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It hadn’t even occurred to Levi that Asher might not want to live with him indefinitely. Yes, he’d had a hard time convincing his brother to move in with him in the first place but Levi had thought once Asher said yes, it was settled. “You don’t want to live with me?”
“I didn’t say that. But, Levi, I’ve been on my own for a long time. Just because I lost my leg doesn’t mean I’m incapable of taking care of myself.”
“I never said that. Or thought it either.”
“Didn’t you?” Asher asked, raising his eyebrows. “Look,” he continued, “it’s obvious you and Dana have something serious going on. I’ll be in the way. I’m already in the way.”
“No, you’re not. Dana and I are just—” He hesitated, unsure how to classify their relationship.
“Having fun?” Asher finished for him. “Give me a break, Bro. I saw the way you two looked at each other.”
“We just got back together. We’re not—We’re taking it a day at a time.”
“If you say so.”
“We don’t have to talk about this now. You’ve only been here one night. Can’t we table this discussion until later?” Like, a long, long time from now.
“All right.” Asher was silent a moment, apparently struggling for words. “I don’t want to fuck up your life any more than I already have.”
“You haven’t fucked up my life. Why would you think you had?”
“Because I have. You spent the last few months since I was injured flying or driving to various hospitals. I know it’s impacted your work. Don’t try to pretend your work isn’t important to you. You don’t need the money but you need to work.”
Levi couldn’t argue with that assessment. He’d been totally miserable when he moved to Florida and discovered he couldn’t work there. He still wasn’t sure why. He only knew he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think about anything other than the chaos around him.
Asher continued, “On top of that, you remodeled your damn house to suit me. To make it easier on me. Don’t tell me that hasn’t been a disruption.”
“So? The rooms you’re in were just sitting there, doing nothing. It’s a big house with lots of space. And the disruption has been minimal. It only affected certain parts of the house, not my bedroom or the kitchen—so far, anyway. It hasn’t affected any room I use a lot.”
“Really? You don’t use this room? Your den?”
“All they did was widen the doorway and that didn’t take long at all. They didn’t do anything else.” He’d wondered about the bathroom but there simply hadn’t been time. “Besides, when I need to work I go out to my workroom. So no, it hasn’t been a bother at all.”
“What about the pool?”
“The pool? I renovated that not long after I moved in. I put in the beach access because I liked it, and other than getting a wheelchair ramp for the pool, that’s about all I did.”
“There never was any sense arguing with you.”
Levi grinned. “So why do you?”
“I don’t know. Hardheaded, I guess. I need to take off my leg,” Asher said, heading out the door. “When I get back I’ll play you in a game of pool.”
That was the end of that conversation. Probably just as well. Why talk about it now when it would be a while before Asher could reasonably think of moving out?
Several minutes later, Asher came back to the den in his wheelchair and they started a game. It shouldn’t have surprised Levi that Asher would still be great at pool. Levi was no slouch but Asher was in a whole other category. Being in a wheelchair hadn’t messed up his game. They played for a while and then, after the third time in a row that Asher beat him, Levi said, “I’m going to quit while I’m behind. You’ve been playing while you’ve been in the hospital, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. That and lifting weights. I tried watching TV but there was never anything on I wanted to watch.”
“I can understand that. I have that problem too. But I have a lot of movies we can watch.”
“Sounds good.”
*
Several days later Levi found Asher in his room, practicing walking with his new leg and using his crutches. Levi watched him a minute before he spoke. “You’re getting good with those.”
“Not good. Better. And it’s too damn slow,” Asher said.
