Okay, enough of this. Alison pushed Emma’s hands away and dug her own fingers into the spasming muscle of Emma’s thigh. She’d never admit this, but several years ago she’d taken a deep-tissue massage class for a so-called healthy sexual relationship with an old boyfriend. He’d turned out to be a dick, so he’d not gotten any use out of the class. But Ryan sure had . . . Well, until she’d chased him off.
Emma groaned in pain but Alison didn’t stop. “Don’t hold your breath. Inhale for four.” Alison inhaled slowly and deeply as an example, all while keeping at the spasming muscles. “Now exhale for four,” she demanded.
Emma did. “Jesus,” she gasped.
“Again,” Alison ordered and kept working the muscles until finally, she felt them start to give.
“I feel like we’re having a baby together,” Emma managed.
“Bite your tongue.” Alison watched Emma’s face as she slowly used less pressure, then backed off entirely. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Alison helped her sit up. “How often does this happen?”
Emma shrugged and absently patted Hog, who was trying to crawl into her lap. “It doesn’t matter. It’s better than being in a coma, right?”
Alison knew she was kidding, but she couldn’t smile. “That must have been . . .” She shook her head, unable to imagine. “Awful. Do you remember any of it?”
“Look,” Emma said, slowly getting to her feet. “Thank you. Really. You’ve got magical hands. But I don’t want to talk about it.”
Alison was hands on hips, scrutinizing Emma, who was shaking, damp with sweat, and clearly still in pain. “You need another surgical procedure and your insurance won’t pay? You can’t take that lying down.”
“My surgeon’s resubmitting for approval. It’s just a waiting game.”
“So if you get approval, you can have the surgery.”
“Eventually, yes,” Emma said. “But it took me four months just to get on the surgeon’s surgery calendar. When we had to postpone because the insurance didn’t approve, I lost that slot, and this time they won’t put me back on the calendar until I get the approval. When that happens, I go to the back of the line again for a surgery date. No idea how long the wait’ll be.”
Alison shook her head in disgust. “That sucks. If you need anything . . .”
Emma snorted. “Yeah? What would you do?”
“I’d start with calling your insurance to tell them where to shove their approval.”
“Okay, I’m definitely going to be our customer liaison here at Paw Pals.”
Alison stilled, afraid to joke about this. “So . . . you’re interested?”
There was an arrested silence, and then . . . Hog farted audibly, amplified by the concrete floor and the fact he was sitting on it. At the sound, he leapt up and craned his neck to stare at his hind end in surprise. This was followed by two more toots, then an odor that had Alison’s eyes watering. “Dear God.”
Meanwhile Hog was trying to walk away from his own ass, the whites of his eyes showing, clearly afraid of his own butt. Emma caught him and hugged the big silly lug. “You’re crazy, you know that, right?”
It took Alison a minute to realize Emma was actually talking to her, not Hog.
“We’ll never work, Alison,” she said. “We’re too different.”
“Maybe that’s what would make us work.”
Emma buried her face in Hog’s neck. Which . . . gross, but not Alison’s problem.
“I’m really done having friends,” Emma said quietly.
Once again, Alison tried not to let that penetrate, but it did. “Just partners then,” she said back just as quietly.
Emma nodded. “That’s a little easier to fathom.”
Alison knew the truth always hurt, but man. She was so awful that the girl who, at least in high school, could literally befriend anyone thought that being Alison’s friend was impossible. She drew a deep breath. “Personal feelings aside, you have to know that you being the face of this thing and me being the back end just makes good business sense.”
Emma nodded and turned away to look out the window. At first it appeared to just be a delay tactic, one Alison had used plenty of times herself. But then she realized that something had caught Emma’s attention. A man. He was walking past the big picture window. Maybe fortyish, alone, and at the sight of Emma watching him, he stopped short and stared right back.
At the sudden eye contact, they both immediately looked away from each other. After an awkward beat, the man resumed walking, vanishing out of view.
Emma moved closer to the window, practically pressing her nose against the glass.
“Who’s the guy?” Alison asked.
No response.
Alison frowned and moved closer. “You okay?”
Emma sucked in a breath. “Great.”
“Wow, that was so believable.”
Emma closed her eyes. “Please stop. I can’t handle your . . . Ali-ness right now.”
Alison opened her mouth, then took a breath because she might actually deserve that. “I was being sincere.”
Emma thunked her head on the window. “His name is Jack Swanson. And I haven’t seen him since . . . since.”
Alison took in Emma’s stricken gaze. “Since . . . ?”
Emma gestured to the length of her own body.
“Since you got hot?”
Emma raised a brow.
“Well, you were kinda scrawny in high school.”
Emma let out a rough laugh. “Since the accident. He . . . was driving the first car.”
Oh shit. He was the guy who’d hit her. And what was Alison supposed to say to that? She searched her brain, sifting through her research on making and keeping relationships, but her mind had gone blank. Saying I’m sorry he almost killed you seemed woefully inadequate. “What can I do?”
“Nothing.” Emma rubbed the spot between her eyes. “It just shook me for a second, seeing him, that’s all.”
“For good reason.”
Emma shook her head. “It’s not what you think. I just . . . for a second I felt the weight of his loss.”
“His loss? Are you kidding me? He seemed just fine. Meanwhile you’re still waiting on procedures.”
Emma turned her head and bowled Alison over with the amount of sheer emotion on her face. Alison assumed it was anger, until Emma spoke again.
“I stepped off the curb right in front of him. He didn’t see the stop sign. He tried to swerve to avoid me but couldn’t. He clipped me and then spun directly into oncoming traffic, and a car hit them head-on. His wife died on impact.”
Ah, so not anger. Guilt. “You blame yourself for her death.”
“I already saw a therapist for six months, thanks. But of course I blame myself. I set everything in motion.”
“By stepping off a curb at a crosswalk where you had the right of way?”
“You don’t understand.” Emma turned away. “His wife died.”
“You nearly died too.”
“But I didn’t,” she said very softly, a few tears escaping to trail down her cheeks that Alison knew Emma hadn’t even realized she’d shed.