AllFreeNovel
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1
It had taken Nick Freeman all of two seconds to decide to play the victim of a tragic garbage truck accident, so he wasn’t surprised the woman sitting across from him was having trouble buying it.
“A garbage truck.” She repeated it back to him slowly, watching his face as she poked at the ice in her drink with a swizzle stick.
“Yep,” he said. “A big one.”
Her eyes narrowed a bit. “So, like, what happened?”
He thought about it as he took a sip of his beer. Hopefully she would assume he was hesitating because of some traumatic memory. It was too boring to say the truck had simply hit him. A routine pickup could’ve gone bad, a trash can could’ve gone flying …
“I had to save some kids,” he decided. “They’d climbed into the compactor.”
She winced. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
Not anyone’s fault, in fact, and not one of the better tales he’d spun in this bar, but he knew she wouldn’t call bullshit. He did have to give her points for being direct, though. Most people weren’t brave enough to ask about his legs.
Her name was Kacey, with a K, and she’d introduced herself that way, as if that first letter was a source of pride. Tight jeans on this hot and humid May night in Columbus, Ohio, meant she cared more about looking good than feeling good, and she looked good enough for Nick to give her his full attention when she’d complimented his karaoke performance minutes ago.
After they’d settled into their seats, Kacey had watched closely as their server, Alexa, expertly lifted Nick’s four-wheeled metal walker and placed it behind their booth, where it wouldn’t impede Friday-night foot traffic.
Kacey had looked at the walker, looked back at him, and said, “So what’s with the, um …”
“Walker,” he’d said, cutting her off before she could saystrollerorbuggy. Then, after two seconds of deliberation: “There was an accident with a garbage truck.”
And so here they were, very much not talking about his cerebral palsy.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, “the rest of me works just fine.”
She giggled, looking him up and down. “All of you?”
“Yep.”
It had been fun once upon a time, this habit of finding exciting reasons to be crippled, but he couldn’t remember the fun tonight. Tonight just felt like heavy lifting, like he had to physically exert himself to shift her focus from his damaged muscles to the ones that worked. It would get better from here, now that the walker had been dealt with.
Kacey glanced at the cocktail napkin on which her glass had been placed. “What is that?” she asked. “A dog?”
Nick rested his hand on her arm as he leaned forward to look at the napkin’s logo. “That’d be a lion.”
“Oh!” She rolled her eyes. “Should’ve figured.”
“Nah, it does kind of look like a dog.” Except they were sitting in a bar called the Squeaky Lion, and the dog had a mane, and yes, she should have figured. “The bar owner’s dog has a favorite chew toy,” he explained. “A squeaky lion.”
Kacey grinned. “Look at you, Mr. Expert.”
He smiled back, keeping his eyes on hers. “I know about all sorts of things.”
As it happened, he actually was an expert when it came to this bar. After attending every karaoke Friday for the last three years, Nick knew that the owner’s dog was named Scotty, and their server’s stylishly spiked hair was cut by her sister, and the bar food was better earlier in the evening because the kitchen cared less the later it got. He doubted Kacey would find any of this impressive.
She was keeping his gaze, which was good, and she was letting him keep his hand on her arm, which was better. If he had a shot with her tonight, their words and glances and pauses would have to build on each other until leaving the bar together felt natural. He’d rely on his smile until he thought of the next subtle indication to Kacey with a K that going to bed with a cripple (with a C) would be worth her while.
“Kev, we’ve gotta dance!” A woman’s voice shattered the moment, startling him.
At the sudden interruption, Nick’s hand involuntarily left Kacey’s arm and swept the table, knocking over his beer. The bottle was empty, but he still felt broken every time he reacted to an unexpected noise as if he’d been jolted with a cattle prod.
“Comeon, Kevin,” the woman pleaded playfully. “Please?”
