Excellent.
Very dignified.
Also, owww. Painful.
Lexi must have hit her head because everything looks a little blurry all of a sudden. Including Sam, and the pattern on his shirt.
Wait, was there a pattern there before? Or did she throw coffee at him on her way down?
Lexi wants to die.
‘You okay?’ He sounds like he’s underwater.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Yeah. Fine. Sorry about your shirt. I promise I wasn’t trying to destroy it just because it has your shop’s logo on it.’ While she’s down on the ground, she’s kind of hoping it will swallow her up.
He looks down, registering the coffee impact for seemingly the first time. ‘Don’t worry about my shirt. I’m more concerned about you right now.’
‘I’m fine,’ she says again, but it comes out funny. Also, Lexi is still on the ground. And did he say he was concerned about her? That doesn’t sound like the Sam she knows. Except she doesn’t know him, not really. She can’t stop looking at the swirl on his T-shirt. It looks like chocolate, which makes her want to lick it.
‘Here,’ he says, reaching out his arm. ‘Take my hand.’
‘Why?’
Oscar snuffles at Lexi. Maybe he’s concerned about her, too.
Sam frowns. ‘So you can stand up?’
All of a sudden, this makes sense. Lexi can’t live down on the ground of Lincoln Park forever, after all. ‘Right. Right.’ She grabs onto him. ‘Your hand is soft,’ she tells him.
This makes Sam laugh, for some reason.
‘You’re supposed to say thank you when someone pays you a compliment,’ she says.
‘Thank you,’ he says, smiling, and shaking his head like he’s despairing at her. ‘And you’re supposed to use my hand to pull yourself up.’
‘Right,’ Lexi says again. She’d been so busy trying not to stroke his hand that she’d forgotten about the standing-up part.
Oscar looks at her expectantly. She hoists herself up, landing on Sam’s shoulder with a thud.
He doesn’t complain. ‘Good job,’ he says instead, and Lexi feels a little prickly at being patronised but also too tired to put up a fight. ‘Can you sit?’
‘But I just stood up.’ Lexi’s confusion could be coming from anywhere: the pain in her head, the swirly pattern on Sam’s top, or the feeling of his hand on hers.
Sam looks like he’s trying not to laugh. Lexi is enjoying how nice his face looks, so she forgets to be annoyed.
‘On the bench,’ he says. ‘I want to check you’re okay.’
‘I’m fine,’ she tells him again, because he must not have heard the first couple of times.
‘Well then, I guess that clears it up.’ Sam rolls his eyes. ‘Where does it hurt?’
It feels like general pain all over, so Lexi pats around her head until she locates the source of it, at the back. ‘Here,’ she tells him.
‘Okay. I’m going to drive you home, and we’re going to put some ice on it, okay? Then you’re going to lie down and take it easy for the rest of the day.’
This seems unnecessary. ‘I’m fine,’ she repeats. ‘Thank you, though.’
‘Humour me, okay?’
