Page 35 of Off Court Fix

I change and slip on my shoes Crosby must’ve sent back at some point when I was in and out of it. Taking the folder the nurse left with my discharge papers, I slip from the room, following her instructions and seeing the door that flows into a long hallway. At the end of it, I peek out, finding Crosby. I want to tell him to save the lecture, that I’m normally more careful, but he looks different, maybe even more concerned than earlier.

“How do you feel?” His hazel eyes scan my body from top to bottom in a way completely different from how he’s done before. They linger on my mouth in a way that’s also unlike any other time. These are worried eyes—very worried.

I push back the hair from my face that’s loosened from my ponytail. I imagine I look as I feel—like I’ve just come to and from war.

“I guess I’ve been better. You didn’t have to stay.”

“Did you call anyone?”

“No,” I answer Crosby, whose eyes do the sweep again. I crinkle my brow. “You would’ve stayed anyway.”

Our gazes lock and there’s a buzz, some force holding us there, exactly how it felt in his car the first night. I’m not sure I can look away, no matter how much I might want to.

“Yes,” Crosby admits.

I’m not sure he wants to look away either.

He ticks his head to the door. “Let’s go. I’ll take you home.”

I keep my head down as we make our way out of the hospital and cross the parking lot. I jump when I reach for the passenger side door and Crosby beats me to it. “Thanks.”

When we start driving, I catch Crosby sneaking peeks at my thigh. Again, it’s another difference between now and how he looked at my legs as I sat in this very same seat the night we met.

“Does it hurt?” The shake of my head does nothing to appease him. “Would you tell me if it did?”

“Probably not.”

We’re silent for the rest of the ride, and I let out a sigh of relief when we pull up to my gate and Crosby enters the code I give him. I’m aching for a warm bath, for the mound of pillows on my bed. But my eagerness diminishes when I catch sight of the house—my home—and suddenly, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to come back and call it that, bad memories and all.

I’m so overwhelmed that I nearly start crying, so I quickly open the door the moment Crosby puts the car into park before moving to his trunk to collect my racket bag, but, again, Crosby gets there first. I’m weaker than I’d care to admit.

Tears sting the back of my eyes, so I snatch the bag from him not out of animosity, but out of eagerness to avoid falling to pieces right in front of him. I’m surprised my move doesn’t bother Crosby in the slightest. He remains focused on my lips.

“What?” I push out as he continues to stare.

“Your mouth,” Crosby whispers, and he catches my hand when I raise it to my lips. “It...it was blue.”

I want so badly for Crosby to cup my cheek so I can lean into his palm.

“Blue used to be my favorite color. I hate it now. I never want to see it again.” His words are streaked with what I know is a level of anguish. I can feel it in my bones, along with the heat from the pad of his thumb that grazes my bottom lip before he drops my hand and returns his to his side.

I need to turn away from Crosby at this point, because the look on his face is too much. “I hate blue too,” I tell him, looking at the flowers along the front of the house. “The hydrangeas are wrong,” I admit. “This was my grandmother’s home. When I was a kid, she had purple. They’re my favorite. I don’t know why the landscaper put in blue.”

Crosby steps forward, running a finger over the bush’s green leaves. “These are mature plants.” He turns back to me, but I don’t know what he means. “They could use a little love though. But they’re probably the same ones you’re talking about. Soil pH changes, that alters the colors of hydrangeas. They can be anything you want them to be with a little encouragement. You are what you eat. But in your case,” he adds with a sigh, “skip the peanuts, please.”

I have to fight hard against the weak, boyish smile Crosby offers to focus on what he actually said.

“How do you know that? About the hydrangeas?”

“I didn’t always used to be a misogynist tennis umpire,” is all he gives me before walking back to his car. “Once upon a time, I was the guy who planted the flowers everyone stops to smell.”

“Crosby?”

Crosby turns on his heel and gone is the worry. Now curiosity appears through his glasses.

“Thank you.”

Thank you for saving my life.

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