Oops, I've Fallen

“And how in the hell do you know that? You’ve never had to do PT before.”

“I have eyes,” I retort. “And plenty of friends with hip replacements.”

Carly snorts and takes a right turn onto the street that leads toward my doctor’s office building.

“We’re grabbing lunch after this, right?” I ask as she pulls into the parking lot.

“Lunch?” Carly rolls her eyes. “We just got finished eating a late brunch, Mom.”

“Yeah, well, these appointments can take hours. I know I’ll be starved by the time I’m done.”

Carly ignores me completely and pulls into the parking lot. And while she finds a spot to park, I choose to use my time wisely—aka grabbing my phone out of my favorite Gucci purse and snapping a quick video of me getting groovy to a viral hip-hop song on TikTok so I have something fun to post for my followers later today.

“What are you doing?” Carly asks as she puts the car in park and cuts the engine.

“Shh!”

“Mom! It’s 11:58! There is no time for a freaking TikTok video!”

“It’s fine if we’re a few minutes late.”

“Uh, no. It’s not fine. You have to be there at twelve on the dot, Mom! The receptionist was very adamant about that when I called to get this appointment rescheduled.”

“Wait…what?” I question and pull my eyes away from the screen of my phone to look at her. “Why did you reschedule the appointment?”

She scrunches up her nose. “Huh?”

“You just said you rescheduled the appointment. But earlier, you said they made you reschedule the appointment.”

“I meant that I had to call them back and reschedule. They left me a voice mail about it.”

“Oh.”

“So, move your ass, Stella,” Carly says and opens her door to get out. “We have to be on time.”

On a sigh, I save my current video clip to my profile’s drafts and put my phone back in my purse. One last coat of my favorite Chanel lipstick to my lips and I slowly get out of the passenger seat without too much difficulty.

Thankfully, each day, it’s starting to get easier and easier with this tailbone of mine.

Carly rounds the car and interlocks our arms as we head toward the entrance of Dr. Samson’s practice.

But the instant we step through the automatic doors, I’m shocked at what I find sitting in the waiting room with a golf magazine in his lap.

My handsome stud.

“Well, I’ll be damned, darlin’,” Sal comments with a handsome grin when his eyes meet mine. “I didn’t think your appointment was until later today.”

“It got rescheduled,” I answer, and honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together when Carly said my appointment was at noon instead of three. I knew Sal had to be here at noon today. It’s why I ended up making my daughter take me to First Watch to eat brunch. When I found out there was no chance of a sneaky early afternoon make-out sesh with my man, I needed to find something to do to occupy my time.

“I guess it’s my lucky day then, huh?” Sal waggles his brows, and I wink at him.

“It just might be.”

“Get over here and give me some sugar, darlin’,” he says, and I giggle.

“You’re so bad.”

He flashes the kind of smirk he knows I can’t resist. The handsome devil. “Oh, you have no idea.”

I walk toward him, and the instant I’m in his vicinity, the scent of his familiar cologne fills my nostrils. My Sally always smells so good. After a quick kiss to his lips, I turn around to tell Carly to check in for me, but I notice that she and Sal’s son Ryan are standing close together, talking about something near the entrance doors.

“Carly.” I try to get her attention, but she doesn’t hear me.

“Carly,” I repeat a little louder this time, and it startles her enough that she takes a step back from Ryan.

“Huh? What did you say?” she asks, clearing her throat.

“I didn’t say anything yet,” I tease. “I wanted to ask you if you could check me in.”

“Oh yeah, of course,” she says and clears her throat again, like all of a sudden, she has some kind of weird, nervous titter.

To be honest, the whole scene feels a bit strange.

But before I can put too much thought into it, I feel a hand reach out and squeeze my butt.

“Looking good in them jeans, sweet cheeks.”

I glance down to find Sal grinning up at me, and all focus on my daughter’s sudden weirdness evaporates.

I wink at him and giggle. Even shimmy my ass a little for his enjoyment.

This man, I swear. He makes everything better.

October 8th, Thursday

Ryan

I head out of my dad’s garage and drag his trash can to the curb with fifteen minutes to spare on the strict five-o’clock timeline.

Once I arrange it to Betty Matthews’s particular specifications, I head over to Stella’s house to do the same. Since I already have the garage code memorized and I know Carly took her mom on a shopping trip to the mall, I figure it’s best for everyone involved if there’s no opportunity to piss off ole Betty.