“And we can’t hate him, because we feel sorry for him,” Jan said. “Also, because he’s good-looking.”
Now my eyebrows rose even higher. “Good-looking?”
The women exchanged another look. “Google him, you’ll see,” Jan said. “My sixteen-year-old daughter saw him in person once, sitting on his porch. Her exact words were—and I quote—‘The legs don’t matter, Mom, because he’s total swoon.’”
I looked back and forth between the two women. “You’re saying that my neighbor across the street is rich, single, good-looking, in a wheelchair, and an asshole?” He sounded like he was very messed up. Messed-up people were the only kind of people who interested me, the only kind of people I understood. “Maybe I’ll pay him a visit.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” Amy shook her head. “He won’t answer the door. He hasn’t answered it in the seven years he’s lived here.”
She was probably right. But the idea stayed in my head as I drove to the nearest bars and restaurants, filling out applications. It stayed with me as every male manager I met let his eyes crawl up and down me like he had a right to it. It stayed with me as I sat in front of my laptop in my pajamas that evening, unable to sleep in the heat, looking up local modeling agencies who might find me some catalog work.
I got myself a bowl of fat-free ice cream from the freezer, peeking out the window on my way back to my grandmother’s sofa. The house across the street was dark except for a single light behind one of the blinds. Nothing moved.
Picking up my laptop again, I downed a bite of ice cream and opened my browser. I GoogledAndrew Mason Millwood Michigan.
The results came up right away. There were articles about the accident from local papers, because as Amy had said, Andrew Mason’s parents were well known in town. There was a photo of a handsome, smooth-cheeked teenager with dark hair, smiling at the camera with the captionAndrew Mason was known as a talented young man with a lifetime of success ahead of him.
Was. As if he was dead.
There was a photo of the accident site—a car smashed and twisted around a guardrail, so damaged I was amazed anyone had survived. I felt a little sick. The article said that the driver, Andrew’s friend, had died on impact.
My heart heavy, I scrolled to the next photo. It was one of those local-interest anniversary pieces:Five years on, accident still haunts the Mason family. The photo showed a man wheeling his chair out of the front doors of a hospital, his face angled away as if he wasn’t aware he was being photographed. He was dark-haired with a scruff of beard on his jaw—the same face from the teenaged photo, but this was a man’s face, one that knew hardship and sadness. His eyes were set under slashes of brows, his cheekbones sharp as blades. He was wearing a plaid button-down shirt over a muscled set of shoulders and a broad chest. He was deeply, darkly handsome and mysterious, tragic and giving off a vital energy at the same time.
The article said that Mason’s parents were divorcing, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
I stared at the picture for a long time, alone in my grandmother’s living room, eating my fat-free ice cream. I memorized his features, the line of his shoulders. And I decided for myself: This guy was fucking badass.
He was obviously very, very screwed up. Who wouldn’t be? Maybe he was almost as screwed up as me.
I wanted to meet him.
It wouldn’t be easy.
I started to form a plan.
FIVE
Andrew
I lived alone,but there was always someone in my house. Grocery delivery; cleaning service; pharmacy delivery; medical visits; landscaping. Even my therapist made house calls. The only good thing about my shitty life was that I had lots and lots of money, so I could make people come to me.
If I didn’t have to shop and clean, then what did I do all day? Here’s something they don’t tell you: when your legs don’t work, everything takes longer to do. Getting out of bed, taking a shower, dressing—that shit can take an hour and a half, easy. I had fitted one of the spare bedrooms into a workout room with weights, pulleys, and bars—that took an hour again, and I couldn’t skip it because my upper body strength was all I had.
Once I made a cup of coffee and fried an egg, it was halfway to noon. I powered up my monitors, my computer, my server, and got to work.
I could have opened my camera feeds and looked at the house across the street, but I didn’t. Tessa Hartigan and her lacy underwear were none of my business, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start creeping on her like the desperate asshole I was. There was no point to it. She’d never come over here, and I sure as hell would never go over there. End of story.
Today was physiotherapy day, and an hour later the doorbell buzzed. I turned on the security feed. Jon Chu was at my front door camera, wearing his scrubs and waving. I let him in.
“Hot out there!” he said as he walked in. “Supposed to be a heat wave coming.”
“Sure,” I said, still typing.
He tapped my shoulder. “Let’s get moving, Bubble Boy. I get paid by the hour.”
I pulled away from my computers, but I took my phone with me. I wheeled after Jon into my exercise room, where he unfolded the table he kept there and helped me on.
“Lower back today,” he said.