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My fingers trailed along the edge of the brace. It was real. The good and the bad.
When he returned to the Jeep, he opened the door and then stopped, looking concerned. “You okay? The ride didn’t hurt your knee, did it?”
“I’m fine.” I smiled as I blinked. I needed meds or something. “Can I move now?”
“Nope.”
“No?”
A lopsided grin appeared as he reached in and gently maneuvered me so that my legs dangled out of the Jeep. Our eyes met as he slipped an arm under my knees and the other around my back. “Hold on.”
My heart did a backflip. A perfect one. “You do not need to carry me.”
“I know,” he replied. “Now hold on.”
I folded my arms around his neck. My fingers fisted the shirt along his shoulders. “I could use my crutches.”
“And I’m using my brawny, spectacular muscles.”
“They are quite spectacular,” I admitted.
He grinned. “Damn straight they are. Ready?”
I nodded, and he lifted me up smoothly. I felt kind of stupid as he carried me over to the blanket, but the ground was uneven and the crutches would’ve been a real bitch. When he sat me down, I reluctantly loosened my hold on him. “Using crutches on campus is going to suck butt.”
“It is.” He sat beside me, facing the pond. “But from what the doc said, it didn’t sound like you’d need them for long.”
I stretched my legs out on the blanket and reached down, adjusting the brace through my jeans. It had taken me forever to get used to it the first time. At the thought of having to wear this for weeks, if not months, my mood plummeted as if I swan dived off the top of the Empire State Building.
Tucking the loose hairs back behind my ears, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. With the exception of the chirps from the trees around us, there was no other sound. The place was tranquil. A place I wondered if Jase visited when he needed to think or get away. “Does this place get a lot of traffic?”
“We’re at least two miles from the farm, where Mom and Dad are, but this is still our property,” he explained. “No one comes out here except us, and they aren’t going to be coming anywhere near here, so we can stay as long as you want.”
I dropped my hands into my lap. “Thank you for bringing me out here.”
“No problem.” He nudged my arm with his. “You sure you don’t want to pick up those pain meds the doc gave you a prescription for?”
The script was burning a hole in my pocket. “No. I mean, it would be nice to take them and just not care, because that’s how they make me feel, but I need to deal with this. You know?”
“I get that, but you shouldn’t be in pain.”
“I’m not in a lot of pain.” And that much was true. It hurt, but it was manageable. Beside me, Jase lay back, folding his arms under his head. For a few moments, I got a little lost staring at the straight line of his nose and the way his lashes fanned to an indecent length. “Can I ask you something?”
“Something.”
I smiled, remembering my drunken response from Saturday night. “Why don’t you live at the farm? You love being around Jack. I’m surprised you’re not living there. I mean, can I ask you that?”
“Yeah,” he said immediately, frowning slightly. “I want to. You know, I’d be able to spend more time with him, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. It makes it . . . harder, especially when Mom and Dad do the parent thing with him. I want to step in and that would just confuse him.”
“Understandable.” I wet my lips. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
I gave a lopsided shrug. “It’s just, what you face with Jack is hard. You’re trying to do the right thing, but what’s really the right thing? No one knows. It’s got to be hard.”
“It is. That’s why I’m not sure if telling him the truth will ever be the right thing,” he admitted, and I was relieved that he was talking to me about this, because this was more important than my stupid leg. “On the flip side, shouldn’t he know? And what if he finds out by accident when he’s older? That kind of shit keeps me up at night.”
Reaching over, I squeezed his hand. “I think you’ll figure it out.”
