Page 50 of If You Never Come Back
“What are you going to do, paint for me?”
He rolls his eyes. “Do you have to take that tone?”
“How am I supposed to sound? I just got the news that for the next three weeks I can’t use my leg or my arm.”
Wes glances down, then back at me. This time the frustration is dialed back. A sliver of tenderness seems to peek through, and my icy façade begins to melt.
“Look, I know you’re upset, but it’s the way it is. You have to accept it and find a way to work around it. And I’ll help you do that.”
The softer tone he takes works wonders. I’m actually willing to listen now.
“What are you planning to do?” I ask.
“I’ll come over to your apartment and help you every day. I can run stuff to the post office, clean up your place, type emails for you, do social media posts.”
“So you’ll be like my personal assistant then?”
He crosses his arms, his face still stern. “If that’s how you want to think of it, sure.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work for me.”
“Shay, be reasonable.”
“We’re exes, Wes. We haven’t spoken a word to each other in more than six months and now you’re going to be my home health aide?”
“Do you have a better idea of how to cope while you recover?”
I sigh my defeat. I can’t manage this alone. And if he’s offering to help me, I’d be a fool not to accept.
“We need to set some ground rules first,” I say.
He leans back in the chair, eyes still on me. “Like what?”
“We have kind of a complicated history. There have to be boundaries.”
“Fine. I’ll call or text before I come over.”
“You can’t carry me all the time.”
“Why not?”
I contemplate telling him how flustered I get every time he touches me, but I hold my tongue. That would definitely be crossing boundaries. I need to move on, not dwell on what I miss about him, about us.
“The less we touch each other, the better,” I say.
The clench of his jaw and the way his eyes dart away for a second tell me he doesn’t agree, but I don’t care. I need to protect myself if there’s any hope of this arrangement working out.
“Fine,” he says.
“No staying at my place overnight. No relationship talk at all. I don’t want to dwell on the past, okay?”
The expression that passes over Wes’s face looks a lot like uncertainty, but he frowns it away before I can be totally sure.
“Do you have any rules you want to add?” I ask.
“Just one. If you fall or hurt yourself, I’m picking you up.”
I roll my eyes, but nod anyway.
