Touch of Fondness: A New Adult Romance (Stay in Touch)

by Joy Penny

  “Wait a minute,” said Gavin and he grabbed his phone from where he’d leaned it on the armrest of the couch. His face minimized as he tapped the phone screen and typed in a few things. Brielle wasn’t sure what was going on and Lilac watched, mesmerized. “Archer Ward?” asked Gavin.

  Lilac scrunched her eyebrows up. “Is that some kind of codeword I’m supposed to know or… some zoning info?”

  Brielle’s jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

  “Super hot, disabled, comic book artist, from your hometown.” Gavin tapped his head. “I have a good memory for these kinds of details.” He shrugged. “Besides, he’s only the current lead artist on The Mystified. Kind of sort of a big deal in comics circles. Kind of.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Brielle. She hadn’t heard of that comic.

  “Oh my god, Brielle’s going to date a celebrity!” shouted Lilac.

  “Kind of,” said Gavin.

  “We’re not dating,” said Brielle. It was true. One kiss didn’t mean anything. Especially when she’d basically just sprung it on him out of nowhere.

  Lilac looked thrilled as she hugged her pillow closer, doing a little dance in her chair. She stopped suddenly, her face serious. “But if he’s disabled, how would you two—”

  “Okay,” said Brielle, loudly. “Change of subject. Has anyone heard from Pembroke?”

  “No,” said both, shaking their heads.

  “I DMed her earlier this week,” said Brielle, “and still, nothing.”

  “Ditto,” said Gavin.

  Lilac shrugged. “I haven’t reached out, but I included her on a few texts and she never responded.”

  “You’re the closest one to campus,” said Gavin, referring to Brielle. “She was a commuter, so she lives nearby, right?”

  “You want me to drop by?” Brielle asked. She wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do or a total invasion of privacy. “I don’t know…”

  “Somebody ought to,” said Gavin. “If it was simply a matter of her wanting to be left alone or being busy, she should just send us a brief text saying as much.”

  “Give the girl some space,” said Lilac, shaking her head. “We just saw her less than a week ago. Maybe she’s not even the type to care to stay in touch after graduation.”

  “We promised we all would,” said Gavin.

  Lilac sighed. “Yeah, just like every other group of college classmates in the universe.” She nodded at the camera. “How long do you think we’ll even stay in touch? We’ll get even busier with jobs, maybe husbands, maybe kids…”

  “You’re starting to sound like my grandma,” said Gavin.

  Brielle couldn’t even check one of those off. She felt so behind.

  It was starting to get dark. How long had she stayed out here? And she’d totally wasted the evening. She hadn’t even applied for one job. She sighed. “I should get going,” she said.

  “Yeah, where are you?” asked Lilac. “Looks like a park.”

  Brielle shrugged. “Just getting some fresh air.”

  “Wow, pigs must fly these days,” said Lilac. Always smarmy.

  “Check in with me next week about Broke,” said Gavin. “And sweep that comic book artist off his feet!”

  “Look up how you have sex in a wheelchair—” started Lilac. Brielle quickly closed the app.

  She was beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to follow Pembroke’s lead and cut off contact with her college friends.

  Chapter Eight

  Archer was halfway home when he finally decided he’d had enough of being a coward.

  He was going to see her tomorrow. What was he going to do? Pretend she hadn’t kissed him? Why had he just turned around and gone home instead of going after her?

  But it was just a kiss. Well, it was the kiss to him, the one he’d dreamed of, the beauty offering it to him more gorgeous than he’d ever dreamed possible. But to her, it was just a pity kiss.

  Just like his pity dates.

  He’d sort of dated a girl from a support group back when he was a young teen, but that was just because their mothers had forced them together, mostly so the girl would have someone to go to her school dances with. Archer had quickly had enough with being gawked at as the two teens who’d arrived in wheelchairs and besides, he could barely talk to that girl, so that hadn’t lasted long.

  He’d flirted with whom he hoped was a teenage girl online when he’d been in high school. He’d been lonely, but after seeing so many exposés about child/teen predators as well as catfishers and all sorts of online scam artists, Archer had stopped pouring his heart out to LisaUnderFire97x from Colorado, who’d never quite seemed real regardless.

  Besides, he’d never told her about his disability. He wasn’t sure why.

  In college, he’d mostly stuck to himself. He’d gone to some support and ally groups at his mom’s insistence, but he was done. Closed off. He’d had other things to focus on. Besides, it had been embarrassing to think any off-campus dates might have to be chauffeured by his nurse or worse—his mother—because he couldn’t comfortably fit in a typical small car his date might have. And then there’d been the fact that he’d have to ask her to drive and pick him up even if he did decide he wanted to squish in there. No. He’d considered asking his mother to help him get his license again, but he’d known how she’d react.

  “Do you want me to never sleep again?” she’d said once.

  The idea of him behind the wheel, no matter if he tried to explain how hand controls worked and how he’d be totally safe (at least as safe as any other driver, but with drivers like his mother on the road, that, admittedly, was only so safe), was enough to send her into a tizzy.

  He was an adult now. Mostly. So he could theoretically do whatever he wanted. His dad would probably even pay for the car if he called him directly and hoped his mother wasn’t within earshot. But he’d already moved heaven and earth to get her to be sort of okay with him moving on his own just twenty minutes away from her—and that was only by letting her pay for the nurse to visit him most days and for a cleaner to come every day and by letting her have that one “Sunday Funday Mother Day” he’d keep open for her visit.

  And to tell the truth, his dad still chipped in with even his basic household expenses.

  He loved what he did for a living, but he wasn’t salaried. Which meant he didn’t really make that much, even though he definitely made a lot more than a lot of artists. And he was just old enough to still be on his dad’s insurance, but that would end next year and his mother was scrambling to figure out some kind of disability coverage he could get.

  Maybe he could qualify for disability aid, too, but, he was sometimes embarrassed to admit, his parents were wealthy. Even if he technically didn’t have to count them on any application for aid, he’d feel too guilty knowing he could just ask them for the money and there were other people in need out there applying who didn’t have that luxury.

  So he walked this fine line of being too dependent on his parents at his age and asking for just the smallest bit of freedom, the smallest bit of privacy.

  He’d drive someday. But he wanted to enjoy this bit of peace between him and his mother for a while longer before he opened the next can of worms.

  Besides, he’d never had anywhere he wanted to go. But now, thinking about Brielle and how he wished he could ask her out, to see if the kiss meant half as much to her, had been half as amazing to her, as it had been to him… He wished he’d fought for getting his license earlier.

  But then you’d just be riding around in a car your daddy paid for like a spoiled sixteen-year-old. No, there was nothing he had to offer a woman who worked an adult job and probably had a hundred adult responsibilities.

  He looked over his shoulder, but the park was now barely visible from where he sat.

  Forget it, he told himself, and he wheeled himself back home.

  Archer hadn’t been able to sleep much Friday night. He kept tossing and turning, thinking of
what to say to Brielle when she showed up to clean today.

  He decided the best thing to do would be to let her bring it up first. Feel out how she felt about it.

  But what if she was waiting for him to speak first…?

  He thought and thought and thought about it until he was exhausted and could think no more.

  Insomnia was going to make the evening’s signing so much more miserable than he’d already expected.

  He could barely focus on his work in the morning and didn’t feel hungry enough to eat more than a banana for lunch. Pauline was coming later today to take him to the signing—it took all of his willpower and a matter of luck (his dad’s country club had a dinner tonight his mother wouldn’t miss for the world) to keep his mother from being the one to bring him—so he was alone, utterly, painstakingly, every-minute-like-an-hour alone, until 1:00 when he heard the key turn.

  “Scrubbing Cherubs!” came Brielle’s voice from the doorway. Archer noticed she no longer bothered with the silly motto.

  He cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to ignore her. That would be incredibly stupid. Even bleary-eyed and short on sleep, he could at least be a halfway decent human being. “Hello,” he said, not looking up from his drafting table.

  “Hi.” Brielle made a small amount of noise as she put down her cleaning equipment. “Oh,” she said after a minute. “Have you not eaten anything today?”

  I guess she’s not going to talk about it, either? Part of him expected that—proof it was just a pity kiss for her, even if it meant so much more to him—but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He turned himself around halfway. “Dishwasher got fixed yesterday,” he said. It was the truth, although it was only half the story.

  “Oh, right.” Brielle nodded. “You told me someone was coming.” She looked around at the counter. “Still… My job here appears to be done. Not a single crumb or coffee stain or anything!”

  Archer couldn’t help himself. He laughed and maneuvered his chair to turn around completely. “You’d think you’d be happy you have less to do.”

  She shrugged. “I’m here for an hour, whether you’re a slob or a neatnik. Some clients actually clean before their cleaners show up. I can tell. They think we haven’t seen a mess before and they get embarrassed.” She opened the dishwasher. “I can put things away at least… There’s nothing in here.”

  Archer rolled over to the kitchen. “You got me.”

  Brielle cocked her head.

  “I haven’t eaten more than a banana since you were here last.”

  Brielle’s eyes widened. “You didn’t even eat supper and you played basketball for a couple of hours?”

  “Oh,” said Archer. “So you saw the whole game?” The game wasn’t off-limits, so they weren’t pretending the park hadn’t happened… Just that the kiss hadn’t.

  “Practically! I didn’t exactly expect to see you there, so I only started paying attention partway through, but—”

  Archer rubbed one of his biceps. “Then you know how badly I sucked.”

  Brielle seemed genuinely flabbergasted. “I thought you were amazing.”

  Archer stopped scratching to stare up at her. “I didn’t score a single shot.”

  “Oh,” said Brielle. “I guess I didn’t really pay attention to that. I’m not actually a big basketball fan.”

  Archer opened a drawer and rifled around for an energy bar just for something to do. “Neither am I, usually. I just like playing a couple times a week. It’s good to get some exercise in beyond the usual therapy.”

  “Therapy?”

  “Pauline helps me exercise almost every day. I… need to.” He tapped his arm with his energy bar. “Side effects are building up half my muscles a little too much.” He always felt self-conscious about how lopsided he looked. But he couldn’t get the same kind of muscle development in his legs, even if he did work them out with Pauline.

  “I wouldn’t say too much at all.” Brielle tapped her thigh and stared at the wrapped lunch substitute in his hand, clearly disgusted. “I can make you a better lunch than that.”

  Archer chuckled and tore the wrapper off. “You’re my house cleaner, not my full-service maid.”

  “I don’t mind if you don’t.” Brielle twirled a strand of dark brown hair that had fallen out of her ponytail around her slender finger. Coupled with the slight pout shape to her mouth, it was driving Archer crazy.

  He ate the bar in just three bites, swallowing quickly, and went to back up to get out of the kitchen, but he started choking.

  “You okay?” Brielle swooped in and lay a hand on the back of his shoulder, bending down to his level. Like when she’d touched his leg, he felt the heat wash over his face and he wanted to scream and push her away—but only because he really wanted to grab her and pull her onto his lap. “I’m fine,” he choked, his throat dry.

  “I’ll get you some water,” she said, grabbing a glass from the cupboard as familiarly as if it were her own home and filling it up from the tap.

  Archer almost swore he felt an icy chill in the spots where her fingers had been, a coldness left by the lack of Brielle.

  She handed him the glass. “So… What ingredients do you have?”

  Archer took a sip and then cradled the glass. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “All right,” said Brielle, eyeing him suspiciously. She shut the dishwasher and then spun back around, her arms out and her eyes darting back and forth, as if figuring out what to do. “Oh, I…” She gestured behind Archer.

  Right. Her cleaning supplies were behind him.

  Not thinking straight in the face of those deep brown eyes, he set his glass down in his lap—not between his legs like he might usually, not on the counter or holding it in one hand—and backed up. As he turned the corner, the glass tumbled forward, splashing his lap and splintering as soon as it hit the ground.

  “Oh my god,” said Brielle. “Are you okay?”

  Archer looked at his lap and then back to Brielle again and back at his lap. He wanted to sink into his chair. “Fine. Just wet.”

  “I’ll get that for you.” Now that he’d backed up enough, Brielle was able to slip by. “Careful,” she said, stepping around the shattered glass with her white socks. Her long leg stretched over one of his wheels so she could get a better grip on her cleaning bucket.

  Archer hovered his hands behind her ass, feeling awkward but sure it was better to catch her there than let her fall onto his wet lap.

  “Sorry,” she said over her shoulder, and the way she scrunched up her face was absolutely adorable. “Sorry,” she said again as she maneuvered back into the kitchen, the bucket way above Archer’s head. The barest bit of the pocket on the butt of her black plants brushed his fingertips as she did.

  Archer clenched his wheels tightly. He suddenly, without delay, needed to get away from her.

  “Um,” she said, staring down at him, “about yesterday—”

  “Have to change,” he mumbled, backing up and heading down the hallway.

  He shut the door to the bedroom behind him—never before feeling so frustrated that he had to wheel in, back up, and then turn around to get it closed without slamming it—and cradled his head in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees.

  He was hard. With a woman just a few feet on the other side of that door. Because that woman was just a few feet on the other side of that door.

  This wasn’t like when he’d accidentally gotten that way in therapy—that had started as a preteen and it had embarrassed him to no end—he knew that was normal and he’d gotten better at not letting it bother him when it happened. This was because he genuinely wanted to be with this specific woman. He’d never been with a woman outside of his wildest fantasies.

  He had it bad.

  And he was losing track of time just sitting there in his wet pants, in his wet chair, thinking about her again, because there came a knock on the door what felt like two seconds later.

  “Mr. Ward?” said Brielle
from the other side of the door. “Are you okay?”

  Snapped out of his daydreams, Archer laughed and wheeled over to his dresser. “I’m fine,” he called loudly. “And please—call me ‘Archer.’” He couldn’t believe she’d kiss him but still refer to him as a “mister.”

  “‘Mr. Ward is my father.’”

  Archer froze, a pair of new pants still in his hands. “What?”

  Brielle’s nervous giggle echoed through the door. “Sorry. That’s just what people usually say when, um…” She took a sharp intake of breath. “So I cleaned up the glass?”

  Archer tossed the pants onto his bed and grinned. “Are you telling me or are you asking me?”

  “Now you sound like my high school English teacher.”

  Archer grunted as he lifted himself to the side of his bed with the grab bars so he could change, then grunted again as he reached into his pocket to toss his phone onto the comforter.

  “You okay?” he heard Brielle ask.

  “Huh? What? Oh.” He chuckled. “Yup. Spend enough time with me and grunting becomes background noise.” He finished peeling his pants off, looked around for the towel he’d forgotten to grab before heading over, and shrugged, balling up the pants in his fist and using a dry part of them to pat his legs down. He tossed them across the room, landing a perfect shot in his hamper.

  “Oh, okay,” said Brielle. “So I’ll… Um… Wipe down the counters and table and get to vacuuming out here.”

  Archer leaned toward the door, one leg through his pants. “No, you don’t have to—” But he could already hear her walk away.

  Since he hadn’t even really used the kitchen since she’d last been here, Archer felt bad. He really didn’t need daily cleaning, period—his therapists had always encouraged him to pick up after himself to begin with—but he had a feeling it put his mother’s mind at ease. Just one more person checking in on him who could call an ambulance if he was lying on the floor, he guessed. He finished getting his pants on and then he sat there, trying to clear his mind, trying not to think about her.

  It wasn’t long before he heard the vacuum and figured he better get out there. He was nervous about tonight, but he still had a deadline next week and he needed to get in his daily quota.