“Yeah, just for a few minutes. He went to get his generator, even though I tried to tell him it was fine. Thank goodness it’s been a little cooler after the storm, but it’s still getting a little toasty in the house.”
“We could always camp out in the basement. It’s cool down there,” I offer, only teasing a little. I’ve slept in much worse places.
“Maybe if we finished it up down there, but not like it is now.” She scrunches up her nose.
“I’ll work on it when the season is over. What do you want to do with it?” I make the turn into her driveway, while she reaches forward to hit a button, and her garage opens.
“I don’t care, but Bates mentioned I needed to update my electrical panel. I don’t know how much room that will take, plus he said there are generators you can get that turn on automatically if the power goes out. I want one of those.”
“Oh yeah, his parents’ house has one. Wait for me to come around,” I tell her, grabbing everything out of the backseat.
Her feet are already out of the car, but she’s still sitting on the seat when I hand over her crutches. I turn to look at the driveway when I hear the sound of the truck pulling in. “Great.”
“What’s wrong?” She looks over at Memphis, then quickly back to me.
“I should have just walked. He’s going to be pissy because I made you drive.”
“No, you walked yesterday, and I wasn’t doing anything but diddling my thumbs anyway. The battery on my computer’s been dead all day.”
“Diddling?” I question her word choice.
“Twiddling, whatever.”
“Tell me more about this diddling. Does it involve lots of flicking and rubbing? Can you give me a demonstration?”
“Oh my gosh, Oswald,” she cries and swings away from me as fast as her good leg will take her.
“What are you doing?” Memphis asks before he’s even fully out of the truck. “Why is her face all pink?”
“She was just telling me about how she diddles.” I can’t even keep a straight face when I say it. She gapes at me with her pretty little mouth hanging open in outrage.
“You didn’t tell me.” Memphis looks like someone just took his favorite toy, and I start howling with laughter. He thinks I’m serious.
“I didn’t… That’s not…” Her face continues to get pinker as she looks between us. I love how flustered she is, until she tries to turn around and nearly slips when the rubber on the bottom of her crutches hits a small patch of mud right next to the walkway up to her door.
“Oh shit.” I drop my bag and rush over to her side. Thankfully, she’s already recovered, but I notice the way her face is pinched and her lips are thin. She used the front of her casted foot to catch herself, and now she’s hurting because of it. Damn it.
“I’m fine,” she says before I can even question her, but she doesn’t look fine, and I feel like crap for teasing her.
Waylynn
The painin my ankle only lasted a second, but it’s enough to make me fearful of stepping down again. I feel like such a baby. Who knew a sprained ankle would hurt this badly and cause this much inconvenience?
My fingers cover my keys after unzipping the small bag looped over my chest, but when I look down to find the right one, I realize my house key is gone. My mind swirls for a moment, wondering how the heck I could have lost it, but then I look up and my eyes connect with Memphis’, and I know without a doubt he has it. I’m not sure why that’s comforting, but it is.
“You can keep it. I’ll get Oswald one too.” Memphis’ head tilts the tiniest bit at my words.
“How do you know I have it?” He keeps his eyes trained on me while walking to the door.
“I just do,” I reply. Maybe it’s his controlling nature, or maybe it’s intuition, but either way, I know I’m right.
“Get me one?” Oswald questions.
“A key,” Memphis and I say at the same time.
“You took her key? What if she got locked out?” Oswald jogs to retrieve the bags he dropped when I slipped.
“I meant to return it this morning, but I got distracted.” Memphis peers over his shoulder at me after unlocking the door. Warmth creeps up my neck, but surprisingly, it’s not from embarrassment this time. “Plus, I wasn’t expecting her to leave. Where were you two going?”
