“Hello, did you not hear my item number two?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Go for it. And you know what? I bet you two become good friends.”
“Well, let’s not go overboard.”
Chapter 8
Step 8: Connect.
That night, Emma stood outside her apartment door, staring up the stairs to the attic. Might as well have been Mount Everest. She’d spent way too much time on her laptop today. Simon had told her from day one that sitting was death. He’d been correct, of course. She felt like a creaky skeleton. She needed to move.
But the stairs, the steep stairs, mocked her. The old Emma would have run up, no problem. Emma 2.0 wanted a nap. She sighed, but didn’t walk away. She was going to do this. It was about pride now. She needed the sense of empowerment, and sitting on the roof watching the stars would go a long way toward soothing her aching bones and her equally aching soul. Determined, she pointed at the stairs. “I’m coming for you.”
At her side, Hog huffed out a breath. St. Bernards needed daily exercise to keep their energy from turning destructive, but no one had ever told Hog that. “You do realize that someday, I am going to be back to running,” she said. Maybe . . .
He plopped onto his belly and closed his eyes. Denial was his friend. Hers too. But she’d had enough of it. “Come on, big guy. Get up.”
Hog gave a loud snore.
“You’re faking.”
He farted.
Emma sighed and fanned the air. “If you do this, I’ll make you scrambled eggs after.”
At the mention of his favorite, he opened one chocolate brown eye to gauge her honesty. She nodded.
With a grunt, he leapt up with surprising dexterity, making her laugh. “I think that’s the fastest I’ve ever seen you move.” She eyed the stairs again. “Okay, here we go.” She held on to the handrail. “Yep. Totally doing this.” Drawing a deep breath, she began. “One . . .” She was already exhausted. Like to-the-bone exhausted. She’d given up on job hunting and had turned her focus to acquiring Paw Pals. She’d created a business plan. She knew what she needed in the way of start-up funds. She’d applied for a business loan. And . . . she’d been turned down for a business loan. Refusing to let that get to her, she was already working on another application for a different bank, as well as filling out the lease paperwork Armstrong Properties had sent to her. She’d gotten stuck on the line requiring her to fill in her current source of income.
Simon had done a lot for her, but not even he could produce that, so she really needed to get to the roof and feel some sense of accomplishment, had to know that in spite of so much being out of her control, she’d be okay simply because she was breathing.
And not thanks to a ventilator.
At her side, Hog nudged her hand with his big, warm head, then licked her palm. She bent and hugged him. “You’re right. We’ve got this.” He licked her cheek in agreement. They had this.
Straightening, they kept going. At the halfway point, Emma was more than a little wobbly, but she forged on because she wanted to watch the stars, dammit. She wanted . . . well, what she also wanted was a little embarrassing.
She wanted Simon to be there.
At the landing, Hog dropped to the floor dramatically, panting like he’d just run a marathon. If Emma had the air left to laugh, she would have. Instead, she bent over at the knees and gasped for breath too. “Man, we’re so out of shape.”
Hog sent her a baleful look.
“Yes, both of us.” The coma had taken a lot from her, including her endurance. Simon kept promising she’d get it back, but when? “One more flight to go.” And with that, she drew a deep breath and started, Hog reluctantly at her side, her ever faithful wingman.
Even if he was only in it for the scrambled eggs.
Still, it felt like the very definition of love. Hog had no desire to get back into shape. Zero. None. But because she did, he was along for the ride, no questions asked.
If only the humans in her life had been half as kind.
There’d been more than a few nights over the past year when she’d let herself, in the deep dark of the night, mourn for what she’d lost. Her jobs, her livelihood. Her best friend. The man she’d thought she loved. No matter how much she pretended not to care, she did care.
She’d done her best to lift her chin and carry on, not to mention move on, but sometimes late at night the loneliness got to her. Not enough to want either of the exes squared back in her life, hell no. Life was too short. But enough to sometimes—only sometimes—question her no-more-relationships rule.
Ignoring the trembling in her limbs, Emma kept going. Halfway up the last set of stairs, she tripped. With a gasp, she just managed to catch herself from taking a header.
Hog whined and nudged her shaking thigh with his head.
“I’m okay, buddy.” Still breathing too fast, she clung to the rail and lowered herself to sit. How she’d done this before, she had zero idea.
Hog climbed into her lap. With a rough laugh that might have been almost tears, she dropped her sweaty face into the thick fur at his neck. Then she heard someone on the stairs below her and froze. A drop of sweat slid between her breasts, from exertion and now also nerves because she felt too exposed for public consumption.
And yep, those were definitely footsteps. She hadn’t met any of her neighbors yet, but suddenly she wanted it to be anyone but Simon . . .
“Here. Sip this.”
So of course it was him. Emma opened her eyes to find him holding out a smoothie. A green smoothie. She was not a fan of green, and he knew this.
“Tastes like bananas,” he coaxed. “You like bananas.”
She raised a brow. “You think drinking this is going to get me up the rest of these stairs?”
“No, I think your bad attitude is going to get you up the stairs. But the protein shake is definitely going to help.”
“Again, it’s green.”
“Green is delicious.”
“Sure, if it’s Apple Jacks.” She shook her head. “I feel like a gentleman would offer to carry me the rest of the way.”
He gave her a considering look. “I’m either Hard-Ass PT or a gentleman, which is it going to be?”
The old Emma wanted Simon the gentleman because she really wasn’t all that sure she could make it the rest of the way herself. Plus, she wouldn’t mind having his hands on her outside of PT . . . No, wait. That was Emma 2.0 talking. “Can’t I have both?”
He laughed. Then he got a better look at her face and his smile faded. Holding on to the smoothie himself, he passed her on by, stopping at the door at the top, where he once again held out the smoothie.
“Well, now you’re too far away,” she said.
“Did I mention I put peanut butter and a dab of chocolate in here?” He took a dramatic sip so that it left a liquid mustache. A green mustache. “Mmm.” He slowly licked his lips. “Delicious.”
“That’s just mean.”
He took another sip. “Sure hope you make it up here before it gets all melty.”
Her mouth was actually watering, the bastard. She counted how many stairs were left. Eight. She pushed herself up and tackled half of them before having to stop and gasp for breath.