Page 46 of Zane

“Sure. It gets me where I need to go and hasn’t left me stranded yet. So yeah, I guess I’m happy with it.”

He noticed there was a little teddy bear hanging from the mirror. He reached out to touch it. “Stuffed animal?”

“It’s an air freshener,” she said. “You… Zane…” She sighed. “You bought it for me. You said it was so that something from you would always be along for the ride.”

Zane stared at it, trying to imagine himself picking out the small bear. He had a bit of a struggle doing that.

“I guess I’m going to have to get another car,” he said.

“Are you able to drive now?”

“Since it’s my left leg that’s broken, I should be able to. I’m not sure if there’s any sort of restriction because of my concussion. No one has really said anything about my ability to drive. Most likely because I don’t currently have a car.”

“Do you think you’ll have trouble driving?”

Zane considered her question for a bit before he answered. “I don’t know. I think I’ll be okay. It wasn’t like it was my driving that resulted in the accident.”

From what he’d been told, the guy who’d hit him had been drunk, and there was nothing Zane could have done to avoid the accident, short of leaving the restaurant earlier or later.

When they reached the store, Kelsey said, “Do you want me to drop you off at the door?”

“No. I need the exercise.” Plus, to have a woman drop him off went against everything he’d been taught growing up, even if he was injured.

She found a parking spot fairly close to the entrance, then they climbed out of the car and made their way into the building. Kelsey found a cart, and together, they walked into the main part of the store.

“Did you want to go through the rest of the store before we hit the food section?” Kelsey asked.

“I wouldn’t mind checking the shoes. I’d like to get a pair that’s a little easier to put on.”

“Sure.” She looked out over the store, then gestured to the back. “I think shoes are over there.”

It took longer than he would have liked to get to the shoe section. His mobility was definitely something he really missed. He was an active person by nature, and his career required him to be on his feet for long periods of time.

He couldn’t wait until he could move around with ease once again.

“Do you want slides?” Kelsey asked as she headed down the aisle of men’s shoes.

“Ugh.”

Kelsey chuckled as she glanced his way, her eyes sparkling. “Yeah. You’ve never liked them.”

“Well, it’s good to know I didn’t lose my sense of style in the past few years.”

He sat down on one of the stools available for people to use when they tried on shoes. Though he probably should havesearched for the shoes he wanted, as soon as he sat down, Kelsey began to pull shoes off the rack for his consideration.

For the next little while, he managed to put the complexities of their situation aside and just be in the moment. It was still hard to imagine that Sarah was out of his life, and he was married to someone else. But right then, he focused on being with Kelsey and tuned out thoughts and memories of Sarah.

“How about these?” Kelsey asked, showing him a pair of dark brown loafer style shoes. “They might be easy to slip on.”

Zane took them from her and set them on the floor. He bent forward to take his runner off, then tried to put the new one on. His foot slid in easy enough without a lot of effort, and he realized that she’d known his size without even asking.

It was moments like that that seemed to be solid proof of the relationship he’d been told they had. She held so much knowledge about him, but he didn’t have the same knowledge about her. It felt very unbalanced.

“These fit pretty good,” he told her.

“They have black,” she said, turning back to the shelves. “But I know you prefer brown.”

Yes, he did prefer brown.

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