“Hey, Colt!” I didn’t wait for him to stop or look back. “Thanks for looking after Joze.”
Acknowledging me with a wave, he continued to the restaurant.
Josie spun around and leveled me with a look that equally turned me on and made me want to back away. “I can look after me. You can look after me.” Her index finger jabbed into my sternum. “But Colt Mason cannot look after me.” Her eyes narrowed another degree before she pushed away from the truck and marched across the parking lot.
“Damn it,” I muttered, watching her the entire way just in case Colt’s premonitions were dead-on. Only when she’d thrown open the restaurant’s door and was safely inside did I let my stare shift. “She’s pissed.”
Jesse already had the wheelchair out of the truck bed and was sliding it open. “I’d say she’s way beyond that actually.”
I cocked my head at him. “Hey, thanks for the optimism, Mr. Sunshine. Where’s the positivity and annoying cheerfulness I’m used to getting when I whine to you?”
Jesse wrestled with the wheelchair for a few more moments before bracing his hands on the back of the seat and exhaling. “Sorry. I’ve been a little preoccupied lately. My ‘annoying cheerfulness’ has gotten a little dusty, I guess.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Jesse kept his head down as he came toward me. “Let’s talk about it later, okay? Before the girls get impatient and invite a couple other cowboys to take our places.”
I grunted. “Any other cowboy than us would be a poor substitute.”
That earned a smile from him. “Ready?” he asked as his arms slid around me.
“Take me into your arms and make torrid love to me, big guy,” I said as I slipped an arm around his neck. I’d been lifted a handful of times by different people, and it never got easier. Having to be picked up like an infant by your best friend or your girlfriend’s dad or whomever else was a humbling experience I wouldn’t even wish on Colt Mason.
“Not sure I’m up to torrid tonight, but I could probably squeeze out a marginally passionate.” Jesse was still smiling as he carried me to the wheelchair. He didn’t quite heave me when he first lifted me, but he came close. “Are you losing weight, Black?” He lowered me into the wheelchair.
“Yeah, I have. The muscles in my lower body, along with my balls, are shrinking.” I lifted a brow at him. “Great way to lose weight quickly though. The paralyzed diet. Highly recommend it.”
Jesse squatted to slide my boots into the footholds of the wheelchair. “Well, you’ve got to be pretty damn happy you can move your arms and chest now, right? How’s that for making progress?”
I watched him fuss over getting my legs and feet just right and wondered if people fretting over me like that could be considered progress. “I guess. Though if I told you how much time I have to spend attending to my internal plumbing, I don’t know if you’d still consider the term progress applicable.”
Jesse lifted his brows at me.
“It sucks, Jess. I used to be able to take a piss in the span of a long yawn. Now I’m lucky if I can answer nature’s call in under a half hour.”
After locking the truck, he closed the door and moved behind the wheelchair. “So other than your internal plumbing taking up half your day, how’s life?”
“Stellar,” I said as the wheelchair crunched across the gravel.
Jesse sighed. “How’s life really?”
My instinct was to answer with another smartass comment, but if I could have been honest with anyone beside Josie, it was Jess. “Upside-down. That’s pretty much been the theme of my life for the past couple of weeks. You?”
Jesse pushed me through the parking lot at a slow, controlled pace. “Upside-down works for me too.”
I adjusted my hat as we approached the restaurant entrance. The
n I centered my belt buckle because somehow someone had gotten it all crooked. “Seattle busting your balls finally? I told you guys like us, who only knew open spaces and fresh air, would wilt in a big city. I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to reach that point.”
Jesse took me up the ramp while a handful of others flowed up the stairs. “No, it’s not Seattle.”
“Then what the hell has got your life so upside-down, Jess?” I twisted in my chair as much as I could to look at him. Our whole lives, Jesse had never been the brooding, worrisome type. That was my role. Hearing that streak of hesitation or anxiety or something similar in his voice gave me serious pause.
As we rolled up to the doors, a couple of people waiting for a table held the doors open for us and moved aside. Jesse thanked them with a smile and a nod while I tried not to count every set of eyes full of pity and relief that landed on me for more than a lingering moment.
“Later,” he answered with finality in his voice, and that was when I got it.
What could cause Jesse’s whole world to shift upside-down? What could make his happy-go-lucky disposition take a temporary hiatus? What could be the reason he’d been dropped to his proverbial knees?