Page 55 of When Our Stars Aligned

“You went in there after the bathroom episode.”

“The bathroom episode?”

“I take it you don’t remember?” She raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t remember much. I remember falling off the roof, going to the hospital, Gabby coming over, and talking to Travis. The rest is blurry from there. What happened?”

“I don’t know if you want to know.” She bites her lip.

“Just tell me.” I sigh and place my head in my hands. I don’t know what she’s about to say, but I have a feeling I won’t be able to look her in the eye when she’s done. I wait for her to start, but I’m only met with silence. I look up to see Aly sitting on the floor across from me, shaking. “Are you crying?”

“No,” she squeaks. I realize that she is in fact not crying but trying to hold back her laughter. She’s trying so hard that tears are springing from her eyes.

“Oh, God! Is it that bad?”

“Umm…” She looks at me and tries to compose herself. “You…umm…you said you needed to pee, so I helped you to the bathroom. I left you alone to, you know, do your business, but you were in there a long time. I asked if you were okay and…and—” She loses it all over again.

“And? And what?”

“You were upset because you couldn’t find your penis!” she cries out, holding her stomach as she literally rolls on the floor.

“Excuse me?” I’ve said and done a lot of dumb shit in my past; I am a sailor after all, but this is farfetched even for me.

“You…you really thought it was gone!” She swipes away the tears now falling freely down her face. “You were so upset! I tried to tell you that you still had your underwear on, but you didn’t understand, so I had to…uh…help.”

This cannot be happening. “How did you help?” I grit through my teeth.

“I just pushed your underwear down.”

“That’s it? You didn’t like try to take advantage of me or anything, right?”

“Absolutely not! You should be thanking me! I could’ve called Alex or Carter to help, but I figured that would be too embarrassing. Once you discovered you were umm…back in business, I left you to take care of everything. A few minutes later, you came out buck naked and declared you were going to sleep.” She waves her arm in the direction of the guest bedroom. “You walked directly to my room and lay down. I didn’t think it would be helpful to argue.”

“So, you decided to sleep in my bed.” It makes sense, but I’m upset with how stupid I acted.

Aly’s still recovering from her laughing fit and doesn’t answer me, not that I need further explanation.

“It’s…okay. I’m sorry I gave you some trouble last night. I don’t know what they gave me in the hospital.”

“You were definitely not yourself. Entertaining, though.” A slow smile spreads across her face. “Can I help you up?” She begins to giggle. I know exactly where her mind is going and I’m headed right down the gutter with her. “I mean…umm…you really need your ankle elevated.”

Aly helps steady me as I slowly lift myself back to a standing position and she hands me my crutches. I grab a pair ofshorts and head towards the living room where I’ll probably be spending the rest of the day.

She sets me up on the couch with a pillow and an icepack for my ankle then leaves to go do something in the kitchen. I feel bad that she is taking care of me. She didn’t exactly volunteer for the job; it just defaulted to her. Of course, if I had to choose someone, it would be her.

“Let me know if I can help with something,” I yell to her from the couch. I can’t think of how I can help her, but it makes me feel better to say that.

“I’m good!” she yells over her shoulder from the kitchen.

“What are you doing in there anyway?”

“You’ll see!” she says in a singsong voice.

A little while later, a delicious and familiar scent begins to waft from the kitchen over to the couch. “Are you making cookies?” My mouth waters at the thought of oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies. Yup, I can easily sit here for the rest of the day and eat nothing but those cookies. Maybe this whole falling off a roof thing wasn’t so bad after all.

Aly comes over to the couch a short while later with a plate in her hand. I sit up a little straighter and try not to let my excitement show too much. She proudly presents me a plate with one tiny cookie on it.

“One cookie?” I look up at her with a frown.

---