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Ramsey smirked. “I will gladly be a pain in the ass if it means getting you out of this dark, depressing place you’re in. You need to get into motion, just a little bit, and then it will be easier to keep moving. Like asking your hot neighbor out would’ve put things in motion, even if she said no. It would’ve been easier the next time to ask someone else.”
Hill let out a breath, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.
“Look, I can’t say I’ve been there,” Ramsey went on. “I don’t know what you’re going through, but I’ve had times in my life when I’ve felt stuck. If you stop moving, you get more stuck, more hopeless. So even if moving forward is the last thing you feel like you have the energy to do, you have to force yourself sometimes—even if it’s little things. It’s like working out. No one wants to do it, but the more you do it, the easier it is. Then it starts feeling good. Then you’re running miles and can’t remember why you used to hate working out.”
Hill pushed his plate aside. “Right.”
“And believe me, remembering how great it is to get laid is a way quicker trajectory than learning how to love working out.” Ramsey picked up his burger with a flash of a grin. “Once you get past that first time, you’re going to wonder why you waited so long to get back out there.”
Hill’s neck muscles tightened. He had not forgotten how great sex was or even just making out on the couch, but imagining doing those things now—with this new body and all its scars—made dread wash through him. After his accident, Christina had stopped sleeping with him. At first he’d thought it was because she was afraid she’d hurt him, but once he’d found out about Josh, he’d figured out the truth. She wasn’t attracted to him anymore and was getting what she needed from someone else.
“I don’t think I’m ready for the dating scene yet, but I hear what you’re saying,” Hill said, knowing his friend’s heart was in the right place. “Maybe I can find some way to get moving on the finding-a-new-career thing. Andi offered to give me a tour of the coworking space where she has an office. She said meeting people who are doing all kinds of different things can be inspiring. And there’s a test kitchen there that food vloggers use.”
Ramsey paused midbite and lowered his burger. “What the fuck? You let me get halfway through lunch without telling me that part? She wants to show you around where she works? Help you figure out what you want to be when you grow up? You dumbass, you totally should’ve asked her out. You’ve got zero game. No, not even zero—negative points would have to be given.”
Hill leaned back in his chair and flipped his friend off. Ramsey was a pain in the ass, but Hill loved that he still treated him like he had before the accident. Other people had become more careful around him, like he was so fragile he’d break. Ramsey still regularly insulted him. It was the best. “Fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ramsey said, unperturbed. “But at least now you have a second chance to get this shit right. Tell her you’ll take that tour and then ask her out for coffee after or something.”
“And if she only sees me as the disabled firefighter she wants to help out because she’s a charitable person?”
He shrugged. “Then at least you know what’s what. And hey, she could become your hot friend and thenIcan ask her out. Because”—he picked up Hill’s phone again and turned Andi’s headshot his way—“hell yes.”
Hill grabbed his phone out of Ramsey’s hand. “Stay away from my neighbor. Our walls are thin, and I can’t handle that kind of trauma.”
Ramsey chuckled and went back to his food.
They moved on to a different conversation, but Hill couldn’t get the previous one out of his head. Andi had absolutely not been flirting with him, but he found himself fantasizing about that being the case. That she’d come over because she was interested. That she’d invited him on a tour because she wanted to spend more time with him.
But as quickly as he let the thoughts spool, they started to unravel. He was deluding himself, and if he let those thoughts go in that direction, he’d end up embarrassing himself. He knew he needed to take baby steps, and Ramsey was probably right. He should have a hookup at some point to get past that initial fear and dread of sleeping with someone. But doing that with Andi would be a terrible idea, even if she was interested. Beyond the fact that she was his neighbor and tenant, a hookup was supposed to be a temporary, fleeting thing. Lighthearted. Low stakes.
Nothing about Andi said low stakes.
She seemed like the kind of woman who would make a guy want to push in all his chips. Bet the house.
He couldn’t afford to risk that much again. He’d already lost it all.
Andi Lockley was off-limits.
