Page 49 of Tangled with the Tight End

“What?”

“You heard me. You want your present? Close your eyes.”

I make a lot of noise on purpose while I pull the partitioned wood basket out of the bag.

“Okay. Open.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me first. And he doesn’t look away. He just holds my gaze as if he’s trying to figure me out. I hold his gaze in return. I just stood down a goat. Okay. I lost, but still. Declan’s got nothing on Jenny.

“What is it?” he asks, staring at the box in my hand.

“It’s an organizer for all your whatnots.”

“My whatnots.” His face is already less stern than it was a few minutes ago.

“Yes.” I walk over to him, picking up the remotes, his pack of Kleenex, his phone … and I plop each one into a compartment of the box. Then I set the box on the coffee table within his reach.

“Voila,” I say, waving my hand over the result.

“Thanks,” he says, looking at the box and then up at me.

“Oh, I’m not done. There’s more.”

He looks like he wants to say, “Yippee,” but in the most deadpan tone ever used by man.

Instead, he says, “Okay, bring it on.”

“You know the drill,” I say. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

I turn and pop my hand on my hip. If he knew the morning I’ve had, he would not test me.

“Okay, okay. Closing my eyes.”

I go to the bag.

“I know you can’t move around right now, but you’ll be getting around the house on crutches by late next week. And you know what’s bad about crutches?”

“Don’t tell me you brought bling,” he says, opening his eyes and raising one of his dark, masculine, expressive brows.

I clear my throat. “We could bling out your crutches. But this is better. More practical. Eyes shut.”

He obliges me while I run out of the room shouting over my shoulder, “Stay put!”

“What else am I going to do?” he says with a light chuckle.

I grab his crutches from the laundry room, then I come back to the family room, loop the sling around my body and say, “Open!”

His eyes pop open. I’m already propelling myself around the room. Going faster and faster. This is actually fun. If you put some swing behind it and push off with your toes, you can land four feet or so in front of yourself.

“So,” I say, my breath coming in pants with every push. I sail through the air and land. “You can put things in the sling bag and free up your hands to use the crutches. See?”

I push off again and swing forward into the hallway.

My feet are midair and they slam into Patrick’s abdomen.

“Patrick!” I shout.