Page 37 of Wrecked

“Your mother told me you’re dating a police officer,” Grandma says and then takes a swig of her drink.

I look into the dining room at the crazy cat lady that is Pam Paige. She really needs to get her gossip in order.

“Sorry, Gram. No handcuff-fetish fantasies for you. Adam is just someone I’m volunteering with.”

“Adam?” She shakes her glass, making the ice clank. “This wouldn’t happen to be the boy from high school?”

“No, that was Brad.”

She lowers her head and gives me the stern eye. Her blues, which I inherited, are looking at me through cataracts. “I’m talking about the one who carried you home after you sprained your ankle.”

My mouth drops with the notion that, “You remember that?”

“That kind of act is never forgotten.”

She’s right.

Adam and I were practicing in his driveway when I tried doing a layup. It was a poor attempt. I dribbled the ball, taking three steps, and leaped up on my left foot, arched my right arm with the ball, and dramatically missed the hoop. I came crashing hard on the ground and rolled my ankle.

Adam was on the ground beside me in an instant. His hands were gentle on my injured leg. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

The sharp shooting pain radiated from my foot and up my calf. I reached for my ankle in agony but couldn’t actually touch it. My eyes were scrunched in, my mouth pulled back to fight the pain. “Feels like it.”

“You need to see a doctor though. Shit.” He sounded worried.

My eyes opened and looked down at my ankle. I expected to see a bone sticking out or something. “What is it?”

“I don’t have a car.”

“Oh.” I bit my lip as I studied his brow. It was turned down, and his teeth were grazing his lip. The pain in my ankle temporarily disappeared.

Temporarily.

“Ow!” I tried to move my foot, and the blistering pain shot straight to my head. I fought back the tears.

“We have to get you home. Hop on.” He turned around and offered me his back.

“I can call my dad. He’ll pick me up.”

“I can get you there faster.”

He tugged on my arm and draped it over his shoulder. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him lift me off the ground. He swept my leg up with one hand and then my injured leg with the other.

For a mile, I buried my head in his neck and breathed in the sweet scent of Adam while he told me the story of every broken bone he’d ever gotten—a broken collarbone from peewee football, an arm from rollerblading, and his nose from walking into a baseball bat. I accused him of being accident-prone. He said it was just a hazard from always being in the middle of the action.

When we got to my house, my mom ran out in a frantic mess.

Turned out, it was a minor sprain that healed rather quickly. There was no need for the urgent rush home, but the gesture is one that has lived in my memory all these years…and Grandma’s, too, apparently.

“Good men are born that way. You find one, and you hang on to him,” she says.

I want to tell her exactly why I’m hanging out with Adam again, but that would mean bringing up the accident, and I don’t need her worrying about me or the bar. Especially not after she cashed in her bonds.

“If he’s so good, what’s he gonna do with a sinner like me?”

“Isn’t it always the angels who like to run with the devil?” she teases.

I laugh. A little devil, I am. A hell-raiser, as my mom likes to call me. The truth is, I’ve never really gotten into trouble. I used to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night, but what teenager hasn’t? I’ve been on my fair share of spring break vacations and go to just about every party I’m invited to, as long as I’m not working. But a lawbreaker? A bad girl? It’s part of the facade, the image I project to the people I know.