Andrew
I lived alone, but there was always someone in my house. Grocery delivery; cleaning service; pharmacy delivery; medical visits; landscaping. Even my therapist made house calls. The only good thing about my shitty life was that I had lots and lots of money, so I could make people come to me.
If I didn’t have to shop and clean, then what did I do all day? Here’s something they don’t tell you: when your legs don’t work, everything takes longer to do. Getting out of bed, taking a shower, dressing—that shit can take an hour and a half, easy. I had fitted one of the spare bedrooms into a workout room with weights, pulleys, and bars—that took an hour again, and I couldn’t skip it because my upper body strength was all I had.
Once I made a cup of coffee and fried an egg, it was halfway to noon. I powered up my monitors, my computer, my server, and got to work.
I could have opened my camera feeds and looked at the house across the street, but I didn’t. Tessa Hartigan and her lacy underwear were none of my business, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start creeping on her like the desperate asshole I was. There was no point to it. She’d never come over here, and I sure as hell would never go over there. End of story.
Today was physiotherapy day, and an hour later the doorbell buzzed. I turned on the security feed. Jon Chu was at my front door camera, wearing his scrubs and waving. I let him in.
“Hot out there!” he said as he walked in. “Supposed to be a heat wave coming.”
“Sure,” I said, still typing.
He tapped my shoulder. “Let’s get moving, Bubble Boy. I get paid by the hour.”
I pulled away from my computers, but I took my phone with me. I wheeled after Jon into my exercise room, where he unfolded the table he kept there and helped me on.
“Lower back today,” he said.
“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 for that team.”
“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 guy cleans up.”
“Curiosity fucks,” I said. “I’m not interested.”
“No way. He’s just a player, the same as any guy with legs. Don’t you know what year it is? No stigma.”
“Trust me, there’s stigma.”
He sighed. “It’s mindset, man. Just mindset. Deep down you know it’s true.” He took the towel off. “Okay, we’re done.”
After he left, I grabbed some almonds and orange juice from the fridge and wheeled back to the living room. My phone rang. It was Nick.
I swiped to answer. “I’m answering the phone,” I said to my brother without bothering with hello. “Are you happy? Can I go back to my life now?”
“What’s going on there, fuckface?” Nick said back. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s great. I have hookers here. I’m snorting blow. Just a regular Wednesday at my house.”
He ignored me. “Did Jon come for the physiotherapy? I put it on the schedule on the fridge.”
“Jesus.” I swigged orange juice. “Yes, he did. Everything’s fine.”
“Donna is supposed to come tomorrow.”
I winced. Donna was a “wellness therapist”—that was what she called herself, probably because she wasn’t any kind of legit doctor. She’d been hired by my mother.
Two years ago, when my parents divorced, my mother had decided to come back into my life. Nick’s, too. She’d apologized for abandoning us after the accident and she’d tried hard to make amends. Part of those amends, in my mother’s mind, was hiring Donna to give me her wellness therapy.
Overall, I was good with having my mother back. It sure as hell beat the years when I thought she didn’t give a shit about me. But Donna and her wellness therapy were a pain in the ass.
“Aren’t you in Hawaii?” I asked my brother. “Why are you fussing about my schedule?”
“Just making sure you’re following it,” Nick said. “And yes, I’m in fucking Hawaii. It’s nice here. You should come sometime.”
“What color is the sky in your world?” I swigged more juice. “Kiss Evie for me. Then again, don’t, because you’ll only remind her that she married the wrong guy.”
This was a common line of ribbing with Nick and me. I didn’t actually have a thing for Evie, even though she was a hot, curvy redhead, definitely the best-looking woman who had ever been inside my house. Nick and Evie were made for each other. And I didn’t have a thing for any woman, because it wasn’t going to happen.
I thought of Tessa Hartigan, then pushed the thought away.
There was a muffled female voice on the other end of the phone. Then Nick saying, “No, I’m not telling him that.” Then more talking.
“I’m getting old here,” I reminded my brother.
Nick sighed. “Evie wants me to say that she loves you.”
I put my glass down. For a second I couldn’t breathe. Fucking Evie. Neither of us deserved her.
“Well of course she does,” I said through the lump in my throat, making my voice sound casual. “Everyone knows I’m the better brother.” I cleared my throat. “With the bigger dick.”
“I’m not telling her that.”
In the beat of silence, my doorbell rang.
“What the fuck was that?” Nick said.
I was frozen in surprise. I wasn’t expecting anyone; I had no appointments, no deliveries. No one was supposed to be at my door.
“Andrew?” Nick said.
“It would seem to be my doorbell,” I said, wheeling myself over to my monitor and tapping it awake. “Probably just kids.” I looked at the front door feed and went very still.
“Well?” Nick said after a minute.
“It’s nothing,” I managed. “I’ll call you later.” I hung up.
And looked at the front door feed again.
Tessa Hartigan was standing on my front porch. She was still wearing the spaghetti-strap top and short shorts from before. Her sunglasses were perched on top of her head. She had noticed the camera and had centered herself in front of it, waving.
She carried a white square cake, which she tilted toward the camera. There was one word iced onto the cake:
Hi.