Was. As if he was dead.
There was a photo of the accident site—a car smashed and twisted around a guardrail, so damaged I was amazed anyone had survived. I felt a little sick. The article said that the driver, Andrew’s friend, had died on impact.
My heart heavy, I scrolled to the next photo. It was one of those local-interest anniversary pieces: Five years on, accident still haunts the Mason family. The photo showed a man wheeling his chair out of the front doors of a hospital, his face angled away as if he wasn’t aware he was being photographed. He was dark-haired with a scruff of beard on his jaw—the same face from the teenaged photo, but this was a man’s face, one that knew hardship and sadness. His eyes were set under slashes of brows, his cheekbones sharp as blades. He was wearing a plaid button-down shirt over a muscled set of shoulders and a broad chest. He was deeply, darkly handsome and mysterious, tragic and giving off a vital energy at the same time.
The article said that Mason’s parents were divorcing, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
I stared at the picture for a long time, alone in my grandmother’s living room, eating my fat-free ice cream. I memorized his features, the line of his shoulders. And I decided for myself: This guy was fucking badass.
He was obviously very, very screwed up. Who wouldn’t be? Maybe he was almost as screwed up as me.
I wanted to meet him.
It wouldn’t be easy.
I started to form a plan.
Five
Andrew
* * *
I lived alone, but there was always someone in my house. Grocery delivery; cleaning service; pharmacy delivery; medical visits; landscaping. Even my therapist made house calls. The only good thing about my shitty life was that I had lots and lots of money, so I could make people come to me.
If I didn’t have to shop and clean, then what did I do all day? Here’s something they don’t tell you: when your legs don’t work, everything takes longer to do. Getting out of bed, taking a shower, dressing—that shit can take an hour and a half, easy. I had fitted one of the spare bedrooms into a workout room with weights, pulleys, and bars—that took an hour again, and I couldn’t skip it because my upper body strength was all I had.
Once I made a cup of coffee and fried an egg, it was halfway to noon. I powered up my monitors, my computer, my server, and got to work.
I could have opened my camera feeds and looked at the house across the street, but I didn’t. Tessa Hartigan and her lacy underwear were none of my business, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start creeping on her like the desperate asshole I was. There was no point to it. She’d never come over here, and I sure as hell would never go over there. End of story.
Today was physiotherapy day, and an hour later the doorbell buzzed. I turned on the security feed. Jon Chu was at my front door camera, wearing his scrubs and waving. I let him in.
“Hot out there!” he said as he walked in. “Supposed to be a heat wave coming.”
“Sure,” I said, still typing.
He tapped my shoulder. “Let’s get moving, Bubble Boy. I get paid by the hour.”
I pulled away from my computers, but I took my phone with me. I wheeled after Jon into my exercise room, where he unfolded the table he kept there and helped me on.
“Lower back today,” he said.
“Thank fucking God,” I replied, pulling off my shirt.
Together we arranged me on my stomach on the table. Jon took a towel and wrapped the waist of my sweatpants with it, jerking them halfway down my ass. Then he took his oil out of his bag.
Anyone who thinks this is awkward has never been in the kind of pain I have. Jon had been my regular physio guy for over a year, and he was magic. I didn’t give a shit about having a man’s hands on me as long as he took the pain away. I’d been through much, much worse humiliation in my life.
“So Nick is gone on his honeymoon?” Jon asked as he got started.
I grunted as he hit a knot of pain in my lower back. Sitting in a wheelchair is hell on the back muscles, from the neck all the way down. “Two weeks.”
“Sucks, man.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine.
He talked like he always did—about a date he’d been on, about his trip to his mother’s house for her great cooking. Jon liked to talk without requiring me to say much in return. It made me feel less lonely and at the same time he never pried.