Free Never Say Never by Emily Goodwin

“Your spurs are upside down.”
    He looks down at his feet. “Really?”
    I nod. “Yeah.” The spurs are long and sliver, with a gold wheel at the end. They’re the kind of spurs I hate, the kind that border on abusive. Oh, Hollywood…do some fucking research once in a while instead of going with what looks good.
    “Thanks,” he says, and he lifts his foot up for a better look. “How can you tell?”
    I laugh. “I don’t know how you can not tell.”
    The woman puts her phone in her purse and comes over. “What are you doing, Aiden? You have to get back. You need off your ankle.” Her eyes flick to me, full of judgment. It confuses me for a millisecond, then I remember what I’m wearing. I guess I can’t blame her. I look like the typical Hollywood fangirl whore.
    “The spurs are upside down,” he tells her. The woman looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “Haley told me.”
    Her eyes move back to mine and she purses her lips. “And you’re taking her advice because…?”
    “Because she knows horses,” he says.
    “Wait, you’re Haley ?” the woman asks like she knows me. I just nod, unsure of exactly what’s going on. “Oh, oh! Haley, the reporter.”
    “That’s me.”
    She flashes Aiden a look that says, You better behave , and leaves, telling him she’s going to get the car.
    “Your hands,” he says suddenly. “You should go see someone about it.” He beckons to the ER. We are still in the vestibule, the little covered section that closes us off from the night but keeps us from the actual waiting room.
    “No,” I say. I am just scraped up, and even if it’s bad, I’m only going to the ER if it’s life or death. I’m still paying off my medical bills from the fire. “Really, just some soap and water is good enough.”
    He takes a step forward and the interior doors slide open. The attendant behind the desk is watching us. Thank God for HIPAA laws.
    “You don’t have to come with me,” I say, and a bit of hurt flashes over his face. “I mean, you should be resting, right? You probably have a lot of filming to do.”
    He shrugs. “You know I had three broken fingers for the first half of shooting the last season of Shadowland , right?”
    My curls sway around my face when I shake my head. “No, I didn’t know that. You couldn’t tell at all.”
    He smiles, and I’m a goner when he does. “That’s a compliment.”
    We walk in silence through the waiting room, and he leans against a wall when I go into the bathroom. The cuts burn as I rub soap over them, picking out the little pieces of gravel from under my skin. I like the pain. It reminds me that I’m alive.
    I should feel excited that Aiden Shepherd is waiting outside the bathroom for me. I should be obsessively fixing my hair and cleaning up the smudges of eyeliner on my face from crying.
    But I don’t. I’m hollow inside, my heart a pile of ash in an empty cavity in my chest.
    I press a paper towel to my palms, holding it there for a few seconds before tossing it in the trash and leaving the bathroom. Aiden is still waiting for me. He’s on his phone, smiling at whatever he’s typing. The door swings shut behind me and he looks up.
    “Better?”
    “I think so.” I hold my hands for him to see. “Not so bad, right?”
    He puts his phone in his back pocket and I distantly wonder how it fits. Those jeans are tight. His fingers sweep over the back of my hand.
    “Yep. Better.”
    “So,” I start. “How did you hurt your ankle?”
    He laughs and looks a little embarrassed. “I, uh, fell off the horse I was riding.”
    “Oh. I’ve fallen plenty of times.”
    He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, but you’ve ridden more than me, so it’s not as bad.”
    “Hey, everyone falls.” Then I’m hit with another wave of sadness. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m a walking disaster. “You just get back on.” My voice is small, and my eyes fall to the floor.
    “Yeah, thanks. Hey,” he says quickly, and I look back