We shared a laugh at his joke and how ridiculous this probably just was, but what had been left of the tension melted away. My stomach took that moment to growl loud enough even Porter heard it.
“You’re probably one hundred percent hungry, huh?” He smirked. “We can stop for some food if you want. What do you like?”
He’d just said the magic word.
Food.
The hospital food wasn’t terrible, but it barely sustained the appetite that my dad used to say could rival a bear’s.
“If you can take me to get some Taco Bell, you’ll officially be my best friend,” I replied very seriously to him.
Porter roared with laughter at my tone and moved into the turning lane leading to the closest one. “That’s what I’m talking about! Taco Bell it is!”
Yep. He and I were going to get along just fine.
With how clean his truck was, I halfway expected him to have a strict ‘no eating’ rule firmly in place. Especially with how messy tacos can be to eat. So color me surprised when he insisted I go ahead and dig into my food as we finished the drive to his house. I still was careful not to make a mess, and extremely grateful I didn’t have to drool over how good the food smelled without touching it for the fifteen minutes it took to get to our destination.
When we arrived, the house wasn’t anything I expected it to be. It was a two story home in a modern colonial style with a garden of flowers flowing along the edges of a small, covered porch. The house itself was white with blue shutters and looked like it had been either freshly painted or just really well taken care of.
Porter exited the truck first to get my chair while I took in the place I’d be calling home for a short while. I had to admit, it wasn’t a place I expected three men to be living in. Maybe some rental they didn’t have time to keep up that screamed bachelor pad. But not this. Either way, I was a bit excited to see the inside.
The passenger door opened, and as before, Porter asked permission to pick me up and out of the truck. Sidetracked by the house, I missed the fact he’d already set my chair up on the porch, choosing to carry me up the few steps himself.
He gently set me down, then opened the door to wheel me in. Pale blue walls and gray wooden floors greeted me upon entering. The furniture of the living room was simple, black leather couches and a glass coffee table. There were a few plants in pots put in the corners of the room where the light from the large windows could touch them just enough they weren’t starved for light. The massive entertainment center and TV was the only thing that didn’t surprise me about the room. That I expected at least.
“So,” Porter started, coming around my chair to kneel in front of me. “Our spare room is actually upstairs and we figured that probably wouldn’t work for you. That leaves us two options.”
He held up two fingers. “Either I can take the spare room and you take my room on the ground floor.” He put down one finger. “Or you stay in the spare room and one of us will be your personal human taxi anytime you need to go up or down. Which would you prefer?” He put the second finger down and stood, waiting for my answer.
While the idea of being carried upstairs and down made me feel like I’d be too much work for them, I also wasn’t too keen on putting him out of his room either.
“That’s a hard choice.”
Porter chuckled and crossed his arms over his barreled chest. “Not really. I know neither myself or my roommates will care about having to carry you. You’re tiny, and we literally learned how to carry people in training. Also, I honestly don’t care where I sleep. A bed is a bed. So I’m good either way.”
I bit at my lip and weighed the options. It probably seemed so trivial to be putting so much thought into, but I didn’t want to be a pain or burden they had to deal with either.
Before I could decide though, Porter opened his arms up to me. “Decided for you. You’ll take the spare room. Chances are, even if you needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, you wouldn’t be able to wheel yourself there anyway with your hand still hurt. Once that heals we can switch you to my room so you can do it on your own.”
I wanted to argue, but the logic was sound. However, my cheeks heated at the thought I’d be getting carried all over the house until I was well enough to roll myself. Knowing he was asking to pick me up when he outstretched his arms, I nodded in affirmation. He cradled me effortlessly then walked me up the stairs. Even though I knew he had me, I couldn’t help holding on a bit tighter to him. He was a giant after all, and I wasn’t the least bit used to having a man carry me.
Guess I would get used to it soon though.
Once upstairs, he used the toe of his booted foot to nudge open the cracked door to one of the rooms.
Being that it was a spare room, it was very sparse, with only a bed and a chest of drawers with a small TV on top, filling the space. There were sheer, white curtains that were more for decoration than blocking light out over the windows, and the walls were painted the same pale blue as downstairs. The floor here, however, was lush gray carpeting rather than wood.
Porter set me tenderly down onto the bed that had a dark gray down comforter and two fluffy pillows.
“It’s not much, but everything in here is basically new. We have family from out of town that occasionally needs somewhere to stay, so we figured it’d be best to fix it up. My Ma actually picked out the bedding.” He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, peering around the room. “Actually she helped pick out most of the stuff in the house.”
That explained why this resembled a home a family with two point five kids would have rather than three bachelor firefighters.
Memories started to float through my mind. “I remember your mom. She was always giving me cookies when Dad wasn’t looking,” I laughed to myself. “Used to drive him crazy. And your dad too. He would give me piggy back rides. How are they?”
Porter’s face fell a little. “Ma is great. Pushing me to find a wife and make her some grandbabies like any Mexican mama does,” he snorted out a laugh and rolled his eyes. “But Pa passed away a few years ago. Cancer. They found a mass on his kidney and it had spread to his liver. Took a while for Ma, a long while to cope with it, but she’s good now.”
My heart clenched for his loss. I knew it all too well. “I’m sorry, Porter. He was a good man.”
