“Wait—”
But Finn’s arms were already scooping underneath him, giving an impressive heft of strength considering they weren’t that different in size, and lifting Teddy without causing a spike of pain, only a mild hiss.
“I got you. Is the door unlocked?” Finn asked as he started for the house. Teddy’s chair was set up close to the porch, but there was no way Finn’s friends weren’t seeing this if they were looking.
“Yes,” Teddy said, feeling utterly humiliated—and a little turned on by Finn’s proximity and firmness and beachy smell, which was just insult to injury when he had to pee. Why did Finn have to be so… all of this?
It was a sliding door, but only the screen door was closed, easy enough for Finn to push aside while carrying Teddy. “Sofa or bedroom?”
“Sofa,” Teddy said without hesitation. He drew the line at letting this gorgeous man into his bedroom the first day they met.
Thankfully, the sofa was close, large, and comfortable, and Teddy felt instantly at ease once Finn set him down.
“Are those your pills?” Finn walked to the kitchen island.
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll get you some water. You should wait ten or fifteen minutes before you move, let them kick in, and take it slow. I can wait around if you—”
“No,” Teddy said, a little harried. He didn’t like being taken care of, especially by a beautiful stranger who only reminded him of what he’d lost. “I appreciate the offer and the… lift, but I’ll be fine.”
“What are neighbors for?” Finn said as he came back with a glass of water from the tap and the bottle of pills. “Though I guess I can’t offer you that drink anymore.”
Teddy downed the maximum dose with a thick swallow. “Not much of a drinker anyway.” His father had been a drinker, one of the many reasons his mother kicked him out years ago. “And the music is fine. I’ll be up for a while now. My own fault.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Finn crouched to his level, such ease to the movement like it was no effort at all. Teddy missed that. “How long ago was the surgery?”
“Less than a week.”
“You’re a rock star, then. Nothing to be ashamed of. But try to remember to take your pills and—”
“A new chair is already on its way. Geriatric approved,” Teddy said with a sneer.
Finn laughed. “I hardly think you qualify. What are you, thirty-five?”
Oh, he was a flatterer. Teddy could add about a decade to that. “And are you the baby-faced thirty-five-year-old type yourself ora bearded twenty-three?”Please don’t actually be college age, not that Teddy should care.
“More somewhere in between,” Finn said cryptically.
Late twenties, then, which wasn’t terribly young. Still too young for Teddy.
Finn grabbed a vibrating cell phone out of his pocket. His face flushed when he read the text.
“Something funny?” Teddy asked.
“Oh, uhh… one of my friends making a bad joke, wondering where I went.”
“How bad a joke?”
Finn’s smile turned embarrassed after he shot a text back. “He asked if I’d decided to role-play Florence Nightingale and sleep here tonight.”
Teddy laughed before he could stop himself. “And how’d you respond?”
“I said, yep, so if you could take care of breakfast for everyone tomorrow, that would be great.”
A fuller laugh left Teddy, and Finn joined him, so Teddy didn’t try to squelch it. “It was a rather dramatic exit we made. When you regale your friends with the tale, please make the injury something cooler than years of dance.”
“Black ops, got it.” Finn nodded. “But the details are classified.”
