by Lucy Score
“Get your ass in there,” she said, handing over the crutches.
He wasn’t sure what pissed him off more, that he was being an asshole or the fact that he didn’t want to go in there alone.
“You can come in if you want,” Aldo muttered and started for the entrance without looking back.
He worked to keep his face neutral even as moving from the car to the door sapped him of what energy he had. He was already sweating, and he hadn’t done a goddamn thing. It was as if the last thirty-plus years of his life had been all for nothing. Gone in a second, destroyed by one random explosion.
Harper caught up to him and pushed the button that swung the automatic door open. Together, they stepped into a waiting area that still smelled of new carpet and fresh paint. They waited for a few minutes. Not long enough for him to stop sweating before a nurse in annoying floral scrubs called for them.
“Lieutenant Moretta, welcome to PT. I’m Annalise.” She extended her hand to him.
She was tall, slim, and utterly no-nonsense. And he didn’t see any signs of pity or “poor baby” in her hazel eyes behind her glasses.
He shuffled his crutches and shook her hand. “Aldo,” he said by way of introduction. He wasn’t keen on his rank following him into what was his earlier-than-planned civilian life. The nurse turned to Harper, and before Aldo could cobble together a “best friend’s girlfriend and woman I begged to drive me here” intro, Harper took over.
The two women exchanged names and shook hands.
“Thanks for coming,” Annalise said, leading the way through the door into a space with padded tables and cardio machines. Exercise balls, wooden benches in varying sizes, and even a small trampoline were neatly organized on the beige carpet. The dreaded bridge of steps was sequestered in the corner next to a stack of exercise mats. It was half gym, half daycare. “It’s important for family to be involved in recovery.”
“We’re just friends,” Aldo mumbled.
“Well, it always helps to have another pair of eyes and hands,” Silver Lining Annalise told him. She pointed to a pair of chairs next to a set of parallel bars. “Let me get these set to your height, and the doctor will be here shortly.”
God, he hated these bars. He’d fallen from them about a dozen times in Germany and once or twice at Walter Reed Medical Center, his arms too weak to hold his body weight. And when he wasn’t falling, he was sweating and swearing and hating his own weakness.
Harper was silent for once next to him, and the look on her face told him she was worried about him.
“Lieutenant.” A slim man in a white coat and thick-rimmed glasses approached with a clipboard and a half-drunk green smoothie. “I’m Dr. Steers. I’ve heard a lot about you.” The introductions were made while Aldo felt a surge of anxiety rush through his system. Part of the “healing” process apparently involved facing his own failings again and again and again. It would either break him, or he’d crawl through it half the man he’d been.
“Let’s get started, shall we? lieutenant, Walter Reed gave me your file, and you already have our staff impressed. To be where you are right now, barely a month from the injury, is almost superhuman.”
Superhuman, huh? That sounded more like the old Aldo. He hoped to God the doc wasn’t blowing smoke up his ass. This was the first scrap of hope he’d felt since… Dust. Red. Silence.
Since.
“He is pretty awesome, isn’t he?” Harper insisted.
“We can understand the lieutenant’s frustration with the pace of therapy, and we’ll do our best to write a program that challenges him at his level. We just need to make sure we’re not asking too much of your body while you’re still so early in the recovery process. Okay?”
Aldo nodded. He’d heard the bullshit before. Rest. Slow. Incremental progress. Blah blah blah. Never be who he used to be. That last one was part of his own internal monologue.
“So let’s get you up.” Dr. Steers pointed at the bars. “You know the drill.”
Aldo stood and handed his crutches to Annalise. He gripped the ends of the bars and walked, one foot in front of the other, moving one trembling muscle at a time, toward Dr. Steers who paced him backward on a wheeled stool.
Fuck. It hurt. Everything hurt. He was so sick of feeling like this. Weak, wrung out.
“Looks good,” the doctor said, making notes. “Go ahead and go back to the top.”
He walked the bars, up and back, again and again, pausing here and there to make slight adjustments to the metal and plastic that was supposed to be a part of his body now.
“Lieutenant, let’s try it without the bars,” Dr. Steers said, peering over the tops of his glasses.
Aldo dropped his hands to his sides and put a little saunter into his stride as he walked slowly toward Annalise. It took every ounce of effort to keep his face impassive. But beneath the surface anxiety, exhaustion, and a fleeting spark of hope all danced a two-step.
“That’s perfect,” the doctor said with an approving nod. “Your gait looks great.”
Again and again, they put him through the paces without walking aids. But this was where he thrived, going up against the wall and finding those last pockets of energy or perseverance. It was like finding a piece of the old Aldo. And fucking hell, it felt good.
His t-shirt was soaked fast to him with sweat, his quads were trembling from walking. But he was pushing hard. And that’s where he was most comfortable.
“Let’s take a quick water break, and then we’ll move on to some of the balance exercises,” the doc suggested.
Aldo tried to play it cool but dropped into the chair next to Harper like a stone.
Annalise directed Harper to a refrigerator with water, and she returned with two. Aldo drained half of his with the desperation of a desert wanderer.
The doctor piped up again while Aldo wondered if he could talk Harper out of her water. “I know the energy expenditure is frustrating. Typically, mobility with a below-the-knee amputation consumes up to forty percent more energy than what you’re used to. That’s why you feel like you just finished a marathon. It might only seem like a few steps to you, but to your body, it feels like almost double that.”
“I’m fine,” Aldo insisted. “I can do more.” At this point, he wasn’t sure if it was a lie or sheer stubbornness.
“Lieutenant, you live up to the hype,” Annalise said, readjusting the bar height, which thank the fucking gods meant he was definitely done with them. “You’re a beast.”
“When can I start running?” He dared them to tell him he couldn’t. That he “might never.” That’s what the last two doctors said. Managing expectations.
Dr. Steers gave him a long look. “I’m going to make a promise that in most cases I don’t get to make. Soon. In fact, I think you’d be a great candidate for a carbon fiber running blade.”
Aldo gave a brisk nod, but his heart was busy climbing its way into his throat. He could run? And not just “might.” He would. If he could run again maybe…
No. Gloria deserved a man who could keep her safe, make her feel secure.
She was better off without him.
But it was her face that he saw through the rest of his appointment. Through the balance and strength exercises, the electrical stimulation, and finally the massage that soothed his screaming muscles.
30
“You don’t have to be my new therapy buddy,” Aldo told Harper once they were back in the car. This time it was physical exhaustion that had him acting like a bear. Annalise had dumped a stack of papers detailing at-home exercises on Harper on their way out.
“I don’t mind,” she said, slipping on her sunglasses. “But I’ll understand if you’d rather have your mom take you.”
He felt his lips lift in an involuntary smirk. “Very funny. Want to grab some lunch?” He hadn’t been hungry in weeks, but now he felt like he could lay into a side of beef.
Harper’s stomach gave an inhuman gurgle. “More than anything in the world.”
>
She took them through a drive-thru and put the top of the VW down in a sunny, waterfront park. Aldo watched her chow down on her burger with gusto.
“Have you talked to Luke?” she asked with her mouth full.
“A couple of times. Not since I came home though,” he told her. The conversations had been rushed. Aldo had gotten updates on Oluo, healing fast and raring to go back. But neither he nor Luke felt inclined to talk specifics about the incident.
Harper stared at him and chewed.
Aldo rolled his eyes. Maybe he was a little rusty on this conversation thing. “He sounds like he’s doing okay,” he told her.
“Does he?”
“He won’t let me thank him.” It had bothered him since that first call. Out of surgery, covered in bandages. He hadn’t even seen his leg yet. Someone had managed to patch Luke through to his hospital room. It was a short conversation in which Luke’s response to Aldo’s heartfelt, drugged-up gratitude was a succinct “fuck off.”
“For what?” Harper asked, the remains of her burger forgotten in her lap.
“He didn’t tell you that he dragged my ass out of there under fire while ordering everyone else to pull back?”
“He what?”
“Shit,” Aldo said. “It’s all kind of a red blur to me. One second, I’m driving down this stretch of road, the next I’m falling out of the truck. I couldn’t hear or feel anything. All I knew was I couldn’t move. I thought I was dead.”
The breath he took didn’t slow his racing heart. But at least he was talking about it, getting the poison out one drop, one word, at a time. He swiped at his brow.
“Then there’s Luke hovering over me. Looking like he’s screaming. He dragged me behind a truck, used my belt as a tourniquet. I passed out, but they tell me he carried me under fire while the rest of the guys laid down cover.”
Harper gripped her soda so hard Coke rolled down the sides. “Why the fuck didn’t he tell me?” she demanded.
“Why the fuck won’t he let me say thank you?” Aldo countered.
Harper leveled a look at him, and Aldo shook his head in perfect understanding.
“Because he’s Luke,” they said.
“I’m going to type an email in all caps to him when I get home tonight,” Harper told him.
“I’ll mail him a thank you card with all caps,” Aldo decided.
“So why are you avoiding Gloria?” she shot back.
Aldo dropped his head against the seat back. “Anyone ever tell you you’re tenacious, Harpoon?”
“Oh, no, you don’t. I live with Luke ‘Jeopardy’ Garrison. I will not be put off by you trying to turn Q&A into Q&Q. Aren’t you interested in her anymore? Did your feelings change?”
Frustration bubbled to the surface. “Harper, look at me.” He pointed at his prosthesis. “I can barely fucking walk. How am I supposed to sweep her off her feet like she deserves?” Let alone protect her from whatever nightmares lurk in the shadows.
Besides, why would she even want him at this point? He couldn’t be who she needed. He wasn’t the same man who kissed her in the dark hours before deployment. He was something else now, inside and out.
Harper pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath that sounded more like a hiss. “Okay, I don’t even know where to start with your assininity.”
“Not a word.”
“Totally a word. First of all, you think you’re somehow less of a man because you’re sporting a new leg? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard a lot of stupid shit. Your leg has nothing to do with the man you are. Your attitude, on the other hand, has everything to do with it.” She poked him in the chest, hard. Letting him know exactly what she thought of his piss-poor attitude.
“This ‘woe is me, disabled cowboy’ crap act is not doing you any favors. Man up and be the rockstar you’ve always been.”
He thought she was done. Maybe she had a small, tiny, practically invisible point. But before he could be magnanimous with his admission, Harper’s mouth started again.
“And second, Gloria isn’t some fragile flower. She’s funny and smart, and she’s clawing out a brand-new life for herself. One you could be a part of. You know what would be amazing for her? Some guy who is willing to be vulnerable in front of her. Someone who needs her. Do you know what that would do for her confidence? Finally being in the position to help someone else?”
Harper was yelling at Ina Moretta volume now. She grabbed a handful of fries out of her burger box and wielded them at him. “She blushes every time someone says your name. And she survived the Mrs. Moretta Inquisition.”
Uh-oh.
“Inquisition? Oh, shit.”
Harper looked smug. “By the end of it, your mom was asking her for her jam thumbprint cookie recipe.”
So that’s how Gloria got roped into taking care of his mother’s house. Hell. She’d been maintaining two Moretta homes by herself, and he hadn’t even thanked her. He was such a pathetic asshole.
“This is too much to take in,” he sighed.
“Eat your burger. You’re weak with hunger and stupidity.”
He reached into the bag, unwrapped his burger, and took a huge bite.
“Do you really think she’d want to be with me like this?” he asked, his mouth full.
“I’m going to pretend you weren’t just that stupid right now.” Harper threw a fistful of French fries at him, and for the first time in weeks, Aldo felt good.
31
Gloria muscled the couch her mother swore was a second-hand bargain at a thrift shop into place along the long wall of her living room. Hers. The entire one-bedroom, one-bathroom, six-hundred-square-foot, third-floor walkup was hers.
Her fingers brushed something on the soft cushion, and she choked out a laugh at the price tag. Her sneaky, lying, sweetheart of a mother.
Her eyes filled again. She’d already had her little cry this morning. Happy tears as she lugged the first box of her meager belongings up the stairs. Right now, the space was a disaster of half-packed boxes and mismatched furniture and kitchen accessories cluttering the floor and every other flat surface. Oh, and there was the entire corner dedicated to her 8,000 pounds of Fourth of July paperwork, posters, and a few yards of red, white, and blue bunting that Estelle from the restaurant by Aldo’s office gave her “in case someone needed it.”
But she vowed that by the time she went to bed tonight, it would be perfect.
Home.
A grunt and groan from her open front door caught Gloria’s attention. Harper, generous friend that she was, hauled the faux leather tufted ottoman—a legitimate thrift store find—through the door and into the living room. She flopped down on top of it and heaved a sigh.
“You’re going to be in amazing shape just from bringing groceries home,” Harper gasped. “I can’t believe we got the couch up here ourselves.”
Gloria laughed as she unpacked the last dish of her brand-new dinner service for four. “I can’t believe it’s mine. I can put something on the counter, and it will still be there when I come back. I can watch anything I want on TV. I can lounge around naked all day if I want!” She ticked the items off on her fingers.
Her own place. She’d been frugal with her paychecks and had saved up for the first month’s rent and security deposit with no one else’s help. She’d done it, snagging the creaky-floored apartment two floors above Dawson’s Pizza. Even now, the faint scents of basil and garlic could be detected on the breeze from the open windows.
She met Harper in the living room, and together they appreciated her view through the tall bow window. Main Street Benevolence bustled below. Across the street, the police station’s glass windows gleamed, and the door to Common Grounds Cafe opened and closed.
It was part of what she loved about this particular apartment. She was in the middle of all that was Benevolence. She was a part of it, even if it was only by proximity. And she loved it so fiercely it made her chest burn with something that fe
lt suspiciously like pride.
“This is pretty perfect,” Harper said in approval.
Gloria couldn’t have agreed more. “Want a drink?”
“For the love of God, yes! Please!” Sophie’s voice was muffled by the box of kitchen miscellany that covered her face and chest. She dumped it unceremoniously in the middle of the kitchen floor, a characterless beige tile that Gloria had joyfully scrubbed clean ten minutes after she got the keys.
Sophie flopped down in a dining chair. “That’s literally the last thing. You’re all moved in.”
Gloria grabbed the six-pack of soda she’d stashed in her fridge and squashed the urge to pirouette around the boxes and bags. She’d do that when she was alone.
Harper jogged to her bag. “Wait, Gloria! Put the can down! We can’t let the first drink in your very own home be diet soda.”
She revealed a bottle of champagne with a flourish.
Sophie clapped her hands. “Nothing happier than the sound of champagne being uncorked!”
Harper helped herself to the meager collection of coffee mugs that Gloria had put away in the cabinet and poured.
“I’d like to make a toast,” Gloria told them, accepting a mug. “Thank you both so much. It means the world to me to be independent, but it’s even better to have you two as friends that I can depend on if I need to.” She’d never had that before. The fact that these two women had volunteered to lug her hodgepodge collection of belongings up three flights of stairs made Gloria feel like the luckiest woman in the world.
“Aw! Cheers!” Harper, then Sophie clinked their mugs to hers.
Sophie left shortly after to help Ty convince their son that he wasn’t a dog and did indeed pee inside unlike Bitsy. Harper stuck around to help with some of the unpacking.
“I really appreciate the help,” Gloria called, stacking glasses neatly in the cabinet next to the sink.
“I’m happy to help,” Harper said from the living room where she wrestled with the cords of Gloria’s small TV and a new-to-her DVD player. Gloria was sharing Wi-Fi with her neighbor and hadn’t sprung for cable. She didn’t want to overextend herself her first month living on her own now that she had rent and insurance and utilities to pay. It was the first time in her life she was making money, and she was determined to manage it carefully. No shopping sprees or filet mignon for her.
