Focus, Eva. Injured man. Getting him to the car. Don’t think about how he smells.
“You’re stronger than you look,” he grunts as we reach the passenger door.
“I move kegs in my sister’s bar.” I yank the door open with my free hand. “Okay,” I pause, breathing heavily. “This,” pause, “is going to be terrible, but we need to get you in.”
Wedging him into the passenger seat would be hilarious if he weren’t in agony. He tries to lift himself up, but his injured leg keeps getting in the way. Every time it bumps something, he goes white and makes a sound that tears at my soul.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I keep saying, hovering uselessly while he manages to collapse into the seat.
“Not your fault,” he grits out, but his tone suggests he blames me a tiny bit.
I run around to the driver’s side and climb in, my arms weak as I start the engine. The interior of the car feels smaller with him in it; his broad shoulders take up space, his long legs awkwardly arranged to keep his injured ankle from touching anything.
“Sorry, I was lurking in the woods.” He chokes out the words, wincing. “Do you know how to get to Climax?”
“Yes?” The question seems a bit forward for our first meeting, but he’s said it about five times, so it’s clearly important to him. “I am excellent at orgasms.”
He leans his head against the seat, eyes closed. “Climax is the town. Hospital is there, twenty minutes away. Thirty if you drive like this.”
I bark out a laugh. “So Climax is actually a place? For real?”
“Turn right. Feel free to speed.”
We lapse into silence as I navigate onto the main road. The sun is setting now, painting everything in shades of orange and pink. It would be beautiful if I wasn’t acutely aware of the injured man beside me and the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing.
“I really thought you were being sex-positive or something,” I say, because silence feels worse. “Are there other towns around here with… interesting names?”
Despite his pain, the corner of his mouth twitches. “There’s Lick-Um over the border in Pennsylvania.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not. There’s also Big Bone Lick.”
I grip the steering wheel harder, my face absolutely flaming. “Are you seriously talking about places called Big Bone while I’m driving you to Climax?”
This time he does laugh, short and sharp, then immediately winces. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“Then stop saying things like Big Bone!”
But the tension eases, and I feel lighter driving through the Catskills from Fork Lick to a town with an even more unfortunate name, with a man who will be my neighbor if I stick around.
I keep talking, partly to distract him and partly because silence lets me think too much.
“One time when we were kids, my sister Eliza fell out of a tree,” I hear myself saying. “Broke her arm. Compound fracture—bone sticking out and everything. Our mom was who knows where. So my sister Esther, who was like fourteen, had to get all of us together and figure out how to get Eliza to urgent care.”
Asher opens his eyes and turns toward me.
“Esther called a neighbor, made up some story about our mom being at work, about how we just needed a ride. Esther was so calm, so in control. She lied well enough that nobody called social services. And at the clinic, she sat with Eliza while they set the bone, holding her hand through all of it.”
I don’t know why I’m telling him this. Maybe because moving his weight, helping him to the car, brought back that memory. How helpless we felt. How important it was not to fall apart, to be capable, to handle things ourselves because there was nobody else to handle them for us.
“Esther sounds like a good sister,” Asher says quietly.
“She is. They all are.” I swallow hard. “My sisters taught me how to be useful. How to help when things go wrong.”
“How many sisters?”
“Four,” I tell him, smiling and then relaxing when I see a sign for Climax Hospital ahead on the right. “I miss them so much. Even though I’ve only been gone since this morning. God, that’s pathetic.”
