Page 27 of Digging Deeper

“Why are you smiling?” he asks.

“I’m making plans,” I say as he holds the gym door open for me to roll through.

“Like what?”

“You’ll find out.” I tilt my head up to wink at him. I’m halfway to the wall we usually set up by when I discover he’s no longer by my side. Stopping, I turn my head to find him, and my breath catches. It’s not unusual for Gavin’s cheeks to pinken, much like my brother. They respond to things in such a similar manner it’s easy to understand why they’re so close, but the flush on his cheeks is different somehow. Or maybe it’s the heat in his eyes, one I’ve never seen—and hope I never do—in Holden’s. Whipping my head around, I search for the man who’s managed to capture his attention. Relief fills me when all I see is Sally, one of the female physical therapists, working with a young girl, and who I’m assuming is her mother standing nearby. “Gav?” I question, turning back to him.

“Yeah, sorry, I thought, um, I couldn’t remember if I left Nana and Brutus enough water, but yeah, I definitely did.” As he rambles, he walks right past me toward the wall I was originally heading for. Shit! If his flushed face and those chocolate brown eyes hadn’t given me enough weird thoughts, his ass bouncing in front of me does me in. If he knew all the dirty things that voluptuous rear end of his has had me conjuring—hah! brother’s best friend or not, it’s good to know my dick still works. It just needs tonotbe Gavin’s ass it keeps trying to pay homage to.

“So how come we’re meeting so early today?” I ask as I stop next to him.

He still seems distracted—unsettled—but he answers, “Only for this week. I have another patient who had to switch things around for other appointments. You don’t mind, right?”

“No, no problem,” I mumble, but now I’m distracted by the little girl. She can’t be more than five or six, she’s wearing a little matching pants set, and her hair has at least a dozen braids with colored barrettes at the end. The steely determination on her face as the therapist rolls her up to the parallel bars near us is intense. She’s eyeing those bars like a predator stalking its prey. “What’s her deal?” I ask Gav. It’s probably rude or something to be staring so blatantly, but I can’t tear my gaze away from her.

“I can’t really talk about another patient.”

“Duh, that would be unethical, I get it.”

Gavin doesn’t say a word about how unfocused I am during our session, or about the fact I keep positioning myself to be able to keep one eye on the little girl. Sally basically holds her in place for ten full minutes, until the little arms shaking on the bars are wobbling like jelly. My heart hurts as she’s set back into her chair, but instead of the defeat I expect to see, the child radiates pure joy.

* * *

“Hi, my name is Claudia,”the little girl says when her mom wheels her over to where I’m waiting for Gavin by our wall. I rolled myself down as soon as I finished breakfast this morning because we’ve only witnessed half of the girl’s sessions the last two days, and I want to be here for the whole thing. There’s something about her determination that makes me want to be here when she finally takes a step.

“Hey, Claudia, I’m Drix. It’s nice to meet you,” I say, leaning forward in my chair so I can shake her hand. “That’s a pretty awesome ride you have.” It really is, too. It’s a small chair covered in emoji stickers. The padding on her seat and up its back is a fuzzy orange material.

“Thanks.” She gives me a big toothy grin. “Mom said since I have to spend so much time in it for now, it may as well make me happy.”

“Well, you have a very smart mom.” I glance up at her mother, finding her smiling down affectionately at her daughter as she strokes the back of her head.

“I never saw you before this week,” Claudia says. “Are you new here?”

“Nope, I just usually come way later in the day. How about you?” I ask.

“I don’t live here anymore. I got to go back home a long time ago, but I can’t do my therapy from home yet. I’m going to walk again someday,” she says triumphantly.

“I bet you will,” I say, sold by the conviction I hear in her voice.

When Sally calls her name, Claudia looks up at her mom. “You can stay here and talk if you want, Mom. I can get to Sally by myself.”

As Claudia fluidly rolls herself across the floor, her mom says, “Thank you for being so kind to her. We don’t get to interact with very many people these days outside of our family. She’s usually worn out by the time we go home.” Once her daughter reaches Sally safely, she turns to me. “I’m Joan, by the way. Nice to meet you, Officer Weston.”

She chuckles, a rich, full sound, when my head jerks sharply in her direction so I can study her face. “Have we met before?”

“No, but when we saw you the other day, I knew you looked familiar. By the time I went to bed, I remembered that I’d seen your picture online about you being shot in the line of duty.”

“Ah.” As rude as it is, after two days of watching her daughter, I ask, “What happened to Claudia?”

She frowns as she looks back to where her daughter is working with Sally. Her face all scrunched as she lifts small hand weights from inside her chair. “A couple of years ago, her and some of the neighborhood kids were outside playing at the park. One of the kids was running behind all of the swings pushing them or dodging them. They all used to take turns being the one to push. Claudia was giggling and yelling how high she was and turned in her seat and slipped. The way she landed…” Her voice catches on a sob. “Sorry. That was a little over three years ago. She was only five.”

“Claudia’s eight?” I ask, trying for nonchalant.

Joan turns to me with a sigh. “She was always small for her age, but with the angle of her fall, her body was damaged. Initially, the doctors weren’t sure if she’d have any movement, but my daughter’s a fighter. Once she decided she was going to move something, she did… eventually. It’s been a long, hard road, but worth it.” We both go back to watching Claudia.

“I guess so. Look at her face.” A twinkle shimmers from Claudia’s hazel eyes as she hands Sally back the weights.

Claudia yells over, “I did an extra curl with each arm, Mom.” Her mom gives her two thumbs up.

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