’t really have an app for restaurant delivery yet for the local places, but some of them deliver on their own. I can’t imagine you’ll want their food, either, since it’ll be fried and fatty, too.”
Chandler glared at her and said, “Fine. Frozen pizza it is. But I’m not having a beer.”
“Good. I don’t have any there, anyway,” Belle replied. “I have water, and that’s about it.”
“Good. You need to hydrate.” Chandler walked off.
Belle followed her out, and after making sure the employees were good to close everything else the rest of the way without her, she got into the SUV with Chandler and told the driver how to get to her apartment. Her apartment was one of four units in a converted house that had once been a large home for a family but was now four one-bedroom apartments. Hers was on the second floor, along with one other, and she entered it through a back staircase. She unlocked the door and let Chandler walk in first.
Belle had only been here for maybe an hour since she’d returned home to take care of her dad. She hadn’t cleaned it before she’d left for Chandler’s, so her bed was made haphazardly, and without the hospital corners she’d seen on the beds at Chandler’s house. The couch was second-hand and old, but comfortable. Her living room TV was small, but she didn’t watch much on it, anyway, preferring to use her laptop in her bedroom at night most of the time. Her kitchen was open, and while small, that openness at least made it feel a little bigger.
“So? Frozen pizza?” she asked.
“Sure,” Chandler replied as she took in the space. “It’s nice. It’s you.”
“It’s small, and it’s old. It’s also noisy.”
“Noisy?”
“My neighbors.” Belle nodded to the wall behind the TV. “They can be loud.”
“Oh. That sucks,” Chandler said.
“Yeah. I’m glad my bedroom is on the other side of the house. I only have to hear them if I’m out here.” She pulled two bottles of water from her fridge and walked out to Chandler. “Here you go. Want to find something for us to watch? I have all the streaming channels.” She handed her both bottles.
“Okay,” Chandler replied.
Belle went into the kitchen and turned on the oven. She found the pizza, and she couldn’t remember when she’d bought it, but it looked okay. She slid it into the oven and walked back to the freezer, pulling out two reusable ice packs. Then, she moved to the sofa, sat down next to Chandler, and placed them both on her knees.
“Oh, no. We’re not doing that,” Chandler said.
“Huh?”
“Belle, you need to put your legs up. And you didn’t even wrap the ice. It’s going to fall off. Put your legs in my lap, at least,” Chandler ordered. “Did you really hurt them, or are they just sore?”
“One of the guys got me in the pads at the knee, so that’s sore, but I got hit on my thigh, too. It got the pad, but it’s probably going to bruise. The other knee is just sore, too.”
“Okay. Well, let’s do this, then. Bed.”
