Free That Thing Between Eli and Gwen by J. J. McAvoy Page B

happened to 'do no harm'?”
    “Sorry, just checking to see if you tore anything.” He shrugged, a small smirk on his lips betraying the lie. “You're going to need to ice this first,” he muttered to himself, taking out a large, square instant ice pack. “After the swelling goes down, I’ll compress it. Hand me that pillow.”
    Reaching over, I handed him the navy pillow.
    He put it under my leg. “Is there some possible way you could mange to keep still for about twenty minutes? I know it might be hard, but—”
    “I don’t know, Dr. Davenport. I am five years old.” I rolled my eyes, shifting my foot again when he left it on the pillow and walked around the couch. “Thank you,” I muttered.
    “What was that?” he pressed, even though I was sure he had heard me.
    This man is trying to annoy me to death. “I said thank you!” I shouted.
    “Okay, jeez, no need to yell.”
    Shifting, I turned to look back at him.
    He gave me a blank look, holding up a bottle of beer and waving it. “Want some? I also have Coke, and—”
    “Do you have vanilla ice cream?” I sounded so excited, I could tell he was fighting back a comment.
    “Sadly, I hate vanilla, so that would be a no.”
    “How do you hate vanilla? It’s the cornerstone of ice cream.”
    “No, that would be chocolate. So, are you saying no to the beer then?”
    He was being too nice. “Does it come with a catch?”
    “Tell me what happened?”
    “No, thank you, I’m fine.” I faced front again, where he, like all guys I knew, had a massive television hanging on the wall.
    “Suit yourself.” He took a seat beside me, popping off the cap and flicking on the TV to a man trying to walk across a tightrope between two mountains.
    I turned, not looking at the screen.
    “What?”
    “Nothing?”
    “Why are you looking at me, then?”
    “Sorry.” I shifted, staring up at the clock.
    “Are you afraid of heights? It’s so bad you can’t even look at it?”
    “No.”
    “All right. Right now, he’s about 180 feet off the ground—”
    “I have a fear of heights.”
    “Seriously?”
    I glared at him.
    He changed the channel to Animal Planet.
    “Better?” he asked, nodding to the sea turtles.
    “Much.”
    “So demanding,” he muttered, drinking his beer.
    We were silent for a while, watching the turtles swim slowly across the bottom of the sea. The silence, and him comfortably drinking without me, made me sing like a canary.
    “I hurt my ankle running away from a restaurant. I thought I saw Bash—Sebastian and Hannah together, so I tried to leave, but knocked over a waiter who spilled ice cream on me.” I sighed.
    He didn’t say anything, just rested back against the couch and handed me his beer. “But it wasn’t them, right? He and Hann—they weren’t on a date?” he asked softly, watching the sea turtles on the screen.
    “No, I was wrong, which made me feel like even more of an idiot, so I just limped my pitiful self back home and took a shower. That’s my story.” I handed the bottle back to him.
    He took a long sip, and then stared at the bottle. “I actually saw her today. It wasn’t a mistake; she was really there. She’s been at the hospital for a week, and I didn’t know. When I saw her, I almost had a panic attack in the elevator. So, which one of us is actually more pitiful?”
    “What would you say to her if you came face to face with her? I’ve thought about it so many times, that big confrontation. That moment where I could just walk up to him and tell him how badly he hurt me, how…how I felt.”
    He drank again. “Hi.”
    “What? You'd just say hi?”
    “Yes.” He nodded. “Telling her I was hurt or showing anger just means I still care. It means in some way, I’m still connected to her. That’s why I want to just say hi, not like nothing happened, but like it is so far removed from my current reality that it no longer matters.” He looked proud of that thought, but the pride faded from his eyes. “I