Crossing the Lines

Crossing the Lines

Neighborly Affection, Book Two

By M.Q. BARBER

LYRICAL PRESS

http://lyricalpress.com/

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/

1

Weaving through cubicle farmers streaming from white-collarville, Alice fished her buzzing phone from her pocket. “Hello?”

“Alice.” Henry,
telephoning
? “I hope I’m not disturbing your workday.”

She hustled to beat the crowd. “No, no, I’m done for the day.” Maybe a sweet Henry-surprise waited at home. “Headed to the T stop.” Not a handwritten note, or he wouldn’t be calling. “What’s up?”

“Jay was in a scrape this afternoon, and I didn’t wish you to worry in the event you came looking for us this evening.”

“Just a scrape?” Bullshit. They’d be at home. “Where are you?”

“Perhaps more than a scrape, but not so urgent as to demand immediate attention, apparently.” Detached. Rattled, for Henry. The clipped distance in his voice blazed a trail for her fears. “I expect we’ll be at the hospital a while yet.”

No wonder he’d risked disturbing her at work.

“Which one?” She elbowed through the churning sea of laptop bags and bulky winter coats.
Move, damn you.
“I’ll come wait with you.”

“Unnecessary, my dear. Jay is rather short-tempered at the moment, as you might expect. Too much waiting, and no pain medication until they receive the results from the scan. But I will keep you informed.”

“They’re worried about concussion? What happened? Is that his only injury?” She couldn’t get the questions out fast enough.

“A delivery-truck driver opened a door into traffic at the wrong moment and clipped his bike. I believe once properly medicated, he’ll be ecstatic with the scar he can expect on his right leg, though the wrist will be a problem, as it’s his dominant hand. They’re calling the damage a sprain for now. They’ve taken X-rays to be certain he hasn’t broken any carpal bones. He’s a bit bruised, of course, though that will worsen tomorrow. His nose is already a ghastly shade.”

Jesus. Jay rode through the streets at maniac speeds. Body slamming a door equaled rapid deceleration, redirected momentum,
fuck
.

She needed to see him. Tonight. She’d never sleep otherwise. If Henry didn’t consider her family enough to join them in the emergency room, fine. “You’ll both be exhausted by the time you get home. It’ll go easier if you have dinner waiting and a hand getting him situated for the night.”

God, she’d gotten fucking sick of eating neighbors’ casseroles in the weeks after Dad’s accident. The same damn nightmare every day. Walk her little sister home from school. Fix dinner. Supervise homework. Wait for Mom to stumble in from the hospital with her broken smile. “Two people wrangling one doped-up injured person is a lot easier than one.”

Her phone dug into her hand. Too blunt and pushy. She’d assumed a place in their lives she didn’t warrant.

He sighed, and his voice lost its Henry-ness. He sounded tired. “That would be lovely, Alice. I would…greatly appreciate your assistance, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. We’re friends.” He couldn’t argue with such a safe statement of fact.

“I’ll call the super and instruct him to let you into the apartment, my dear. Make use of whatever you like.” His voice regained its brisk control. “I’ll inform you when we’re on our way.”

“Call me if you need anything else. I can get to the hospital if you need me.” If he’d let her.

They hung up on goodbyes, and she caught the train. The lumbering journey of creaks and groans and passengers nursing winter colds differed little from the hard seats and anxious undercurrents of a hospital waiting room. She resisted the urge to call. He had his hands full with Jay. Pestering wouldn’t help.

She grabbed her mail before knocking on the super’s door. An older widower, from the ring on his finger. On the handful of occasions they’d met, he’d been unfailingly courteous.

“Hi, Mr. Nagel.”

“3B. Miss Colvin. You’re here about the key for Mr. Webb’s apartment? He called a bit ago.”

“You got it. I’m giving Henry a hand with dinner tonight. I just need to get into the apartment.”

Mr. Nagel gestured her toward the stairs. “Yes, he mentioned young Mr. Kress had been injured. Nothing serious, I hope.”

She made small talk as they climbed the stairs and ventured down the hall, where Mr. Nagel unlocked the door and excused himself without a fuss. Fifteen minutes of poking around in the kitchen turned up the makings for a decent meal. She darted across the hall and changed into yoga pants and a long-sleeved tunic.

Fuck if she’d serve a lackluster casserole. Assuming the men came home. Maybe the hospital would keep Jay overnight for concussion monitoring.

Henry’s pastry bag worked like a charm to pipe a cheese and Italian sausage filling into softened manicotti noodles. Measuring an equal amount for each tube took steady hands, a discerning eye and plenty of concentration.

Maybe Jay slumbered through surgery for nerve damage in his wrist.

She punched dough into shape for garlic bread. Her phone kept its silence on the counter. Maybe a superbug had infected Jay’s wounds and Henry sat digesting words like bacteria and amputation and mortality rate.

Mom had cried over those words.

The plastic wrap stuck to itself and tore three times before she got the pan into the fridge. The dough rose under a damp towel. A salad waited for last-minute dressing.

She wiped down the counters. Leaving Henry’s kitchen as clean as she’d found it would show him her respect. No calls yet. No car coming around the corner as she stood at the window and twisted the kitchen towel around her hand like a boxer’s tape. The constriction heightened the thump of her pulse rushing under her skin.

Henry’s hands would’ve felt better.

Settle the fuck down. He’ll call.

Anxious wandering deposited her outside Henry’s bedroom. Nary a wrinkle disturbed the bed. Clothes hung over the back of a chair, ready for a trip to the dry cleaner.

Three steps inside, she jerked to a halt. Trespasser.

No. She had every right to be in Henry’s bedroom. Every other Friday. Not on a Wednesday. Not when he wasn’t home.

The mattress welcomed her as an old friend. The pillow crooned a faint lullaby of dark leather and light citrus. Curling on her side, she hugged the pillow to her body and clutched her phone.

A tug pulled up the comforter with its gentle warmth, and she dozed in its embrace. The bread’s need for the oven prodded her from her nest. After straightening the sheets and replacing the pillow, she haunted the kitchen.

Her ringing phone jolted her.

8:47 p.m. “Is everything okay?”

“Hello, Alice. I apologize for the delay. They’re about to let Jay go. I expect we’ll arrive in half an hour or so. It will be…” A quiet sigh puffed from his end of the phone. “It will be very nice to be home. You were able to get in all right?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine here. Don’t worry. I’ll be waiting.”

“Yes. Thank you, Alice. We’ll see you soon.”

He ended the call, and she sprang into action, heating the oven and extracting dinner from the fridge.

* * * *

The doorknob rattled. She flicked off the burner under the extra sauce. Thirty-four minutes. Her rush came to a dead stop in front of the gaping door.

Jay’s huge doped-up eyes with a grotesquely swollen and discolored nose between killed her. He’d look full-on raccoon in the morning.

“Alice!” Left arm slung across Henry’s shoulder, Jay shuffled through the doorway. “I got doored. Wham! Fucking truck. You should’ve seen it.” He walked like an old man but babbled like a kid on a sugar high. “S’been years since I got doored. Like, at least two years.”

They must’ve given him something fantastic for the pain.
Please not Oxy.

“That’s a long time, Jay.” Was it? Who knew. An air cast gleamed white as exposed bone on his forearm. “Sorry the truck got in your way.”

His bright smile dropped into a mournful frown. “Weeks, Alice. They want me off the bike until the wrist heals.”

Dried blood spotted his cargo pants. He’d lost the shorts-converting bottom halves somewhere. “S’not fair. Stupid driver should hafta stay out of his truck for weeks. He’s the one who parked the wrong way.”

The gauze encasing the lower half of his right leg and dotting the left itched at her. She should be something. Moving. Doing. Anything.

“Is that marinara I smell, Alice?” Thank God for Henry.

“I raided your freezer.” She slid herself under Jay’s arm and helped Henry balance his weight between them. “Figured you’d rather defrosted homemade than stuff from a jar. Couch?”

“The couch first, yes. He’ll need to eat something. He’s had nothing since lunch, and the medication on an empty stomach has had a rather predictable effect.”

“Hey, I’m not pre—preda—predacable.”

Charming. He’d be a handful. “No, you’re totally
un
predictable now, which is why Henry wants you on the couch.”

“Couch is good,” Jay said. “Or bed. Bed is better. I like it when Henry wants me in bed.”

Hoo boy. Two handfuls. Her commiserating glance at Henry went unreturned as they lowered their patient to the couch. Jay’s casted hand ran over her breast as she disentangled herself, and his goofy grin suggested the move wasn’t clumsiness. “You’re sure they got his dosage right?”

Nodding, his face solemn and distracted, Henry stretched Jay’s legs along the cushions. The charcoal-gray fabric dipped, the couch more soft than supportive. A stiff accent pillow added a dot of dark mustard beneath Jay’s calf.

“He’s a lightweight for his size—with alcohol as well—and particularly susceptible to the euphoric effects of narcotics.” Henry straightened and offered a shadow of his usual smirk. “And, of course, he has no sense of boundaries. You’ll have to excuse him, I’m afraid. I doubt he even recalls that it’s Wednesday.”

Did he mean to say her presence confused Jay? Maybe her being here was improper on a day other than Friday. He’d had plenty of time to rethink his decision to let her help. The longer she stayed their sometime sex partner, the more she risked their friendship.