Page 38 of Tangled with the Tight End

“Let’s see …” he looks skyward. “Helping out at the bakery?”

“Nope,” I say. “Babysitting a goat.”

The table erupts in laughter.

I only wish I were joking.

I linger a little longer, but then I leave the senior center and drive to Declan’s, blasting my favorite song on the radio. I pass through both gates. They don’t seem as large as they did the first few times I drove through them. Then I let myself through his private gate, park my car and walk up to the front door. I enter the code Declan gave me and let myself in, wondering what surprise will greet me today. Hopefully not his parents again.

When I round into the family room, Declan’s on the couch with his leg up and the TV on.

“You’re here again?” he asks.

I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“That’s sort of how this works,” I say. “I can’t exactly check your vitals from another location.”

“Well, do what you’ve got to do, then.”

I stand in place, sizing him up.

It’s not my job to make him feel better about being injured. I wish I could, but I’m here as a nurse’s assistant, so I get busy putting on the blood pressure cuff around his upper arm. It barely velcros on.

“Your arms are too big,” I say by way of observation.

“No one’s ever complained about that before,” he says with a half-smile.

“I’m not complaining. It just makes it hard to take your blood pressure.”

He flexes and the cuff pops open.

“Hey!” I say.

He stares at the TV as if he didn’t just do that on purpose. But there’s a light twitch in the dimple next to his mouth that gives him away.

“What are you watching?” I ask after I’ve secured the cuff, inflated it, and taken down his vitals.

“SportsCenter. They’re talking about the teams and their performance and projections.”

I hate to ask, but … in for a penny, in for a pound.

“Projections? Like in a movie?”

Declan laughs in one short burst. His eyes crinkle at the corners and I have this random thought that he’s breathtakingly gorgeous. I have random thoughts all the time. I could be crowned the queen of random thoughts. This one makes my breath stall out.

I can not. Not. Not. Not. Think of Declan as handsome, let alone breathtakingly gorgeous.

Nope.

“Not in a movie,” Declan says. “Projections in terms of what they think each team will do in the season.”

“Oh! Like fortune telling,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says with a smile. He stares at me for a beat, his brow tugged in slightly. He’s still smiling, so I just let him stare. Then he says, “Sort of like that, I guess. Though, I’ve never thought of it that way.”

I pick up his cryogenic compression machine and walk toward the kitchen, saying over my shoulder, “Is it too hard for you to get this filled when I’m not here early?”

His deep voice follows me into the kitchen. “It’s too hard. Yes.”