As if Brand can hear my thoughts, he looks up.
He smiles when he sees me, a smile that shows off one dimple in his cheek, but doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His eyes take me aback. They’re beautiful, yes. They’re like oceans and oceans of blue. But they’re haunted by something. They scream out his demons to anyone who looks closely enough.
“Hey,” he greets me. “You didn’t need to come back.”
Not exactly the greeting I was hoping for. I would’ve preferred that he was just the tiniest bit happy to see me. But I paste on a smile and pretend it doesn’t matter. I’m good at that.
I toss the newspaper onto his lap.
“No? I had to come back and see the hometown hero, didn’t I?”
Brand’s face scrunches in confusion, but then he scans the article. “Oh, geez,” he mutters. “Perfect.”
That’s sort of what I’m thinking as I stare at him, perfect, but I don’t mention that, either.
“I hear you don’t have any pants,” I tell him instead. I try not to imagine what he looks like without pants, because, God, Nora. He’s injured. In a hospital bed. Get a grip.
He grimaces. “Apparently not.”
“And you can’t drive,” I add.
He grimaces again. “Nope.”
“And I owe you. So let me take you wherever you need to go. After I get you some pants,” I add quickly, red staining my cheeks.
A slow grin spreads over his face. “You don’t want to walk out of here with me naked?” he asks drily.
More than you know, I think.
“Nah,” I say. “We don’t want to give the little old ladies heart attacks.”
Or me.
“What size do you wear?” I ask, trying to put the image of Naked Brand aside.
“36x34,” he answers. “But it’ll be hard to put pants on, because of the knee brace. Shorts will probably be best, but you don’t need to get them. I can…”
He trails off hesitantly.
“Well, I guess I do need to ask you to get them. I don’t know what else I’d do. My bag’s in my truck, but I don’t know where my truck is.”
He sounds annoyed by that, and I laugh. “I can see you don’t like to depend on other people,” I tell him. “I get that. But trust me, I owe you. I could buy you a million pairs of shorts and my debt wouldn’t be paid. And we’ll figure out where your truck is.”
I walk out wh
ile he’s protesting.
I return thirty minutes later with a pair of athletic shorts.
I toss them to him. “They’re stretchy, so I figured they would be easier to slide on.”
“That’s perfect,” he tells me. “I’m not fancy.”
I’m awkward and hesitant, because I don’t know what to do now, not while Brand holds the shorts in his hand, and I know he needs to put them on. He probably needs help standing. His knee is in a stationary brace, his ankle must be sore, and he’s not supposed to bear any weight. And he outweighs me by a hundred pounds.
“How’s this going to work?” I ask him dumbly.
He grimaces. “I hate to ask you, but could you help? Or I can call the nurse…”