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“I think my people prefer ‘joke about a person with a disability.’”
“That takes too long to say.”
“True.” Nick tossed the M&Ms back onto the cart. “As ambassador to the able-bodied, I’m giving you permission to say ‘crip joke.’”
“But Nick Freeman doesn’t make crip jokes.”
“You haven’t heard?” He smiled. “My new stage name is Gimpy the Clown.”
Hayley surprised herself with her own laughter. “Something’s very wrong with you,” she told him through her giggles.
“Maybe I’m trying something new,” he said. “Or maybe I just like making you laugh.”
She very nearly saidI love you.It wasn’t a choice, but a reaction, the same way her laughter had just been, a response that didn’t need any thought. It had been too long since her heart had asserted itself like that, and she didn’t want to think about what it might mean. All that was on the other side of the door.
“I know.” Nick looked pleased with himself. “We can watchDirty Dancing.”
Something stabbed at her. “Let’s skip that one.”
“Really?” He was surprised. “I thought for sure that’d be a Hayley Burke favorite.”
“It is,” she said. “I went through two copies of that thing on video tape when I was a kid.”
He waited, then smiled and nodded when she didn’t keep going. “Got it,” he said. “And no Americans in Texas.”
“It reminds me of Kevin.”
She didn’t know why she said it. Kevin had no place here, not when Nick was letting her pretend the world didn’t exist, not when he was being far too nice to admit his feelings mattered. But maybe as long as Nick was looking at her with such kindness in his eyes, pain could lose some of its power in this room.
“When Baby sees Johnny for the first time,” she said, “before he notices her. You can tell she’s hooked. Even if she doesn’t want to be, even if she doesn’t understand what she’s feeling, she’s hooked, and I knew I was going to feel that someday. I walked into Icarus that first day, I saw him dance, and I was hooked. Ijust knew. We’d always see the best in each other, just like Johnny and Baby.”
Nick didn’t laugh, and he didn’t roll his eyes. “Happens to the best of us,” he said.
“To you?”
“Sure.” He walked to the TV and opened a cabinet underneath. “Can’t say I have a lot of movies about that, though.”
“Let’s watch the nextRockymovie,” she said.
He stared at her over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”
“Hell yes.”
He waited for the other shoe to drop. “You know it’s more of the same, right?”
“Don’t try and talk me out of this, Freeman.”
Nick found the movie while Hayley put the ice cream back in the freezer and wheeled the cart over to the couch, being sure to pick up her thrown chocolate bar.
“Do you have a blanket?” she asked him.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ll turn down the AC.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He turned to look at her.
“You run pretty hot, don’t you?” she continued patiently. “From working harder to get around?”
