Page 33 of Offside Devil

“Yeah fucking right!” Zane’s voice echoes down the hall.

“Okay, there might be some more old theme songs,” Daniel admits. “My physical therapist watches a lot of TV Land and I have discovered some guilty pleasures.”

There are at least a dozen questions I want to ask, almost all of them revolving around why Daniel needs a physical therapist.

Instead, I settle on: “Do you live here, too?”

A small part of me hopes he does. The more people and obstacles I can put between myself and Zane, the better.

“God, no.” He shudders. “No, I’m just here on babysitting duty. Don’t worry, I’m not stepping on your toes. I’m here pro bono. This is your nannying turf.”

Aiden is so quiet—and so absorbed in whatever cartoon he’s watching—that I didn’t notice him. That and he’s buried in a nest of blankets on the end of the couch. All I can see is his little face poking out between the blankets and the Spiderman water bottle he’s clutching.

I should take a picture of this and show it to any CPS agent who wants to take Aiden away. Does this kid look like he’s in danger to you?

Zane comes back into the living room and pushes the empty luggage cart towards Daniel. “Now that a responsible adult is here to watch the kid, you can help me unload Mira’s car.”

The cart barely bumps against Daniel’s left leg, but he clutches his knee. He stumbles towards the door, dragging his left leg behind him and wailing like a ghoul with a bullet wound.

I reach out a hand to steady him. “Jesus! Are you okay?”

Zane rolls his eyes. “He’s fine. He likes to be dramatic about his bionic peg leg.”

Daniel laughs and as he walks away, I realize that what I registered as swagger is actually a limp. Daniel’s left leg kicks out at a slight angle with every step. And when his pants cuff rides up, I see the metallic gleam of a prosthetic.

There’s a story there, I think.

The two men leave and it’s just me and Aiden. He’s still sucked into the screen, so I could poke around and see which room Zane left my stuff in. But I don’t want to leave the kid alone when the front door is unlocked. It wouldn’t be a good look if he escaped on my first unofficial day on the job.

So I drop down on the other end of the sofa. “Whatcha watching?”

Aiden doesn’t look at me, but his lips twist into a tight knot and he sinks deeper into the blankets. He heard me, but he doesn’t want to answer.

Knowing that Aiden has only been living here for a few days clears a lot of things up. Of course he’s timid and scared. His entire life turned upside down.

I know all too well what that’s like.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” I tell him gently. “I mean, I get it. You barely know me. But that will change soon. I’m going to live here so I can help take care of you. We’ll have a lot of time to get to know each other.”

He sneaks a glance at me. “You live here, too?”

“I’m moving in today. That’s why I have all the boxes with me.”

“In my room?”

“I think I have my own room,” I tell him. “I don’t actually know, though. I haven’t seen it yet.”

Suddenly, my heart plummets into my stomach. What if Zane moved me into his own room? What if we have to share a bed?

Then I remember his conditions. No touching and no sex. Zane wouldn’t be crazy enough to put us in the same bed and then try to enforce that rule...

Would he?

The front door opens again. Daniel is hanging off the side of the luggage cart, letting Zane push him through the door.

“It looks like you were a lot of help,” I laugh.

“It’s not my fault you pack so light,” Daniel retorts, hopping off. “There was plenty of space left on the cart. No reason for both of us to walk all the way back upstairs. I offered it to Zane, but?—”

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