To Each Her Own Read online

  Panhead: Shit. Are you OK?

  emanomaly: I'm fine. It wasn't really that big of a deal.

  Not a big deal? Jay shook his head. A concussion and a busted-up ankle weren't a big deal?

  emanomaly: Anyway, my ex heard about the wreck and called me out of the blue, told me he'd missed me, that he still had feelings for me after all this time. He said all the right things, so I thought I'd give him another chance. After all, I did love him once. I told him I wasn't into the dev thing anymore, and we decided to try and put all that in the past. Still, I got a bad vibe about it, you know? I knew he'd flip if he found out my roommate was a wheeler, so I kept putting off telling him.

  Panhead: Right. And?

  emanomaly: Well, when he came to pick me up last night, he met my roommate.

  Panhead: Uh-oh.

  It was hard for Jay to play dumb on this. He was a dick for duping her into confiding in him, but apparently the guilt wasn't enough to make him do the right thing. He kept typing.

  Panhead: Does that mean you decided to tell him after all?

  emanomaly: I wish I had. It might have softened the blow. Unfortunately, my roommate took care of it for me. He was out walking his dog and saw me getting into my ex's car. He came up to talk to us and introduced himself.

  Panhead: So your boyfriend was pissed?

  emanomaly: Yeah. We got into a fight at dinner. The gist of his philosophy was: Once a freak, always a freak. He couldn't get past the fact that I was a dev who now has a wheeler for a roommate—even though I've sworn off wheelers forever and told him so. He said it was too much of a coincidence and implied there was more to it I wasn't telling him. It was clear he wasn't going to be able to trust me, and he acted like a complete douche about it. The whole thing is ironic, since I didn't want the wheeler guy as my roommate in the first place.

  Panhead: So, are you mad at your roommate for blowing your cover?

  emanomaly: No, not really. It wasn't his fault. He had no idea about my history with my ex. When he introduced himself, he couldn't have known how my boyfriend would react. I was kind of rude to my roommate, too, which I feel bad about. I mean, in a way he saved me from wasting any more time with my ex, who's a jackass—although I was pretty close to figuring that out for myself. Even worse, I had to call my roommate to come pick me up at the restaurant because my ex was being such a shit.

  Guilt seeped into Jay's bones, making him uneasy. He pushed his palms down on the seat cushion of his chair and lifted his butt, then rolled his head on his shoulders to get the tension out of them.

  He'd known Erin didn't want him to meet Trynt, and running into them sure as hell hadn't been a coincidence. Jay had waited with an antsy Chopper, out of sight, for at least forty-five minutes so he could “bump into” Erin at the right time.

  It wasn't that Jay was sorry Trynt had shown his true colors. That asshole didn't deserve Erin. But Jay felt like a stalker. What was he gonna do, sabotage her dates every time she went out with someone?

  emanomaly: You still there?

  Panhead: Yeah. Sorry. So, if your ex was a jackass, why were you going out with him in the first place?

  emanomaly: I don't know. I was hoping he'd changed, that maybe we'd both grown up. He can be an arrogant ass, but he has a lot going for him, too. He's successful, smart, good-looking, and, like I said, I was in love with him once. And I was the one that screwed things up with him the first time by communicating and sharing stuff any sane person would never admit to. I guess I wanted a chance to redeem myself, to show him I wasn't flawed.

  Panhead: Do you still have feelings for him?

  emanomaly: No. Thank God. The whole engagement thing was a long time ago, and I'm definitely over him. It was worth putting up with him for a few weeks to make me see that. I think this time around I just liked the idea of him.

  Panhead: You're better off without him.

  emanomaly: Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that.

  Panhead: It sucks that it didn't work out, but you need to find someone who appreciates you.

  emanomaly: Easier said than done. Anyway, thanks for listening.

  Panhead: Anytime.

  emanomaly: It's so weird, the online thing. It really is sort of like a confessional. I feel safer talking to you than I would even to a close friend. I can tell you anything because you don't know my identity and I don't know yours.

  Jay's breath caught on a particularly sharp pang of guilt.

  Panhead: Yeah. I know what you mean.

  emanomaly: Just be careful who you chat with from the dev website, especially if you think about hooking up with someone. It's easy to get burned.

  Panhead: You're probably the only one from the site I'll ever talk to.

  emanomaly: Why?

  Panhead: No one else has caught my interest.

  emanomaly: Wow. Thanks . . . I think. You know nothing can come of our little chats, though, right? It'll never go beyond this.

  Panhead: Sure. But maybe I need someone to confess to sometimes, too.

  emanomaly: Anytime. :) TTYL.

  Panhead: TTYL.

  Jay closed his laptop and sat back in his chair, raking his hands through his hair. “I'm a bastard,” he said to his empty bedroom.

  Even so, he had no intention of stopping his enlightening conversations with emanomaly.

  Chapter 13

  It was the third night in a row Jay couldn't sleep. He was sitting in the living room, crammed into the corner of the couch because Chopper was sprawled by his side hogging the rest of it. Jay was flipping through channels, trying to ignore the annoying, uncontrollable jiggling of his legs and the pins-and-needles pain in his back.

  The chronic pain, at the site where his back broke, had been a bitch lately. It was probably the reason he was having this bout of spasticity in his legs, but he refused to take medication for any of it—the pain or the spasticity. He hated how the meds made him feel, all loopy and fatigued. Plus, he knew of too many people with spinal cord injuries who got addicted to pain meds. He didn't need to add drug addiction to the list of shit he had to contend with.

  Constant, unresolvable pain was common with SCI—sometimes at the site of injury, and sometimes, ironically, below the level of injury where there was no other sensation. His pain was usually manageable, though, and he'd learned to live with it. Part of that meant taking care of himself—eating right and doing a regular workout, which included passive range-of-motion exercises and stretches for his legs.

  He didn't know if staying active was why he wasn't plagued with severe spasticity like some people with SCI or if he was just lucky. Either way, he figured tonight's jiggles were because his body was trying to tell him something was wrong, since spasticity could sometimes be an alarm system to warn of something haywire in the part of his body he couldn't feel (or, in the case of his back, where he could feel).

  If that was the case, he wished his body would shut up.

  There were no simple causes he could think of for why his back kept hurting so bad, and he knew anything a doctor would say couldn't be good. He was afraid he needed surgery, that something had gone haywire with the hardware pinning together his crushed vertebrae, and just the possibility of being in a hospital again, of going through weeks—maybe months—of recovery, made his gut clench and put him in a bad mood.

  But those worries vanished when Erin crutched out of the darkness of the hallway into the dim living room, wearing a tight purplish blue tank top and drawstring pajama shorts with flowers all over them. At the sight of her, his heart started doing a weird, jerky mating dance.

  Her petite body was perfection: nicely rounded breasts, flat stomach, tight ass, sexy thighs, and slim calves—at least the one calf he could see. She was in a removable Aircast boot now that went up to her knee.

  Her ankle was slowly but surely healing. Recently, Jay had noticed her putting some weight on it, but she was still supposed to use her crutches for another couple of week
s. He'd squeezed that much out of Erin in one of his rare exchanges with her, outside of his stolen chats with emanomaly.

  She paused on her way to the kitchen when she saw Jay, transferred both crutches to one hand, and reached over the back of the couch to affectionately pet Chopper's ghoulish head. He lazily wagged his tail, and Erin smiled. It never failed to amaze Jay that this woman who couldn't weigh more than a buck oh five was absolutely fearless of a dog that made even his brother, the war-hardened soldier, wary.

  “What are you doing up?” she asked Jay, still scratching between Chopper's ears. “It's almost three in the morning.” Her eyes traveled to Jay's jiggling legs, but she didn't comment.

  Not wanting to sound like an old lady griping about her health problems, Jay steered the subject away from himself. “I could ask you the same thing, darlin'.”

  She hadn't corrected him lately when he called her that. He wondered if she'd just given up or if she'd grown to like it.

  With a shrug, she said, “I'm usually up this late. It's hard to break years of bar hours. Lots of late nights with work and the band, you know?”

  Jay nodded.

  She inclined her head toward the kitchen. “I'm going to make some chamomile tea. Want some?”

  “Thanks, but I'm good.”

  The living room was dim except for the blue glow from the large flatscreen TV, and the hazel of her eyes looked darker than usual. She studied him for a moment. “You seem tense. The tea would help you relax.”

  It would also take him off his bladder routine. He was careful about when and how much liquid he drank so he could predict when to stick a catheter up his dick to make himself pee. He couldn't feel when he needed to take a piss, so being on a regular eating and drinking schedule helped avoid embarrassing accidents. Drinking tea at three in the morning wasn't part of the program.

  “That's okay,” he repeated. “I'm good.”

  She nodded, placed her crutches back under her arms with the deftness of someone who'd been using them for two and a half months, and hobbled toward the kitchen. Several minutes later, she was back with a faded ceramic Starbucks mug in one hand and only one crutch, gingerly limping on her booted ankle. “Here,” she said, handing her crutch to Jay.

  With a raised brow at her bossiness, he took it and reached over the arm of the couch to set it on the floor.

  “Thanks,” she said, one corner of her mouth curved as if she might be amused. She shoved Chopper's rump over and made a place for herself at the opposite end of the couch from Jay, curling her good leg underneath her and letting her booted foot rest on the floor. She held her tea mug with both hands, as if relishing its warmth.

  Jay was surprised she was deigning to hang out with him. She usually couldn't get away from him fast enough. His surprise must have shown on his face.

  “TV's broken in my room,” she reminded him. “I have a crick in my neck from being on my computer, and I don't feel like reading.”

  He wondered if she'd been working on her novel and was curious again about what she was writing, but he couldn't ask. That was something Panhead knew, not Jay. He would have to remember to ask her about it the next time he chatted with her online.

  Chopper rearranged himself so that his chin was resting on Erin's thigh. She looked down at him, giving him another scratch between the ears. He gave her a perfect puppy-dog look under lowered doggy brows, and she smiled. “You're such a flirt.”

  Chopper let out a contented sigh.

  “What are you watching?” she asked Jay.

  “Nothing, really,” he said, tossing the remote onto the coffee table. “A billion channels, and there's never anything on.”

  “Not even Cheaters?”

  “Now there's some titillating TV,” Jay said wryly.

  Her eyebrows disappeared up into her bangs. “'Titillating'?”

  “Great word.” He made an effort to smile, despite the foul mood he was in. “It has the word 'tit' in it.”

  She snickered quietly, and her almost-dimples showed before she hid her face behind her mug, taking a sip of the steaming tea. It was a shy, guileless move that was endearing and alluring.

  Jay's breath caught for an instant, and he forgot about the pain in his back until it spiked again with a vengeance, radiating into his shoulders and neck. He winced and pressed his palms into the sofa, shifting his position. It didn't help. He drew in a deep breath, trying to ride out the pain.

  Erin's brows lowered in concern. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he managed, trying to keep his voice normal.

  “It sucks,” she said, as she set her mug on the coffee table.

  Jay closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose. “What sucks?”

  “The pain. I know it's common for people with SCI to have chronic pain. Are you hurting?”

  He hated ever admitting a weakness, so he didn't answer. Instead, he stared at the TV without really seeing it and tried hard to force himself to relax, but he couldn't. Instead, he got more tense, which caused the pain to escalate. It was a vicious cycle.

  Erin was quiet, but he could feel her staring at him.

  “I'm fine,” he insisted. “I don't need your pity.” His voice came out harsher than he intended.

  “It's not pity,” she said softly.

  He glared at her then, suddenly furious that he had to live with this constant pain and so fucking sick of living with paraplegia in general. Why did half his body feel nothing at all and the other half hurt like hell? He didn't often feel sorry for himself, but right now he was exhausted from lack of sleep and the incessant aching. “What?” he snapped. “Is the thought that I'm hurting making you horny?”

  He regretted it as soon as he said it.

  She looked down, hunching her shoulders, but not before he saw the anger and hurt that flashed across her features.

  Hating himself for being such a dick, he said, “I'm sorry.” He'd never been more sincere, but he knew it was lame. He'd probably just undone any meager progress he'd made with her. “You didn't deserve that, Erin. I'm an ass.” He scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration, feeling the rasp of three days' worth of stubble as his fingers rubbed along his jaw.

  A long, heavy minute of silence ticked by, and when Erin got up from the couch, Jay figured she was pissed and was heading back to her room. Instead, she pushed on Chopper's rump, trying to get him to budge. “Scoot over, you brute,” she murmured with a grunt.

  Chopper complied, turning his large body in awkward circles and sniffing until he'd flattened the couch cushions to his liking. Then he curled up in the warm place Erin had vacated. There was now a small space between Chopper and Jay, and, to Jay's surprise, Erin sat down next to him and faced him.

  She took one of Jay's hands in both of her small ones, sending an electric charge humming along his skin. She started massaging, kneading his palm and emphasizing certain pressure points. Jay had no idea why she was doing it, especially not after the insult he'd just dealt her, but he sure as hell wasn't about to tell her to stop.

  Her touch began to soothe him. He rested his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes, focusing on breathing and the sensation of Erin's slender fingers on his skin. His back still hurt, but the tension in his muscles was slowly releasing, relieving some of the pain.

  In her dusky little-girl voice, she said, “Thanks.”

  He wasn't expecting that. Why the hell would she be thanking him? He opened his eyes and slid his gaze toward her. All he could see was the crown of her dark head bent over his hand. “For what?” he asked.

  Not wavering on the massage, she lifted her head up and looked at him. The corners of her mouth were curved almost sheepishly. “For picking me up the other night. And for not giving me the third degree about Trynt.”

  Jay closed his eyes again. “I wanted to.”

  “Wanted to what? Pick me up or give me the third degree?”

  “Both.”

  She paused. He looked at her, but she averted he
r eyes. Picking up where she left off, she pressed on a particularly sensitive spot just under his thumb.

  “That feels . . . good,” he said, his voice going husky. It was a little scary, how much he needed her touch. He was soaking her in like a dry sponge.

  Again, she raised her eyes to his. “Is it helping?”

  “Yeah.” It was the most soothing thing he'd felt in a very, very long time.

  “I could massage your back, if you think that would help more.”

  “Maybe in a minute.” His pain was ebbing to a more tolerable ache, and he could finally feel himself getting drowsy. “Why are you being so nice to me after what I said to you?”

  She sniffed in a self-deprecating manner. “I don't know.” She didn't offer anything more, and Jay didn't push it.

  Instead he closed his eyes and went back to the subject of Trynt. “That douchebag doesn't seem like your type.”

  He could feel Erin shrug. “He was my type at one time,” she said.

  “But not now?” Jay tried to sound neutral and not let anything slip out that would let her know he already knew more than he should.

  “No. Not now.”

  “Seemed like things were getting ugly when I drove up.”

  She exhaled. “You saw?”

  “Yeah. I saw him gripping your arms and shaking you.”

  She was quiet. Jay opened his eyes and tried to catch her gaze, but she was intent on massaging his hand. “Has he been rough with you before, Erin?” He tried to keep any judgment from his tone and reined in the fury he felt at the memory of seeing her manhandled.

  She stopped massaging his hand for a second. “Now you're giving me the third degree.”

  “Sorry. Can't blame me for being curious.”

  She shrugged and bent over his hand again. “He never hit me or anything,” she replied, “but sometimes he could be . . . intense. We have a long history. We were engaged once.”