Page 45 of Beyond the Stroke

What is happening?

The giddy excitement at seeing him is followed by annoyance that he can elicit a rush of feeling from me. I love it and I hate it at the same time.

Darcy and Kale acknowledge Rory, then wave a quick goodbye before heading off in the opposite direction.

“Hey, Wildflower.” He says it so casually, like we hadn’t left things weird between us this morning.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I came to walk you home.”

“Rory—”

“I still don’t have your phone number so I couldn’t call you to see how your wrist is.”

He nods to where the brace is still fastened around my wrist.

“It’s better,” I say, my hand tracing over the brace. “Less achy than yesterday.”

“Good.”

I’m confounded by his inability to feel the tension between us. The suffocating weight of whatever this thing is.

“Are we going to pretend like things weren’t heated between us earlier?” I ask.

“Define heated.” His smile is half smirk while his eyes do that thing where they comfort me while simultaneously makeme question everything. “Come on, we can talk about it on the walk.”

“I don’t need you to walk me. I have my skateboard.” I motion to my backpack where my pink board is peeking out the top.

“Winnie said no skateboarding until you’re healed. You’d hurt yourself even worse if you fell now.”

“I don’t plan on falling. That was your fault, remember?”

His phone buzzes. When he pulls it out of his pocket to look, my eyes drop to the screen.

Whitney.

“Hey, Whit,” he answers, but doesn’t take his eyes off mine.

Not wanting to intrude on his conversation, I turn to start walking down the path, but a moment later Rory jogs to catch up.

“My sister, Whitney. She’s in California. Just finished up school at UC-Berkeley. She’s a swimmer, too.”

I nod, refusing to give a second thought to the way my stomach eases with this information. I couldn’t care less what Rory is doing in his personal life. A girlfriend would mean he wouldn’t be here pestering me.

“Do you have any siblings?” he asks.

“No,” I answer truthfully, but also with a firmness that I hope will shut down this conversation. “Listen?—”

“I—”

We both start talking at the same time.

“You go.” He nods for me to finish what I was saying.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier, but you have to let me pay for the lock.” If I pay for the lock, then I’m free and clear. No debt owed, no favor hanging over my head. No more reason for Rory to be hanging around. Except, there is the small thing of him saving me in the ocean the other day.

He studies me a moment. “Only if I can get your phone number.”

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