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Her foot grapples to get back onto the pedal, and before it can, the bike is tipping. Tipping. Tipping. Tipping.
And I’m not close enough to catch her this time.
“This is silly. I don’t need a hospital. I’m fine.”
“You’re right, this is silly. However, you are not fine. You’ll be fine as soon as a doctor stitches you up.” I grind my teeth. Coco is going to get a mouthful about how entirely wrong she was.
“Ms. Porter,” the emergency room nurse says. “You can come back now.”
Meredith holds her scrapped arm to her chest, her right hand pressing gauze to her forehead when she stands. She’s wobbly on her feet and I jump up next to her. I hadn’t planned to go back with her, but she looks at me with those big blue eyes that seem to be able to speak all on their own. They say—Come on, Levi. This will be a grand adventure.
I let out a breath. How can I not go back? Not when she got hurt on my watch. Not when I’m the one who let her fall. Not when those legs are as wobbly as they are. “Let’s go,” I say, wrapping one arm around her back to steady her and ignoring the jumping beans in my stomach.
We reach an emergency patient room and I walk her to the cot and release her, letting her sit on her own.
“Can you tell me how this happened?” the nurse says, looking from Meredith to me.
“Bike lesson,” I say just as Meredith answers, “Lousy balance.”
She looks Meredith over, asks a few more questions—ones I keep my mouth shut on–and then we’re waiting for the doctor.
“I can wait outside,” I tell her.
“Please don’t go.” She sits a little taller, still holding her left arm to her chest. She lifts her right hand from her head, holding the bloody gauze out toward me, asking me to stay.
“Okay.” I sit back in the chair across from the patient’s table. I watch her as she shuts her eyes and pulls in a breath. But without the pressure from her gauze, her head starts to bleed again. Not a shocker—the gash is pretty deep. I knew the minute she hit the ground she’d need stitches. If only I’d held onto the seat or been a little closer. Or if I’d bothered to grab a helmet to go with that bicycle.
Still—she’s a grown woman. As grown as twenty-three can be. I’m not in the business of telling other grown-ups what to do.
With a huff, I stand and snatch a few tissues from the counter. I sit next to her, feeling a little like Godzilla as I tower over her small frame. I gently press the tissues to her head.
Meredith winces with my touch.
“Sorry,” I say, my voice low and gravelly. “You’re bleeding again.”
“I can—”
But I’m sure her arm is tired from holding up the gauze for so long. “I’ve got it.”
She leans into me, closing her eyes and swaying—she really doesn’t have the best balance. Or maybe she has a lousy teacher and now she has a concussion.
“Meredith?”
“Hmm?” she says, eyes still closed, her head resting against my chest. I feel a little freedom to examine her without judgment. No sister here, telling me how cute this girl is. Not even Meredith watches me. I glance over her smooth skin and long lashes, all the way down to her peaked lips. The ones I scolded myself for staring at before.
I have no business looking at these lips. I cram my eyes shut. And when I open them, she’s still sitting there, tired, leaning, breathing, sending over her coconut scent and overly friendly vibes.
So, I ask my question. “Why did you decide to learn to ride a bike? Now?”
“Mmm,” she hums, thinking and maybe half asleep with her head on my chest.
“You said you had a reason and you weren’t ashamed.”
“Hmm,” she hums again, eyes still closed. “Because I didn’t know how.”
“Okay.” I breathe her in, my mind calculating every inch of her body that touches mine. I switch hands on her head wound, slipping my right behind her back. “But I don’t know how to wrestle an alligator and I’m not suddenly convinced I need to learn.”
At once, very blue, like the clearest summer sky-blue eyes stare up at me. “Wrestle an alligator?” Her brows pinch together, just a little.
