7
Noah
“Noah?”
The voice behind me as I stood under the portico at the hotel was hesitant but oddly familiar. I turned around to see a drop-dead gorgeous total babe approaching me from the direction of the lobby.
“Uh . . . Alison?” I croaked like a boy going through adolescence. “Hey. Um, wow. You look . . .” I gave a little cough to try to get my voice back under control. “Amazing.”
Her cheeks flushed a very pretty pink. “Thank you. You don’t look bad yourself. Actually, if I’m going for brutal honesty, you look a hell of a lot better than you did the last time I saw you.”
I grimaced. “Not hard to do. I was pretty wrecked that day.”
“Yeah, I know.” She glanced around us. “So you’re staying here, too?”
“There wasn’t a lot of choice. Emma said all of the out of town guests who weren’t being put up by people in Harper Spring were coming to this hotel. It was nice of them to spring for the shuttle.”
“Nice, yes. A good idea, absolutely.” Alison tilted her head. “Think about all the celebrating that’s going to happen tonight. Poor Anna and Jimmy might end up with a house full of unexpected guests who aren’t sober enough to drive back to the hotel if they didn’t have the shuttle option.”
“Good point,” I allowed. “It works for me, too. I haven’t been cleared for driving yet.”
“How did you get here from Tampa, then?” she inquired.
“Car service,” I admitted. “It was the easiest way to go.”
She fiddled with the clasp on her sparkly little purse. “I would have been happy to give you a ride, you know.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to make a suggestive reply to her remark, but I reined myself in. After all, Alison and I might have bonded during my time of pain and need, but she didn’t know me all that well. I didn’t want to scare her off.
“I appreciate the thought, but I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, the shuttle lumbered to a stop in front of us. The hotel doors slid open and a group of people came out, all of them chattering as they headed for the bus.
“Guess we’re not the only ones planning to get there early,” I observed. “We better get on board, or we might not get a seat.” I bent my arm and offered it to Alison. “Shall we?”
She grinned at me, and something frozen and nearly dead in my heart began to melt.
We found two seats together in the front of the vehicle. I stepped aside to allow Alison the inside seat.
“I don’t mind the aisle,” she said, hesitating.
I shook my head. “I need to keep my leg straight. It helps with the stiffness.”
“Ah. Okay.” She slipped around me and took her seat, watching as I settled myself down next to her.
“At the risk of bringing up a painful topic . . . howisyour knee?” She glanced at me. “I felt bad leaving you that day in the hospital, but I figured between your doctor arriving and things calming down in the ER, I’d only be in the way.” She tugged the hem of her short, sparkly dress down over her knee. “I did check on you before I left that day, though. They told me you were already in surgery.”
“Yeah, I don’t remember much after you left. Emma and Deacon arrived a few minutes later, I think, but I barely saw them before I was wheeled into the OR. And there’s no need to feel bad about leaving. I was out of it for quite a while.”
Alison nodded. “And now? I’m sure you’re sick of answering the question, but how’s recovery going?”
I hesitated. “It’s . . . slow. Dr. Taleb determined that I’d torn both my ACL and my MCL. He thought he’d be able to fix them during the initial surgery, but the damage was worse than he expected. Several tendons were, uh, ruptured. So we’re playing a sort of waiting game. I’m doing therapy, working just as much as they’ll let me, resting it when they tell me to.”
“Are you out for the season?” she asked quietly. “Or do you know that yet?”
“No one’s saying. The team doctor says it’s too early to make that determination. If it were a few games later in the year, I’d definitely be done.”
“But since it’s not, maybe you’ll still have a chance.” She offered me an encouraging smile.
