Friend Locked (Salt Lake Pumas)

by Camellia Tate

  Maybe also a little nervous, though.

  “You’ll be fine,” Felix promised me once we were finally heading to the car. “I bet it’s a bit scary? But you’ve been doing your physical therapy. And I bet it’s exciting to be able to put on pants again,” he grinned.

  I laughed. “I haven’t minded wearing skirts,” I said. Luckily, that was an option for me. It must be much harder to deal with a cast as a man. “I am looking forward to not having one cold leg when I go outside.” It had been an odd feeling, but hardly anything worth bothering about.

  “There are lots of things I’m looking forward to. Showering properly, having a bath, being able to crouch down to pet the dogs.” But there were going to be a lot of new exercises to do. “It’s going to be hard work, I think. Recovering my stamina and my stability.” Hard work, but also good. A goal I could really work towards.

  “Yeah, but you’ve got this,” Felix informed me. The confidence in his tone made me smile. There was no doubt at all within me that Felix meant it. He’d always been my biggest cheerleader, which was a little funny, considering that I had been an actual cheerleader.

  As we took off, I could feel my stomach flip with anticipation. It was exciting, to do all those things I’d listed and so much more. But there was also a dread about how things would change. We hadn’t talked about me moving out, but the implication was there, right?

  “You must be excited, too,” I said, forcing an enthusiasm that I didn’t really feel into my voice. “I mean, you get to have your house back!” Before Felix could say anything, I carried on. “I’m so grateful that you’ve let me stay so long. I don’t know what I would have done…”

  And yet, a tiny part of me wondered if perhaps it would have been better if Felix hadn’t let me stay. If I’d gone to my sister or my mom for help, all these feelings wouldn’t have overwhelmed me.

  At least, not because of this. Maybe they always would have done, eventually. Dana was right that it wasn’t, really, something I could keep ignoring forever.

  I couldn’t even look at him. If I saw whatever expression was on Felix’s face, it felt like everything might just collapse. This was for the best. He’d invited me to stay because I’d had a broken leg. In a few hours that would no longer be the case, so there was no reason to stay at Felix’s any longer.

  There was a pause before Felix said anything. A pause long enough that it made my stomach twist.

  “I guess, I hadn’t really thought how this means you’ll be moving out again,” Felix admitted. “I’ve... it’s been nice, to have you stay with us. Um. Yeah. I guess you can’t stay forever.”

  It felt as if cold water had suddenly drenched me from head to foot. From what he said, it was hard to read Felix’s emotions as anything complicated. He had been happy to have me living with him, just like he had been happy to offer to let me move in when I’d first come to Salt Lake.

  For him, it wasn’t anything difficult. There weren’t feelings bubbling under the surface, giving everything a double meaning. Of course, I had been happy living with Felix. Happy and comfortable - but also frustrated and troubled. Not that I planned to tell Felix any of those things.

  “It’s been great,” I said, putting on my most cheerful voice. “But, yeah. I’ll get better faster if I have no choice but to do things for myself.”

  “Right, yeah,” Felix nodded and this time I did turn to look at him. His facial expressions were as difficult to read as his tone had been. Not that I was quite sure what it was I wanted to see flash across his face. Other than outright asking him, it would be impossible to figure it out. And I didn’t feel like asking.

  Whatever answers he might give just felt scary.

  So instead, for a moment, neither of us said anything.

  “It’ll be nice to have you be able to walk the dogs with me again,” Felix told me, a small smile accompanying the comment. He was right, too, it would be nice. But would it be as nice as having lived together?

  The conflicted feelings inside me made me feel sick. Excitement clashed with apprehension and I didn’t know which was the more powerful. Drumming my fingers on the plaster cast, I tried to concentrate on how good it would feel to have it cut off. My leg would be able to breathe again, and there would be no more lugging around a limb that weighed twice what I was used to!

  “I can’t wait,” I said, nodding mechanically. “We might have to walk slowly, at first.” But Felix would do that for me. He’d do anything to accommodate me. Us living together had shown me that. Not that there had ever, really, been any doubt.

  We carried on like that, talking about the things I would be able to do, until we reached the hospital. As Felix had predicted, there was still a long time left to wait.

  “You don’t have to stay with me,” I said softly. “I mean. You could just drop me off and then come back when I’m done? It might be ages.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he dismissed it almost instantly. “I want to see them break your cast off! It sounds pretty cool.” It made me smile, because it was easy enough to tell that Felix was teasing. Or well, probably mostly teasing. I didn’t doubt that he was looking forward to seeing the cast actually physically break.

  Giving my shoulder a bump with his, Felix smiled. “Don’t be weird,” he told me. “Of course, I want to stay and then take you home. We’ve seen it through so far together, right?”

  I hadn’t thought I was being weird. Felix telling me not to be made me suddenly unsure how I should act. Luckily, the waiting room was crowded with kids running around; hardly the right place to talk much.

  Besides, it was obvious that one of the little girls we were sitting opposite from recognized Felix. Her big, wide eyes never left him, though she seemed too shy to come and say hello.

  By the time my name was called, Felix had at least gotten her to wave. It was hard not to smile as he helped me into the doctor’s room and up onto the table.

  “So, Jessie, ready for me to come at you with a saw?” my doctor joked. Felix spluttered, but I just laughed.

  “So ready!”

  Considering how long it had taken for the cast to go on and then how long I had had to have it on, actually taking it off felt almost underwhelming.

  “Oh, that was quick,” Felix said, voicing what I was thinking, too. “Kind of disappointing,” he added and the doctor gave him a look.

  “I’m sorry, we’re all out of explosives, usually we blast it off,” he told Felix so deadpan that for a moment I could see Felix wonder if it was true before the realization that it wasn’t hit him; he looked a bit crestfallen.

  Thankfully, it was hardly for very long at all, because then he remembered that my cast was off.

  “This is great!” he announced. “Not as great as an explosion might have been but still great! How are you feeling?”

  And wasn’t that just the million-dollar question?

  “Lighter,” I joked, making both Felix and the doctor grin at me. Putting aside the complicated emotions, I was eager to jump down off the table and test out what it felt like to walk without a cast for the first time in weeks.

  But the doctor gave me his hand, helping me down and catching me slightly when I swayed.

  “Oh!” But my leg hadn’t buckled under me. That had to be a good sign!

  “You’ll probably limp a bit for a few days, until you can support your weight evenly,” he explained.

  Part of me longed to use that as an excuse why I had to stay with Felix a little longer.

  But it was more important to me to get some space. Then, maybe, my head would clear.

  “But I’ll be able to get around on my own?” I asked, looking up into the doctor’s face.

  “Yes, I would think so. We’ll let you hold onto the crutches for now, just in case, but I don’t expect you to need them,” he told me.

  It was nice to hear. Slowly but surely, the excitement of being able to walk - and potentially dance again soon! - was taking over the anxiety I felt about, well, just e
verything. As much as living with Felix had been enjoyable, it wasn’t worth being in a cast.

  He’d understand that.

  Everything else went by in a flurry. Soon we were in the car heading back. It felt almost alien to actually be comfortable sitting in the seat. When we did make it back, Felix came to open the door for me before we both realized I no longer needed his help to get out of the car.

  “Well, this will take a little while to get used to,” he laughed.

  It felt so strange to walk across Felix’s drive without dragging the cast along at every step! Strange, but freeing. The urge to run flared to life inside me, but I squashed it down. I wasn’t up to running yet, and I was not about to do anything that might risk damaging my leg or slowing my recovery.

  “You can still open the door for me,” I said, once we reached Felix’s front door. “It’s very gentlemanly.” He snorted, but did hold the door so I could go through ahead of him. And because he was a good friend, he even rerouted the dogs that came barrelling towards us so that they wouldn’t knock me down.

  “Well,” I said, feeling awkward. “I guess I should… pack?”

  Neither of us said anything. Whether our thoughts were traveling in the same direction, I had no idea. I hoped so. But maybe I didn’t. My feelings were confused right now and where normally I’d talk to my best friend about it, it was kind of hard when the feelings were about my best friend.

  “You don’t have to leave today,” Felix finally said. “Do you?” The way he sounded uncertain made me bite my lower lip. He didn’t give me the time to answer, though, starting to talk again. “No, but really. Don’t go yet. Let’s have dinner and celebrate your mobility and... you know. Chill.”

  It was hard to imagine feeling chill with my emotions in turmoil. But, if anyone could get me to sit down and relax, it would be Felix. And anyway, it was going to take me at least half a day to properly say goodbye to the dogs! Unlike Felix, they wouldn’t understand why I’d be leaving after living there for weeks.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “You can make me dinner while I pack. I shouldn’t have to cook for my own celebration.”

  Tomorrow would be soon enough to start really dealing with my feelings. Or maybe the day after that…

  Chapter Fifteen

  Felix

  Two days later, Jessie was gone.

  Well, she had gone back to her own apartment. But it felt about as dramatic as her being gone.

  The first day, it was okay. Quiet, but okay. I’d gone to training and it wasn’t until I came home to an empty house that not needing to do that for weeks struck me. Even with Jessie there, of course, I had noticed the way it felt nice to come home to her. But not having her there? It seemed like a huge contrast.

  Even the dogs were miserable.

  “I know, I know,” I sighed, ruffling Pammy’s ear. She missed Jessie. They all did. We all did.

  It was tempting to call Jessie. It’s what we would have done before, anyway. She was still my best friend. But everything felt somehow... off. I told myself I just wasn’t used to her not being there yet. It might take a few days.

  But as the few days came and went, my feelings didn’t change. Jessie and I did talk on the phone, we even went for a short walk. Yet, that feeling inside me didn’t seem to subside, a need that I couldn’t understand or explain.

  So when I found myself somewhat lonely on yet another evening, I called the guys.

  Jessie was who I actually wanted to call, of course. But no one needed to know that. Especially not as my house filled with my teammates for an impromptu evening of videogames and pizza. Even the dogs perked up at being able to socialize with people who weren’t me.

  Chuck was currently winning at Mario Kart while Will was doing a good job at getting everyone’s pizza orders. The chatting and shouting, the buzz around the room, it almost made me feel better.

  Almost

  “You look kind of miserable,” Alfie informed me, making me frown.

  “I’m not,” I informed him. A couple of the other guys gave me skeptical looks. “I’m not!” I insisted. “It’s just been kind of weird not having Jessie here, you know. It’s weird to go from living with another person to not.”

  That was a perfectly reasonable issue to have, even if the guys had no idea just how close Jessie and I had been in our cohabitation.

  “Isn’t it kind of nice?” Chuck asked, not even taking his eyes off the screen as he sent a banana flinging backward into Alfie’s driver’s face. “Having your own space again, being able to walk around without getting dressed.”

  Someone snorted. “And now we know more about Chuck’s home life than we ever wanted to,” Will chirped.

  “But he’s got a point,” Alfie insisted. “I mean, aren’t you glad you can have us over now?”

  “I could have you over when Jessie was here,” I argued. It wasn’t untrue. I could’ve done. But I hadn’t.

  Now that he’d mentioned it, I did realize that I really hadn’t had the guys over at all in the time Jessie had been here. It had nothing to do with her not wanting me to have people over. Hardly. If anything, Jessie probably felt bad thinking I couldn’t invite people over.

  No. The truth was that with Jessie here, I hadn’t needed to have the guys over. But that wasn’t something I could tell them. Nor, really, would it be very nice.

  “So you just chose not to have us over?” Ross chirped.

  “That’s why I never invite any of you over,” Vanya, our Russian, man-of-few-words, d-man informed us all from where he was sitting on the couch and the guys all laughed. “I’m not even joking,” he added, which just led to more laughter.

  It did, however, let me avoid the topic.

  “How does Jessie feel?” Chuck asked. “Is she liking being back in her own place? I’m always glad when we come home after away games.”

  “Because you get to walk around naked?” Alfie asked. His tone was so genuine that it was hard to tell whether he meant to chirp Chuck or if he was just asking an honest question.

  Either way, Chuck reached out to shove Alfie’s shoulder, making his character spin and fall off the track while Alfie tried to right himself.

  We all ignored Alfie’s scandalized scream, especially since both Vanya and Will seemed to actually be looking at me for an answer to Chuck’s question. It wasn’t something I’d thought much about, really. I didn’t want to think that Jessie might prefer her apartment to my house.

  “Mostly, I think she’s just glad to be out of the cast.” I shrugged. “She’s got to do physical therapy, obviously, but we know how that goes, right?” Everyone gave a nod and a grunt of acknowledgment at varying levels.

  We’d all been injured at some point. Most of us had just been luckier than Jessie and not broken anything.

  “Anyway,” I said, eager to change the topic. “I’m thinking of getting another dog.”

  I had expected enthusiasm. When I’d last adopted dogs, everyone had been eager to ask me their names and what kinds they were and to be shown photographs at every stage.

  Weirdly, there was just an awkward kind of silence.

  “Because you want to replace Jessie?” Will suggested, raising one eyebrow.

  “What?” I frowned.

  “Yeah,” Chuck said and actually paused the game to give me a look. “You can’t just replace a girlfriend with a dog,” he informed me.

  “Jessie’s not...” I started but Will interrupted me, waving his hand.

  “Yeah, yeah, we know Jessie’s not your girlfriend. But you’ve got four dogs, what do you need another one for?”

  That seemed like a stupid argument. You could always find space for more dogs. Or well, I could. I had a huge house and... yeah, I supposed it was now emptier without Jessie there. It had never occurred to me that the wish to get another dog might be linked to Jessie.

  Yet all the guys seemed pretty sure.

  “I just like dogs,” I said, a little defeated.

  Alfie shrugged, glanc
ing up at me from his seat on the floor. “Did you want to get a fifth dog before Jessie came to stay?”

  It was a good question. If I’d wanted a fifth dog before, then nobody could argue that it was anything to do with Jessie leaving.

  “You seemed pretty happy with four,” Will pointed out. “Even when I adopted Teddy, you looked at the pictures of him as a puppy, but it didn’t make you want to go back to the shelter.”

  That wasn’t strictly true. Whenever I saw a puppy, it always made me think about getting one. But no, Will was right in that I hadn’t done that. Despite what the guys said, it just didn’t feel like my reasons for wanting another dog were Jessie-linked. Or maybe it wasn’t something I wanted to entertain as a thought.

  “You get Edgar and Pam when Jessie say she not live with you,” Vanya informed me, making my eyes widen.

  “Pammy,” I corrected absentmindedly and Vanya waved his hand like in Russia it didn’t matter whether a dog was called ‘Pam’ or ‘Pammy’.

  “Whatever. The point is, you fill holes with dogs,” he announced.

  Was that... true? I had to think back to when I’d gotten Edgar and Pammy. It had been around the same time Jessie was moving to Salt Lake City. And yes, in a way, Vanya was right, because I had gotten them after Jessie had declined to live with me. But was that filling a hole?

  “I... don’t think that’s true,” I finally decided, based purely on the fact that I didn’t want it to be true.

  “Maybe you should just go on a date, that’s a lot easier than getting another dog,” Alfie suggested, making several of the guys laugh. But I’d never been on a date that made me want to own fewer dogs, so I hardly saw how that was going to work.

  “A date with Jessie?” Will asked, before I had a chance to say anything.

  “A date with anyone,” Chuck chirped.

  “A date with a dog.” Vanya smirked.

  “Oh, fuck you all,” I waved my hands in the air. “I invite you into my home and you’re all such assholes.”

  “We were definitely assholes before you invited us into your home,” Chuck pointed out before returning to the video game. Apparently, we were back to normal now. The guys started playing again and Will started ordering the food.