Physical Therapy (8 page)

“I know,” I told him. I fought the urge to put my hand on his, and when I looked up, his eyes met mine.

“Have you eaten lunch?” he asked.

“I think maybe that"s not such a good—”

“Don"t think,” he snapped. “It"s only food.” He stared at me for a minute as if I"d let him down in some unfathomably painful way and then turned and began the walk to the front door. Escape seemed to be his backup plan.
Shit.

40

Z. A. Maxfield

“All right,” I said impulsively. “If Izzie doesn"t need me.” He turned back and nodded, waiting.

I went to Izzie"s office and asked if there was any reason I shouldn"t go to lunch.

Half of me wanted her to tell me yes, but she looked at me and smiled vaguely and told me to
go right on ahead
. When I turned to leave, I had an eerie prickling sensation in the back of my neck and thought again that Izzie was kind of disturbing, even though I"d really begun to like her a lot.

I grabbed my jacket from the cupboard under the front desk and followed Ken out into the chilly air. He unlocked his SUV, and I got in. I was putting on my seat belt when he turned and spoke to me. “I"m glad you came. I wasn"t sure you would after last night.”

I didn"t know what to say. I still didn"t know what last night was all about. Maybe I"d misread him. Maybe he was just confused and angry. It"s not like I"d blame him.

He"d been through a lot, and I was just part of the whole lousy package.

“Mark liked you.” He started the engine, taking off at a crawl.

“I like him,” I said honestly. He pulled out onto the street, and it wasn"t long before we were parked in front of an Indian restaurant called Tandoor. He stopped the car and took out his keys.

“I called first; they have vegan dishes on the menu. Are you a vegan or a vegetarian? How strict are you?”

I smiled, absurdly pleased that he"d cared enough to ask. “Not a vegan, no; just no flesh.”

Ken shuddered delicately. “When you put it that way, I don"t want it either anymore. This place has a buffet, and half of it is vegetable dishes.” We left the car and entered the restaurant. The host motioned for us to sit in one of the red booths along the wall. There were several tables open, and we picked one. The air was redolent with East Indian spices, and it made me feel warm in a way that had nothing to do with food. We sat, both of us glancing between the white tablecloths and the televisions with their Bollywood fantasy musical numbers until a waiter came over and told us to head for the buffet.

I followed Ken. I hated to admit that I"d never eaten Indian food outside of the curried hot dishes that my mom made for church suppers. I"d never exactly been in an Indian restaurant, and the first thing that struck me was the color of all the food. Bright oranges and deep, earthy greens. Yellow cauliflower and potato chunks with bright green peas.

“The colors are pretty,” I told him. “But some of it looks…”

“Like baby poop?” Ken laughed.

I snorted. “Kind of.”

“Try a little bit of each thing. I don"t think you"ll be disappointed. Unless you don"t like spicy food?” He was concerned for me; I could see it in his eyes. I didn"t tell Physical Therapy

41

him that before I moved to California I"d hardly ever eaten anything spicier than black pepper, unless Cooper was cooking.

“Wisconsin isn"t the land of culinary adventure,” I pointed out. “I eat a lot of cheese.”

“There"s cheese.” He showed me. “It"s called paneer. It"s in this spinach dish, see the white chunks?”

“All right.” I filled my plate with blobs of unknown things. I loved the way the food smelled, and when we got back to the table, there was a basket of some sort of flat bread, all blackened and crackled at the edges. I took a piece; it was hot and glistening with garlic-flavored oil. “This really—”

“I brought you here because I wanted to talk to you about something,” he told me, and from the way he said it, my muscles tensed. With my fork halfway to my mouth, dripping with spinach and cheese and rice, I paused, meeting his eyes.

“What?” I didn"t know whether I should put the fork down or whether I should eat the food, so I let it sort of hang, dangling there.

He squeezed his napkin in the palm of one hand, his food, it seemed, temporarily forgotten. “I couldn"t sleep at all last night. I couldn"t stop thinking. It was right there in front of me and I didn"t even realize it.”

I put my food down and my hands on my own napkin, which was in my lap.

Ken"s eyes had a kind of tired, edgy glow, and I could tell he hadn"t passed a good night. He looked young and kind of breathless. Maybe even fevered.

“I know you"ll think this is crazy, but it"s perfect, I"ve already done it. I know we only just met yesterday…but…I want you to move in with me.”

“You
what
?” Conversation stopped at the tables next to ours. I lowered my voice.

“
What did you say
?”

“I said…” He leaned over, and in an almost theatrical whisper, he hissed, “I want you to move in with me. I rented a house. Well, it"s going to need some fixing. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms. I"ll need a roommate, and I"ll take the master bedroom with the en suite bath and pay two-thirds of the rent. You can—”

“Wait, you already rented it?”

“Yes, I saw it this morning. I signed the lease just before I came to pick you up.” He looked rather pleased with himself. “It"s perfect. You need affordable housing, don"t you?”

“Well…” I slumped backward against the red vinyl. “Yes, but you don"t even know me—I don"t even know you! I could be a serial killer. You could be…”

“I could be anyone. Even someone whose name you got off the Laundromat bulletin board, right?” He had a point. “It"s not like you"d know them any better than you know me.”

I picked up my fork again and toyed with the spinach on my plate before tasting a bite of it. “You"re right, of course.”

42

Z. A. Maxfield

“So why not move in with me? You seem like a polite guy. I tidy up after myself.

My family"s dying to get rid of me.” He broke off a bit of bread and shoved some vegetables on it, then ate them together.

“I"m sure that"s not true.” I did the same thing, finding the bread delicious with a lentil dish that packed quite a spice wallop. I grabbed for my water.

“Spicy.” He grinned at me, and it hit me why I"d be an idiot to move in with him.

Yeah, I could find heaven or hell picking an anonymous name off a bulletin board at the market or the Laundromat, but if I moved in with Ken, I had no doubt I"d find both.

Heaven because I liked him. He was handsome and funny and he needed me. Hell because he was handsome and funny and I"d need him right back, and wasn"t that
just
what I wanted to avoid, now and always? I didn"t want personal attachments. I didn"t want anything that would take my life out of balance.

He was looking at me anxiously. “So? What do you think? We could go over after lunch and take a look.”

I hit on what I thought was the perfect answer. “What happens when I want to bring a man home? I"m not known for my discretion.” That shut him up. For a minute. Then he tilted his head and gave me a sort of challenging grin that maybe scared me more than anything he"d said so far. “If you want to bring a man home? Then do it.” He took a long swallow of his water, during which I couldn"t help but stare at the long column of his throat again. “Maybe I will too.”

Physical Therapy

43

Chapter Seven

“And just what
the hell
do you mean by that?” I asked, and to my shame I saw a blob of food fly from my mouth onto the tablecloth. I dropped my napkin over it quickly and dabbed it away.

“That was classy.” He chuckled, and I felt my face burn. “I meant just what I said.

If I want to bring a man home, I will. And I just might.” I calmed myself down. I was sure he was speaking figuratively. He was still grieving for his girlfriend, his Amy, and maybe he didn"t want involvement any more than I did.

“It"s not unusual for someone who has lost a loved one to feel guilty at the thought of ever loving anyone new. They might get confused or have impulses that aren"t really based on…” What the hell did I think I was doing? “When the time is right to bring another woman in your life, you"ll be—”

Ken leaned over. “You sure can"t take a hint worth a damn, Jordan. If me kissing you didn"t make the wheels turn in your head, I don"t know what will. I don"t
want
another woman. If you"ve listened to nothing else I"ve told you, listen to this. Amy and I went out lots of places together, but it wasn"t because we were dating. She and I were close. She was my best friend. I loved her, but I wasn"t in love with her. I hate that she died when she could have been out safe with some guy who really appreciated her.

Who loved her like I never would have in a million years.” There was a catch in his voice, and he didn"t bother hiding it. “She deserved better than that.” I had no idea what to say to him. None. Except now I had the very best reason in the world not to move in with him if I was smart enough to turn him down. Which, I told myself, I would be. Definitely. Smart enough to
turn him down.

44

Z. A. Maxfield

I left my food untouched after that, and he finished it off. He seemed to be in a better frame of mind, and since I didn"t know him, I wondered if he was prone to mood swings.

“So, will you come and look at the place with me? I have the key. It"s a dump. I"m going to have to do a lot of work. In fact, I"m wondering how I"ll manage it all by myself.” He gazed at me. “It"s so hard for me to get around these days.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I said. “You"re playing the guilt card?

Who
are
you?”

The waiter brought over the check, and Ken snatched it up. When I started to take out my wallet, he waved me off. “I"ve got this.”

“Ken, have any of your doctors ever talked to you about emotional ups and downs?”

He laughed out loud. “I guess you have a right to ask about my sanity. Before you came along, I was marking time, waiting to get better, feeling sorry for myself that I couldn"t live my life the way I"d planned.”

“Ken, I"ve only been here one day, you can"t—”

“I went home last night so angry and ashamed.”

I"d known he was upset and that I was partly to blame because I"d been incapable of talking to him about it.

“I started thinking about what I want. Little things like being able enter a room without hearing the conversation come to a dead stop. I don"t want to worry that my kid brothers will catch me jerking off, or heaven forbid, my sisters. I want to invite someone over and not have six pairs of anxious eyes watching everything I do. I don"t want six people to come running when I fall.”

“I"ll come running,” I said. “You know I will. I won"t be able to stop myself, and then what will you do?”

“You? I"ll tell
you
you"re not my mother so fuck off.”

“I see. You could hardly say that to the genuine article.” The waiter brought Ken"s change, and he took care of the tip and got his crutches ready. He stayed seated for a moment, though, and looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe it"s an emotional high brought on by my meltdown, I don"t know. But I suddenly saw a way out of the role of family invalid. The unspoken but very visible way my family slinks around furtively trying to make everything easy for me is making me crazy, and until you said you needed a place to live, I didn"t even consider moving out. I didn"t want to do it on my own. I was scared.”

“Ken.” His quiet admission worked toward convincing me, even against my better judgment.

“Just go with me and take a look. It"s not going to be a picnic. When I said it was a dump, I wasn"t kidding. But along with a lot of hard work comes cheap rent for you and for me, the option to buy the place, which I"m seriously considering. Ninety-five Physical Therapy

45

percent convinced. I want this. I"ll advertise for a roommate if I have to, but I only looked into it at all in the first place because of you.”

“So it doesn"t depend on me?”

“No. Neither it, nor I, depend on you.” I exhaled the breath I was holding, until he spoke again. “I just want it to be you.”

“All right,” I said stupidly. “I"ll look at it. There are about a million reasons why I should tell you to forget it, and only one to go with you.”

“I only need one.” He got up. “What is it? If I can ask, that is.”

“For some reason I really can"t explain, I find I like it a lot when you"re happy.” I followed him to the door, and when we got out to the parking lot, he turned to me awkwardly on his crutches, grinning.

“In that case, you are so screwed, you should pardon the expression.” He unlocked his car remotely and opened the door behind his to put up his crutches.

“Because for some reason I can"t explain either,
you
make me happy.” We both got into the car and said nothing further as he made his way through the streets of Santo Ignacio.

* * * * *

We passed the high school and headed farther away from the main center of town, until at last he turned on a small side road and pulled up to a tiny, dilapidated house with an unkempt yard. There were several rusted appliances in front of a rickety-looking porch and weeds that grew as high as my thighs.

“Given that you used the word
dump
in your description, I"m not shocked at this point.”

“Wait till you see the inside. You will be,” he warned, as he gripped his crutches and started up the broken cement walkway to the house.

I couldn"t stop myself, and soon I was pushing ahead of him, looking over the porch steps for weak spots. “Watch your step here, it doesn"t look very—”

“Shut up, you"re not my mother.” He caught up and passed me, grinning. “See how easy that"s going to be?”

“For you, maybe.”

“I checked the porch out earlier. It needs work, but so does everything. I talked to the realtor, and he thinks I should just buy the place. He"s pretty sure he"ll get the owners to agree to an immediate move-in, and that they"ll knock the price down considerably. The market sucks, and this house has been for sale for almost a year. The owners inherited the place and are only renting it to get some cash to pay the property taxes.”