How to End a Love Story(24)

“I’m always around when you feel like?” he prompts.

“Like I’m not super awesome and successful and winning,” she finishes, pathetically. “Sometimes I do, you know.”

“Some people just bring out the wrong colors in each other,” he says.

Helen sighs and looks around.

“It is pretty,” she says, talking sideways now. “I didn’t think it was possible to see fall colors this close to LA.”

He’s game for the conversational U-turn from deeper emotional waters.

“There’s a few places for that,” he tells her. “There’s a botanical garden called Descanso that’s just twenty minutes away. I go there when I miss the East Coast.”

“Are you going back for the holidays?”

“This year I am,” he says. “Have to help my mom clear out my uncle’s house.”

“Oh, right,” she says. “Sorry.”

“He was kind of a dick,” Grant says. “Not that anyone deserves a heart attack at sixty, but . . .”

“Hm, actually let’s not talk about this. I’m thinking about my heart and my organs too much now,” she says, rubbing a fist against her chest. “Thump, thump.”

“What do you want to talk about instead?” he asks.

“Nothing,” she says. “Let’s just . . . enjoy the walk.”

“Okay,” he agrees, and they walk in silence the rest of the way. He glances over at her a few times and wonders if she’s actually enjoying walking with him. His head feels a slight dizzying pressure from the wondering.

By the time they get back to the cabin, Helen seems to be vibrating with energy. She tilts her head back and forth like Meg Ryan in a rom-com but on a sped-up loop, and begins a familiar butterfly tapping motion, her arms crossing in the front as if giving herself a hug while she pats her own shoulders in an alternating pattern.

“My therapist has me do this sometimes,” she says. “When I’m too aware of my organs.”

“Have you been thinking about your organs this entire time?” he asks, incredulous.

Helen pauses, then shakes her head. “No, but now I am. You need to wash your hands,” she reminds him.

He goes to the sink and hisses slightly as the water touches his raw palms.

“Ouch,” she says, watching him.

“Can you get the first aid kit?” he asks.

She brings it to the couch, and after drying off with a towel, he follows. She’s poured isopropyl alcohol onto a gauzy pad and holds out a hand expectantly.

“We need to disinfect it,” she says.

“I can do it myself,” he says, then yelps, “Ow!”

She grins at him—she’s placed the gauze pad onto his palm, sandwiching his right hand between both of hers.

“Gotcha,” she says, and his stomach does a funny sort of flip at this. He can’t remember the last time someone else took care of his cuts and bruises like this, and makes a mental note not to catalogue the feeling of the pads of her fingertips skating across his hands too much.

“Gross,” she says, when she removes the gauze to look at the raw skin. There’s a yellow stain on the pad now.

He snorts. “Thanks.”

He moves to take his hand away, but she holds on to it. “Neosporin,” she says grimly.

“I can do it—”

“—yourself, yes, I know,” she says, rolling her eyes as she squeezes the gel onto his cuts. “Would you just let me feel helpful for once? It’s my fault you’re hurt.”

“I’m not hurt,” he says as she circles an index finger to spread the gel. “And if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s whoever gave you that edible. It was Owen, wasn’t it?”

“Not telling,” she says, and blows gently on his palm.

“He should have known better than to do it while we were on a hike,” Grant says, annoyed. “Asshole.”

“Hold still,” she says. She retrieves a Band-Aid from the kit.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get seriously hurt,” he says. “You shouldn’t take drugs for the first time out in the fucking woods where anything could happen and no one’s paying attention to you.”

“You were paying attention,” she says, smoothing the Band-Aid over his palm. “Give me the other one.”

He offers up his left hand, which isn’t nearly as cut up as the right hand, but she seems determined to subject it to the same treatment anyway and who is he to stop her.

She touches the pink skin softly and stares at it for a long beat. His throat feels suddenly tight and scratchy, and he’s aware of the weight of his hand resting heavily in hers.

She draws a finger soothingly across his stinging palm, then leans forward and presses a light kiss to it. The sensation shoots through him and goes straight to his dick, which wakes up with an awareness that’s almost comical. What’s happening? it seems to demand. Is this real?

Helen looks up at him, her gaze hazy and soft for a moment, before comprehension seems to dawn and she looks horrified.

“I—I didn’t mean to do that,” she says. “I was just—high.”

She scrambles away, tossing his hand back at him as if it’s scalded her. He laughs.