Page 100 of Property of Bob

“Yeah.”

I took another step. Then another.

We’d made it maybe twenty feet when I realized I was looking down at her instead of where I was going.

Her hair smelled good. Something sweet. Vanilla, maybe.

She caught me. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but there was a smile behind it. “You keep saying that.”

“Maybe there’s nothing wrong with looking at you.”

That stopped her, which stopped me.

Her eyes lifted to mine, and for a second, neither of us said anything.

“No,” she said softly. “I guess there isn’t.”

Fuck me.

I looked ahead again. Walking. We were supposed to be fucking walking.

I took another step.

Ramona moved with me.

My arm tightened slightly around her shoulders. Hers tightened around my waist. I could get used to this.

That thought probably should’ve bothered me.

It didn’t.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You want to keep going?”

I looked toward the wheelchair, then back at the stretch of yard in front of us.

“Yeah.”

We made it another few feet.

My legs were working fine. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was I’d spent weeks lying in a fucking hospital bed while my body put everything it had into staying alive and healing. I’d lost strength everywhere, and apparently walking across the backyard was enough to remind me of that.

My thighs started burning. I took another step, and the muscles in my legs started to tremble.

Ramona felt it because her arm tightened around my waist. “Want to head back?”

“One more.”

She looked up at me. I expected an argument. Instead, she nodded. “One more.”

I took another step. My legs held, barely, but that was enough.