Friends & Fortune Cookies: A Sudden Falls Romance by Elizabeth Bemis Page B

asked, voice muffled by the icepack.
    I gave him the rundown.
    “I’m going out for coffee in a couple of hours.”
    He brought his head up, and the icepack slid off his face and onto his chest, which caused him to grumble a quiet umph! “Already?”
    “It’s only Café Diem. You can call if you need me, and I’ll be right back.”
    He grumbled, and I felt bad. And a little twitchy. Having Joe in my house felt… weird suddenly. He was too big for the space of this small apartment. Even injured, his personality was so big that the walls closed in. Plus, it had been more than a year since I had to worry about letting someone else know what my schedule would be. I didn’t like it.
    And that made me feel like a terrible person.

Chapter 18 — Joe
    The closing door echoed through the apartment, and I tried not to feel disgruntled. Part of the problem was the forced inactivity. I’d passed the Thank God I’m not dead! phase and was now into Oh, hell I should be at the job site!
    I sat a while longer until the bag of peas on my head turned my noggin into a brain slushie and the bag of corn on my ribcage had frozen my pancreas. I picked up the one crutch I’d used to hobble with earlier and used my right arm—which hurt far less than the left—to lift myself off the sofa.
    Hobbling into the kitchen, I tossed the veggies back in the freezer. I’d gotten the hang of putting my weight on my right foot, taking a step, putting weight on the crutch, then setting my left heel on the floor for a step that wasn’t quite a hop. Moving toward Gracie’s guest room was going great until I tangled with the small table containing a plant in her hallway. I nearly went down before I caught myself with my aircast.
    A sharp twinge went up my leg. But it was only a twinge . The pain in my ribs from my full-body wobble was actually worse. Experimentally, I tried again not putting my full weight on my foot, but more than simply dragging my toe.
    Not too bad.
    Relief. Hopefully, this meant I’d be back to the job site next week. Speaking of which... I hobbled the rest of the way into the guest room and then sank slowly down onto the bed. I grabbed my phone sitting on the nightstand.
    Alex picked up on the second ring and launched in without a greeting. “How’s the ankle?”
    “Hurts. But not as bad as my ribs. How’s everything there?”
    “Good. The guys tarped the rest of the roof after we went to the hospital last night. It stayed dry during the rain, and we finished up that section this morning. The kitchen cabinets were delivered, too. Kenny and Flea have the uppers installed. We’re making progress.”
    “Anything I can do from here? I can make calls. Place orders. Whatever you need.”
    Silence.
    “I.. Uh..”
    “Spit it out, man.”
    “Lisa normally does the books in the evenings, but she’s had to work overtime at her job this week. If I run the computer and paperwork over, can you do some data entry? Bills need paid, and I need to know what the bottom line is before I can do that.”
    Alex spit it out in a rush. I suspected immediately that he’d rather rip his own arm off and beat himself with it than ask for help. Why make it any harder on him?
    “No problem.” In theory, not a problem, that is. In fact, I’d been looking for an excuse to see the books without pissing him off. “How easy is the software to use?” I understood enough about accounting to know I didn’t know much.
    “Lisa says it isn’t too bad. The accountant set it up, and she gave us a step-by-step user manual. I can’t make heads or tails of it, but that kind of shit makes me batty.”
    Which I suspect was precisely why he was willing to turn it over to me. Alex was almost certainly dyslexic, but I’d long suspected he had some other learning disabilities as well. He’d struggled all through school. Hard to reconcile someone who was so gifted in many ways with his huge difficulties in others.
    “Drop them off. I’m at Gracie’s.” I