Page 35 of Playing for Keeps (Checkmate 4)

My brows pull tight. Dropping the spoon back in my bowl, I set it on the armrest and give up on eating it. “Is that your question? Do you need something?”

“No, that’s not my question.” Reaching up, he runs a frustrated hand over the stubble he never used to have. “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t interrupting anything.”

I shrug. “Just watching TV, but nothing much is on.”

Nodding, he takes another step forward and re-balances on his shaky leg. He’s far from proficient on those crutches, sent home much too soon. “Mind if I join you for a minute? I don’t wanna stand anymore. I’m…” He sighs. “I’m tired.”

Finally, he admits he’s not a superhero. “It’s okay.” I drop my feet to the floor when he makes his way forward, then stand and push the coffee table toward the TV to make room. That act annoys him – that I’d make room for him, that I’d push a heavy table away without his help – but I do it anyway, and when I turn back and find him struggling to get the crutches to stand against the couch, I slide an arm under his and ignore the way he tenses up. I weigh half of what he does, and am several inches shorter, so if he falls, we’re probably both going down, but I can provide some stability. I can provide something more than shitty crutches as I set them against the end of the couch and help him turn.

I stand on his right side. I don’t touch his bad leg, I don’t mention it or brush it with my thigh. I just stand under his arm until he’s got his balance, and when he holds onto the scratched end of the couch with his left hand, I hold onto the right and use all my strength to help lever him down without being pulled straight off my feet and into his lap.

The woman in me might crave climbing into his lap and snuggling in until he doesn’t hate me anymore. But the realist in me knows he’d hate that.

“Thanks.” He clears his throat and fusses with his pants until they sit straight. Dropping his head back until he stares at the ceiling, he flops his legs open and breathes as though he just ran a marathon.

It’s wrong. It’s all so wrong that this strong man, the gym rat who worked so hard on his physique, is now winded from walking thirty feet on a set of crutches.

Nacho quivers on my end of the couch, a shaking, shivering mess as she huddles under a throw pillow and makes honking noises that anyone can hear – even a man in Riley’s emotional and mental state.

“You have a pig.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you have a pig.”

I pick her up and tuck her under my shirt, since she likes the satchel so much and calms in the dark. Sitting on the very opposite end of the couch, I pull my feet up beneath my butt again and scratch her belly to quieten the sounds. “I do. I’m sorry if that bothers you, but she’s clean, I promise. She won’t make a mess of anything, she’s toilet trained, and I don’t think she’s an allergen or anything. You have a cat, and she doesn’t mess with your sinuses, so I figure Nacho is safe.”

“Why do you have a pig, Andrea?”

Andrea…I see how it is. “Why do you have a cat, Riley?”

Bravely, I turn just in time to catch his smirk. He’s still looking at the ceiling, but at least he’s not scowling. “She needed a home. I needed a friend.” He shrugs. “That’s about the gist of it.”

“Well… same.” I pick up my ice-cream bowl and begin stirring the melted contents. “I was looking up animal shelters, because I wanted a friend. I was actually looking for a cat, and I probably would have called her Michelangelo, or Donatello or something, but–”

“The turtles?” He turns his head and studies my eyes. “Because of Ninja?”

“Exactly. I was going for the ninja theme, but then I saw Nacho on the webpage. Suddenly, owning a pig didn’t seem so crazy.”

He scoffs. “Of course it didn’t.”

“She would have been killed, Riley! She’s just a baby. It’s not her fault nasty ass breeders made her, sold her to some stupid bimbo socialite that wanted a cute handbag accessory, then decided it was all too hard. The next morning, I drove over to the next county and begged them to let me adopt her.”

“And now here she is; a socialite pig, living it up in a home that ain’t hers, after flying across the country to get here. You flew, right?”

I nod.

“And she didn’t go in the cargo hold, did she?”

My eyes narrow. “Absolutely not.”

He grins and goes back to stare at the ceiling. “Figured.”

“What was your question, Riley? What did you want that wassoimportant you’d break your vow of silence to come speak to me?”

I don’t know why I’m such an asshole to him. I wanted him to come out here, I practically begged the universe to make it happen, and now that he’s here, his strong jaw grinds with frustration because of my big mouth.

“I wanted to know what happened to Ninja’s tail.”

“Oh…” I turn and watch her slink from beneath the coffee table, across the ten or so feet of space, only to wind herself around his leg. “I think maybe she fell from the blinds and broke her tail. I took her to the vet just in case, but he said we can only wrap it and wait.”

His eyes blaze with… something. Regret? Is he sorry he got hurt, because he wasn’t around to care for her? “Is she in pain?”

---