Tessa: Take your shirt off and do it, Mason. Expand your horizons, I dare you.
Andrew: If you’re trying to get me naked, it won’t work. I recognize the signs. Women try to get me naked all the time.
Tessa: They’re calling me again, gotta go.
Tessa: Can I ask you something?
Andrew: Does this mean the casting call is over?
Tessa: Yes. I’m dressed and everything. I still have a question.
Andrew: Okay.
Tessa: I was bored, and I was Googling things. My question is kind of personal. Okay, it’s very personal.
Andrew: Oh, God, here it comes.
Tessa: What?
Andrew: You’re going to ask about sex.
Tessa: Wait, what? People ask you about that?
Andrew: It’s the number one thing people are curious about. You see why I don’t leave the house.
Tessa: What is wrong with people? That is so fucking rude.
Andrew: Are you going to try and tell me that wasn’t your question?
Tessa: No, it totally was my question. But we’re friends. I gave you a Hi cake. I slept in your bed. You’ve seen me in my underwear!
Andrew: Fine. I’ll fill you in. Some people with spinal injuries have it worse than I do. My legs and feet don’t work, but I can take a shit by myself, I can do anything that doesn’t involve walking, and I can fuck. Does that satisfy your curiosity?
Tessa: A little excessively, but yes. So you have girlfriends?
Andrew: Sure, women flock to me. Seriously, Tessa, what do you think?
Tessa: I think you need work. Luckily you have me to take you on.
Andrew: Don’t you have an interview to go to?
Thirteen
Andrew
* * *
It didn’t seem possible, but for the next few days Tessa and I settled into a sort of routine. During the day, I did my thing while she ran errands or tried to get auditions. She got the bartending job, so she’d go to the bar from four until midnight. When she was done her shift, she’d come back to my house to mooch my air conditioning and sleep in my bed.
Without me, of course. I slept on the sofa.
We’d argued about it long and hard. I wanted to be a gentleman and give her the bed. Tessa didn’t want to make a guy in a wheelchair sleep on the sofa. Both of us felt like an asshole, and neither of us wanted to give in. But I pulled rank in the end because it was my house, so I gave her the bed and took the couch.
It didn’t matter much to me. My sofa was actually pretty comfortable. That wasn’t what was pissing me off.
What was pissing me off was that I’d been stupid. I’d broken my own rule. I’d let Tessa in. And now I wanted her there.
I liked her there all the time, no matter what she was doing. Even when she was invading my bathroom or drinking the soda in my fridge. Sometimes she hung out with me quietly while I drew, reading back issues of Lightning Man comics and eating my snacks. Sometimes she talked, which in turn made me talk.