“But they were all in there together. How long have they been in that container like that?”
“Umm… It came that way?”
“So it could be days. Hours at least. I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
“Wait, so you can’t eat any of this?”
She shook her head and scrunched her face into a pained expression. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
“What about cheesecake? It was in the basket, too.”
“But it was never on the same bare surface as the shrimp?”
“No.”
“Then it’s fine.”
He popped one more sushi piece into his mouth—one that didn’t have shrimp. He didn’t want to take the chance of kissing her with shrimp in his mouth. If he kissed her at all. But if he ate sushi that touched shrimp, was that just as bad? How allergic was she?
He put the sushi away and took out the cheesecake. Now he wished he’d gone for the bigger, full cheesecake, but he didn’t think they’d eat it all. This one looked so small since it was going to be their whole meal.
Audrey broke into a chuckle. “Wine and cheesecake. This might be the most perfect meal ever.”
“Really?” He gave her a skeptical look and handed her a plate.
“What could be better?”
“Real food that won’t kill you if you eat it.”
“I probably wouldn’t die. Just come close to suffocating. But I’m sure you could get me to the hospital fast. Bears run twice the speed of humans, don’t they?”
“They do.” He nodded, but kept thinking that he wasn’t nearly that fast right now. If he had to make any sort of emergency move, they were in trouble. In bear form, he maybe ran the speed of a human, and in human form, he could barely run at all. Hopefully she wouldn’t see that. Hopefully he would be healed by the time he had to run in front of her. Otherwise, he’d look like a fool and she’d know she couldn’t rely on him like she thought she could.
“What is that look?” she asked, putting a bite of cheesecake into her mouth. “You get that look a lot. What does it mean?”
“I guess it’s my thinking face?” He shoved in a forkful of cheesecake. Not too bad. And at least she could eat it.
“It looked like you were sad or worried about something. Are you still feeling down a lot?”
He lifted one shoulder. “It’s getting better. After we talked that one day, it got a lot better, but it’s still hard. The team was here the other day to welcome me home. I don’t think any of them expect me to come back.”
“I guess you’ll show them.” She winked and took another bite.
He nodded slowly. Inside, he was warring with being honest with her. He felt like he could tell her anything. He hadn’t had that in so long. Not even with Carolyn. Audrey would understand what he was going through and she would comfort him. But that would mean admitting what condition he was actually in. Admitting how weak and pathetic he was at the moment. He couldn’t be seen like that in her eyes. It was one thing while he was forced to wear a hospital gown and be wheeled around, but now that he was home, he was no longer her patient. And she couldn’t see him that way. At all.
“I will,” he said, putting on his confident smile. “It gets better every day. I was running sprints in my backyard and tossing the ball. My arm hasn’t been affected at all, and being able to throw is more important than being able to run.”
“How is it in bear form?”
“Better. Jeff said it’s something about the way my muscles and bones all have to change and move when I shift, that it makes the muscle work differently, so it hits the damage in a different place. Guess it gives me some advantage.”
“It definitely does.” Audrey reached for the wine bottle and emptied it into her glass, then looked at him and realized she hadn’t topped off his glass. “Oh, sorry.”
“No, no, you drink it.” He was still pissed at himself over the sushi thing. If more wine made her relax and feel better, he’d stop and get four more bottles.
“What are you going to do until you can play ball again?”
“Haven’t figured that out yet.” Of course she would ask that. The one thing he had no good answer for. Then he had an idea. “I thought maybe something with kids. Like I could teach them to play. Maybe they’d think it was cool that a pro player was teaching them.” That sounded good. She might be impressed by that.
She smiled and drank more wine. “It would be neat to work with kids like that. I thought about going into pediatrics once. But I did an internship there and knew it wasn’t for me.”
“Why?”
“Couldn’t handle it. They reminded me of the child I lost and the fact that I’d never have one of my own. It was too close to all that. Maybe now I could do it, I don’t know. Maybe not. The thought of having to see kids sick and hurt all the time doesn’t sound like it’d be too easy, either.”
“Right.” Gabe’s kid was sick. What was it like for a parent when your own kid was sick instead of someone else’s? Had to be worse, right? These were all things he wanted to know. Though who knew how long it would be with her. She was still so raw about it all. It’d been how long and she hadn’t slept with anyone? When they finally did do it, was it going to be all awkward? He wanted to just get it over with, so she could calm down about it and see that it would be fine. That he wouldn’t hurt her.
All this thinking about it had his dick hard. He had to move subtly to adjust its position, but he wanted her. And not in many months from now. He wanted her right here, right now. He could throw her down in the cold grass and make her hot. Take her right there in the open air, like the animal he was.
“Okay, so what’s that face?” she asked. “That’s not a sad face.”
“No.” That’s my I-want-to-nail-your-brains-out face. “Just being determined about my future.” Close enough, and good answer. He’d pat himself on the back if he could.
“You’ll get there. I talked to Jeff about you, you know.” She set down her empty wine glass.
“Oh?”
“He said the last two weeks have been amazing. That you’re doing really well.”
“It’s all thanks to you.”
She tilted her head to the side. “How so?”
“You’ve been such a help and inspiration to me. And once you agreed to go out with me, it was even more motivation to make progress. The faster I got out of the hospital and wheelchair, the sooner I could take you out like this. I kept this moment in my mind the whole time I was in physical therapy.”
She gave him such an endearing look, that he found himself moving closer to her. He hadn’t really stopped to think about it. He just leaned in naturally, like he would in any other situation when he was feeling this way. But when he was about a foot from her, she turned away and got up.
“That was amazing.” She stretched and acted like nothing had been about to happen.
Man, this was going to be hard. He’d known her for months now. They’d talked and shared and he thought, grown a little close. But she still couldn’t let him kiss her? Or had she somehow not known that’s what he was going to do? No, she had to have known, and it freaked her out. Being that close to him freaked her out. And he hated the feeling that gave him. This inadequate, unwanted feeling.
He packed up the picnic items, and she helped put everything into the basket. Maybe he needed a different approach with her. Maybe she needed to know what was coming and have time to prepare for it. So, he could ask her if he could kiss her, or at least warn her that he was going to. Maybe that would make it better. They could hike to some romantic spot, then he could take her hands and look into her eyes and ask to kiss her, and it would be sweet and considerate of her feelings, and romantic. Perfect.
Chapter 11
They left the car where it was and joined the hiking path in the woods nearby. His leg felt stiff, but that was probably just because they’d been sitting so long. Sitting was the worst thing for it. Once he got it moving, he’d be fi
ne.
“This is beautiful here.” She looked back at him and smiled. “Hiking like this isn’t going to aggravate your leg?”
“No, it’s good for it. Good exercise to get the muscles working. Jeff said I need to work it.”
“I’m glad you’re listening to him and doing what he said. I’ve seen a lot of people not do that and they never get better like they should. They either don’t do enough or they do too much and hurt themselves worse. But you seem like you’re doing what he said to do.”
“I’m trying.” She didn’t need to know that he was pushing himself a little harder than Jeff would probably like. Let her think this was exactly what he should be doing. That he was doing it right, like she thought he was.
They hiked for about a half hour, stepping carefully over rocks and branches, crunching old leaves and brittle twigs, listening to the sound of the nearby creek rushing along. It was nice being in nature like that with her. Getting out and moving. But his leg was starting to ache. He should probably stop, but there was no way he was going to tell her that he had to stop because he was in pain. No. Way.
“There’s a beautiful waterfall a little ways ahead,” he said. He’d planned this. The waterfall was where he was going to kiss her. Or ask to kiss her. She could say no, he supposed. And that would suck, but what else could he do? He planned this special date, he’d wait until the perfect moment, and then he’d ask. If she said no, it was on her for ruining a perfect moment.
“Are you doing okay? You don’t need to stop or take a break?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No way. I could hike for hours.”
She gave him a questioning look. “Hours?”
“Well, maybe not hours, but to the waterfall and back is perfect. Nice long hike to get my muscles stretched and warm and working.”
“Okay, well let me know if you need to turn back. I don’t want you to push yourself too hard.”
Right. But he didn’t want to be weak more than he didn’t want to be in pain. No pain, no gain, right? Maybe if he pushed it now, he would make progress faster. Maybe he hadn’t really reached the line Jeff talked about where he went from working to overworking. How was he supposed to know, anyway? Better to push until he found the line, then he’d know for the future.
The ground was getting wetter. That meant they were getting close. He looked ahead to see if he could see it. He needed the break that would come when they got there. His leg was killing him. The pain was starting to make his heart race and sweat break out over his face. He kept wiping it. She couldn’t see that. She might not assume it was the hike doing it. She would know in her nursey way that he was in pain. She always seemed to.
He stepped carefully around rocks, making light splashes in the puddles. Where was this thing already? He stepped down over a big rock and when he stepped forward with his good leg and pushed off from his bad leg, everything stopped.
The big step of the rock was too much. He’d gone too far and pushed too hard. The muscle tightened in the most wicked cramp he’d ever felt in his life. Worse than being shot. Like someone jammed a knife in and twisted it around.
The pain was so sudden and sharp that he cried out. His knees gave way and he crashed to the ground, almost hitting his head on a rock, and hitting his shoulder instead. Now his shoulder ached dully, too. The wet ground was already seeping through his clothes, and the cold on the muscle made it tense up farther.
He curled into the pain, grabbing his leg and trying his best not to make a sound or react. He must sound like such a child right now, whining because his leg hurt. Audrey went instantly into nurse mode. The moment he cried out, she turned to him.
When he fell, she reached out to cradle his head, but he was too far from her, and she couldn’t move close enough faster enough. Well, his head was fine, and she knew what the problem was. She put her hand on his calf muscle.
“Straighten your leg,” she said.
Could she tell it was cramped up and twitching? He tried to move his leg out, but the pain, which was already too much, increased and expanded.
“No, no,” he said. His voice sounded whimpery and he hated it.
“You have to get the muscle to relax. The only way is to straight it. I’ll help you.”
She pulled on his leg to move it forward. He swore that as she did, she was pulling the muscle right off his bones.
“Stop!” he screeched. Tears filled his eyes. Oh, God, now he was crying? What a disaster. But he couldn’t help it. The agony was just that great.
“Okay, let’s just go real slow. I’m going to massage it for a while.”
She positioned her hands over the muscle and pressed down. She might as well have set him on fire. She was pressing scorching coals into his skin. He scrunched up his face and tried to hide his reaction and let her do what she needed to do. He was cold and sweating and any second, he was going to puke from the pain. Breathe, breathe Kenny.
The tears kept coming, no matter what he did to try to stop them. And then the wave he’d been fighting came over him. He turned his head and vomited.
Audrey jumped up. “We need to get you to the hospital. You’re in too much pain and the muscle won’t relax. A shot of orphenadrine will make it release and stop hurting like that. How far are we from the car?”
He couldn’t even think. He’d just thrown up in front of her, and she was going to take him to the hospital. This was horrible. The pain made his thoughts foggy, and all he wanted to do was die.
He mumbled, “Far.”
“You need to shift,” she said. “That could be enough change to the muscle to make it release.”
He shook his head. He was not getting naked now. He was not going to be this naked, wet man curled into the fetal position on the ground, sitting beside his own puke.
“You have to. It’s the only thing that might help immediately. There’s no way you’ll make it back to the car, and I certainly can’t carry you. If I have to hike back, it’ll take hours to get someone here to you, and I’m not even sure I know the way.”
So in other words, he’d made this the biggest disaster of all time. It couldn’t get any worse. Maybe he should just shift. What difference did it make now if she saw him naked?
“Clothes,” he said. He meant for her to take them off.
“Don’t you keep some in the car?”
He did. All shifters did because you never knew when you would have to shift on the fly and would tear your clothing. He had a few sets, actually. But he didn’t want to ruin these jeans. They were expensive and so was this shirt and jacket.
“Kenny. Shift. Now.”
Well, he’d have to use the last of his pro ball player salary to replace the things he was about to ruin. He closed his eyes and tried to go to the place in his mind where he went when he shifted. It was something like a more animal brain. Less complex thought, more instinct. But when he got there, his mind wouldn’t fit in. He strained, trying to make the change happen.
He started to feel it. His back was always first. His spine would expand and thicken. He could feel it trying. The bones in his chest moved next, but when the shift reached his leg, it halted. The bone moved and the world started to go black. His ears rung, his head drooped. He threw up again.
“Can’t,” he whispered.
Audrey stood up and looked around. Then, she did the last thing in the world he would have ever expected. She unzipped her coat, took it off, and set it on a nearby dry rock. She pulled off her boots, her socks, and scrunched her toes up against the cold rock as she pulled her shirt over her head. What in the world? She was taking her clothes off. Was she trying to make him feel better? Trying to give him a show?
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 11
