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“Thank fucking God,” I replied, pulling off my shirt.
Together we arranged me on my stomach on the table. Jon took a towel and wrapped the waist of my sweatpants with it, jerking them halfway down my ass. Then he took his oil out of his bag.
Anyone who thinks this is awkward has never been in the kind of pain I have. Jon had been my regular physio guy for over a year, and he was magic. I didn’t give a shit about having a man’s hands on me as long as he took the pain away. I’d been through much, much worse humiliation in my life.
“So Nick is gone on his honeymoon?” Jon asked as he got started.
I grunted as he hit a knot of pain in my lower back. Sitting in a wheelchair is hell on the back muscles, from the neck all the way down. “Two weeks.”
“Sucks, man.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine.
He talked like he always did—about a date he’d been on, about his trip to his mother’s house for her great cooking. Jon liked to talk without requiring me to say much in return. It made me feel less lonely and at the same time he never pried.
“You working your back muscles lately?” he asked.
I pulled out my phone and tapped it on, swiping through my apps. I called up my security feed, my fingers moving of their own accord. “Trying to.”
“Nice job.” He whistled. “Wow. Who’s that?”
Shit. I hadn’t been able to resist it: I’d called up the view of the house across the street. Tessa Hartigan had come out her front door and was unwinding a hose to water her lawn.
“She just moved in,” I said, trying to sound casual. Trying to sound like I wasn’t spying on her.
“Holy shit.” Jon leaned forward, looking more closely at her over my shoulder. “That girl is hot. What’s her name?”
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“But you’re one of those computer hacker guys. You could find out, easy.”
I already had. “Maybe.”
He paused in his work and we both watched her turn on the hose, then stand in the front yard, spraying the grass. Her neck was smooth and white below the ends of her hair. She had her big sunglasses on again, only her perfect nose and pouty lips visible. She was wearing a spaghetti-strap tank top and short shorts. Even her flip-flops were sexy. Jesus Christ.
“You should talk to her,” Jon said.
“No I shouldn’t.” I was mad that he’d caught me creeping on Tessa Hartigan like I couldn’t help it. I bit back my anger.
“Sure you should. I keep telling you, women would go crazy for you if you left the house.”
“Did you forget the part about my legs?”
“Aw, man, that doesn’t matter. As long as the plumbing works.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “This finally got weird, considering I’m partly naked.”
Jon shrugged. “I don’t play for your team, man.” He pointed to my phone, where my neighbor was spraying water like a cheesy music video. “I play forthatteam.”
“Thanks for the insight. My lower back, okay?”
He got back to work, taking his heated towel out of his bag and putting it on me while he worked. It was my lower back—my lumbar spine—that was damaged in the accident, the nerve damage shorting the signal from my brain to my legs. One stupid decision, and my legs weren’t getting the message anymore. They probably never would again. I couldn’t see the scars from the emergency surgery on my spine, but I knew they were there.
I closed the security app. I didn’t want to look at my neighbor anymore.
But Jon wasn’t ready to drop the subject. “I think you’re too hard on yourself, dude. Another patient of mine, he’s in a wheelchair, too. He’s on Tinder. I’m telling you, that guycleans up.”
“Curiosity fucks,” I said. “I’m not interested.”
