Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2 (30 page)

Max pulled off one glove, reached up and brushed some ice flakes off her cheek. His
touch fluttered through her, her breath short from more than just the marvelous energy
of the game. Heather grew warm despite the rink’s chill. He was attractive in a perilous
sort of way, knowing what she knew about him. JJ had bemoaned Max’s past trail of
broken hearts, and right now she could see why a woman would believe anything he said
up this close. From a distance he was all flash and sharp edges, but this proximity
offered Heather a glimpse of something completely different. She saw a jumbled man
just trying to figure out how to put his life back together. Wondering, seeking, cautious
behind all his cavalier bravado. He was much easier to dismiss from a distance, but
so magnetic up close.

He did not move his fingers from where they brushed her cheek. He did not take his
grip from her shoulder. He didn’t back off one tiny bit. “You okay?” he asked, his
voice quiet and rough.

That was the real question, wasn’t it? Being so near to him felt both nice and precarious
at the same time. He understood her, accepted things about her other people couldn’t
hope to understand. And yet she wasn’t ready to trust him to keep those things safe
and unharmed. “I just lost my balance for a moment.” It was true in more ways than
one.

“But you’re okay?”

“Fine.” Her answer came out as more of a squeak than a word.

“Liar.” She wasn’t anything close to fine, and they both knew it. He took his hand
from her cheek, and she felt the loss in more than the rush of cold air against her
skin. “I don’t...know...what to do here. I’m not sure where this goes, or if it goes
anywhere. My balance is sort of...off, too, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“JJ doesn’t want me anywhere near you. Outside of school, that is.”

Heather managed a nervous laugh. “She told me I should steer clear of you. That you
would try something and I shouldn’t fall for it.”

He became the little brother just then, embarrassed by his big sister, his smirk disarming.
“You fell all by yourself there, kiddo.” There was a spot on his own hair where flakes
of ice from their scuffle had settled like snow, and she longed to reach out and brush
it off. She wondered whether his wavy hair was soft or coarse. He finally broke his
gaze and looked down, fiddling with one of the strap buckles on the sled. “I’m still
figuring out how all this goes together. I used to be...well, let’s just say JJ had
good reason to warn you off. I just don’t know if all this—” he waved his hand over
his legs “—makes it better or worse, or even if it’s possible.”

“Of course it’s possible.” She replied so fast it rang like a platitude. Suddenly
it felt like both the right answer and the wrong answer. “I mean, you should be—”

“Please.” A bit of the edge returned to his voice as he cut her off. “I can’t bear
to hear the ‘full and happy life’ speech. Not from you.” His bitterness pushed all
the warmth from the air between them.

“It’s more complicated, but that doesn’t make it impossible.”

Max eased their sleds apart. “Alex would tell you climbing Mount Everest is complicated
but not impossible, but that doesn’t mean everyone should do it.”

Chapter Nine

M
ax tried to “go slow,” staying away from school for the next two days, not returning
until his next meeting with Simon after school Friday. They played one-on-one basketball
and talked about the prospects of hockey.

In the parking lot after the game, Simon tried on one of the hockey gloves Max had
given him to test. “How’d it happen?”

Max looked up from the sled he was putting into his van. He’d brought it to show Simon,
hoping it would further convince him to come play hockey sometime soon. Simon was
clearly interested, but with ice, sharp blades and the potential for aggressive play,
it was going to be an uphill battle with Mr. Williams. “How’d I get my dashing good
looks?”

“No.” Simon looked sheepish. “You know...”

Max pushed the sled fully into the van and turned to face Simon. He was surprised
it had taken Simon this long to ask. “You mean how’d I get my wheels?”

“Yeah. You haven’t ever told me about your accident.”

Handing him the other glove of the pair, Max hit the button that shut the van door.
“You haven’t asked me. I figured when you wanted to know, you’d ask.” He looked at
Simon. Once the kid’s face grew into those big blue eyes and he grew his hair out
a little longer, Simon could swing some serious charm. Despite the shyness, the boy
was genuinely curious about things, and that made him a good listener. “It doesn’t
have to be the first thing everyone knows about you, you know. It’s a part of you—a
big part—but not all of you.”

They wheeled together to the stretch of grass beside the school parking lot. “I always
see it in people’s eyes, you know?” Simon said. “Like they need to ask but think I’ll
be upset if they do.” He shrugged. “I’m kinda used to my condition—it’s not like it’s
a whole new tragedy or anything.”

Whole new tragedy.
Max was sick enough of people referring to what happened to him as “a tragedy.” What
must a lifetime of that feel like? People usually experienced cerebral palsy from
birth, so it wasn’t as if Simon knew anything different, but still. No one’s life
should be branded a tragedy. Not anyone who was fifteen, at least. “That’s why I like
little kids,” Max offered. “They just ask you what they want to know, right out.”

Simon nodded. “Then their parents get all freaky and shush them.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it. Happened to me the other day at Karl’s. Right
in front of Heath...Ms. Browning.”

That made Simon’s eyes pop. “How do you get into Karl’s?”

Like any coffee shop anywhere, Karl’s was a favorite high school hangout. It stuck
in Max’s gut that Simon considered it off-limits. He leaned in toward the boy. “You
ring the bell at the back door and Karl lets you in through the kitchen. Then he gets
you the corner table ’cause it’s the only place guys like you and I fit. Anybody he
has to move gets a free coffee, so everybody wins. You and I should go sometime. I’ll
show you the ropes.”

Simon looked as if that would make his week, much less his day. “Man, I’d like that.”
He looked down, fiddling with one of the gloves. “So you and Ms. Browning, huh?”

Max was an idiot for thinking it wouldn’t come to this at some point. “Well, I don’t
know yet. We’re sort of trying to figure it out.”

Simon laughed. “What’s to figure out? She’s a girl. She’s pretty.”

“She’s the school counselor and I’m kind of here in an official capacity. Plus, things
are kind of tricky in the dating department for those of us of the wheeled persuasion.”
Remembering Luke Sullivan, Max felt compelled to add, “Not impossible, just different.”
He gave Simon a companionable nudge to the arm of his chair. “So, who do you like?”

Simon actually blushed. Max suddenly felt a hundred years old, all mentor-ish and
falsely wise. “Well, there’s Bailey.”

“Oh, from the Ping-Pong Club, right?”

“Yeah.” Simon angled to face Max and moaned, “Only, it’s like all she can see is the
chair, you know?”

Max put his elbows on his knees, leaning in like a two-man football huddle. “So you
gotta show her the great guy
in
the chair. I won’t lie to you—it’ll take time and some serious charm, but I think
you’re up to it.”

“A guy like you, maybe.”

“And a guy like you. Don’t count yourself out of the running just because you roll.
That’s what I always say.”

“Are you in the running with Ms. Browning?”

“I should tell you that such a question is none of your business.” The statement got
the “yeah, right” look from Simon that Max would have expected. “But the truth is
I’m trying to keep it strictly official with Ms. Browning for reasons that don’t have
anything to do with you and me or school.”

“Like what?” Simon was not going to let him get away with an avoidance like that.

How could he explain this on a level a fifteen-year-old would understand? Max took
the sunglasses off the top of his head and folded them into his shirt pocket just
to buy himself time to think. “You, you’ve been in a chair your whole life, right?
None of that is new for you. The high school part is new, but not the chair part.
Me, I’m still figuring out the chair part. Everything I thought I wanted from life
is a bit different now. Some of it’s better, some of it not so much. At first, I thought
they were being jerks down at the hospital when they told me not to get into any serious
relationships for a year. Now I think maybe that’s not such bad advice.”

“And you think if you got into it with Ms. Browning, it’d get serious?”

Well, now, that was pretty perceptive for a fifteen-year-old. It
would
get serious—fast—if he “got into it” with Heather. And while he’d tell anyone it
was to spare Heather any heartbreak, some still-wounded little part of him was out-and-out
terrified it’d be
his
heart lying shredded on the ground when she walked away. “I think that’s a question
we won’t get to answer.” Just to change the subject, he pointed at Simon. “Hey, wait
a minute. This was supposed to be the hair-raising story of my spinal cord’s untimely
demise, not a romance novel. And why don’t you already know this one? Didn’t you read
about me in the papers?”

The boy smirked. “Well, I looked you up on the internet, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So you know the basics. I let the cameras on
Wide Wild World
get to me and I got stupid. I rappelled down that cliff face a lot faster than I
ought to have ’cause I wanted to look cool. I took a lot less care than was smart
’cause I thought I was invincible. The show used gear they weren’t supposed to—stuff
that hadn’t finished going through the testing phases—and the people who ought to
have been paying attention weren’t. There was a lot of finger-pointing afterward—lots
of it by me, to be honest—but none of that matters much now. Plenty of blame to go
around, if you know what I’m saying, but my spine didn’t really care who whacked it
against that scaffold.”

“Did it hurt?”

It was the question everyone always asked, which he found funny, since the result
of his injury was that he could no longer feel. “Probably. I don’t remember the actual
fall or any of the next day. I’ve seen the fall—they had it on tape, since it was
TV—but I’ve only watched it once.” That had been a mistake. His doctors had advised
against it, but he’d found he couldn’t resist once he knew the tape existed. Still,
Max would have rather not had that image of his flopping, twisting body burned into
his memory like that. It was one of the few things in life he truly regretted. “Not
really something I want to relive, you know. But once I was awake and aware of the
world again, did it hurt? Not in the way you’d think. Not the ‘ouch’ kind of pain.”
He thumped a fist to his heart. “Pain comes in more ways than one, huh?”

“Yeah. I get that.” Commiseration darkened Simon’s features, and his eyes flicked
down to the gloves for a moment. “Do you think about it? A lot, I mean?”

“My accident?” Max got the sense that wasn’t Simon’s real question.

“No, just...do you think...about...like what it would be like if it never happened?”

Simon wasn’t asking how; Simon was asking why. Big stuff. Max wished Heather were
there, thinking she was better positioned to answer those kinds of questions. Then
again, who better than he? He shifted uncomfortably under the unsettling notion that
Simon hadn’t come into his life by accident. “All the time, buddy. All the time.”

Simon looked relieved. Max remembered the firestorm of doubts that plagued any teenager,
and his heart twisted for the kid.

“The thing is, everybody thinks like that. Sure, yours and my what-ifs are a little
bigger and more dramatic, but every single person wonders why things happen the way
they did. Alex wonders why his company crashed the way it did. Melba Bradens wonders
why her dad got so sick. JJ wonders why some people died over in Afghanistan and others
came away fine.” He felt way out of his depth when the notion came to him to add,
“It’s why people go to church. To figure that stuff out.”

“I haven’t seen you in church other than the funeral. Do you go?”

JJ would be snickering right now if she were there. Just the other night she’d tried
the ploy of “Simon is looking up to you” to get him back to church. Max hedged. “Not
as much as I should.”

Simon took on a mischievous smile. “Our youth group has a Friends Night next week.
You should come.”

Max was glad to have a way to dodge that one. “Do I look like a high school student
to you?”

Simon’s smile turned smug. “It’s not for students. We’re supposed to bring an adult
we admire.” The kid’s eyes fairly proclaimed,
Back out of that one—I dare you.

Nailed.
JJ would howl with laughter when he told her. “You’ll be sorry when I steal all your
dates.”

“Ha! Not a chance.” A car horn sounded from the parking lot. “Mom’s here. I’ll text
you the info.”

“Show her the gloves,” Max called as Simon wheeled toward the opening van door. “And
the website I told you about.”

Simon gave Max a thumbs-up as he spun his chair onto the van ramp. The kid had the
most irresistible smile. Who knew the scrawny little nerd would get to him like that?

* * *

Heather’s heart did an unsettling little flip when Max’s number came up on her desk
phone. They’d both stuck strictly to email since that afternoon at the ice rink, although
he’d taken to suggesting several ideas for Simon and forwarding articles he’d found
at work. Did he realize how invested he’d become in Simon?

Did he have any idea how much his investment charmed her? Heather had tried so hard
not to like Max Jones, and he’d managed to tear down every objection she had. More
than once in her prayer journal, Max’s name had been written down under the things
for which she gave thanks.

She smiled as she held the receiver to her ear. “Hi there, Max.”

“You’ve gotta help me. I don’t know how to get out of this one.”

The possible circumstances of Max Jones in trouble was a pretty wide world. “Out of
what?”

“Youth group.”

That sounded like a good story. Heather leaned back in her chair, wrapping the handset’s
cord around her finger. “I’ll need more details than that to offer assistance.” The
Williamses went to GFCC just like she did, so she could guess what all this was about.
She was even an adviser to the youth group. Still, she wanted to hear Max’s explanation.

“Evidently there’s this thing at church where kids bring friends. Adult friends. Simon
sort of invited me.”

Heather felt herself smile. “Congratulations. It’s a big honor to be invited to Friends
Night at GFCC.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “This isn’t really my thing. I don’t...you
know...
go
to church.”

He really was worked up about it. “JJ said you used to.”

“I also used to drink chocolate milk, but I don’t do that anymore since my voice changed.”
Another pause. “I don’t want to let Simon think I’m something I’m not.”

“It’s Friends Night, Max, not Deep Spiritual Advisers night. There isn’t a test at
the end. There’s cake, if I remember correctly.” After a second, she softened her
voice to add, “You should go.”

No reply.

“It’d be good for both of you.” Heather sat up to lean on her desk. “You still believe
in God, don’t you?” Because that sounded like such a loaded question, she added, “You
haven’t gone off and joined some kind of creepy cult that lures in impressionable
young men in wheelchairs?”

The tone of his voice changed. “Well, yeah. I mean the God part, not the creepy-cult
part. I just... Look, I don’t think I’m the churchy Friends Night type. I’ll look...dumb.
They probably all wear sweater vests and do crosswords and knitting.”

She was sure Max was kidding. Mostly. “Max, your sister and brother-in-law go to that
church. I go to that church. All three of us have been invited to Friends Night at
one time or another, and there’s not a crossword or a sweater vest among us. Although
there is some knitting—which reminds me, can you meet me at the church on Tuesday
at ten? There’s someone I’d like you to meet. And she’s
definitely
not whatever it is you think ‘church ladies’ are like.”

“That sounds like institutionalist propaganda to me.” The edge was finally gone from
his voice.

“I’ll buy you pie afterward. At Karl’s. If you survive the trauma, that is. I’m pretty
sure one of the kids invited Violet to Friends Night, so now after this you’ll know
someone else.”

“And if I hate it?”

No one in Gordon Falls hated Violet Sharpton. It wasn’t humanly possible. “If you
hate it—which you won’t—I’ll help you get out of Friends Night with Simon. Deal?”

“Ms. Browning, you drive a hard bargain.”

“And you drive a minivan with a flame paint job.” It was fun to banter with him. She
hadn’t felt this playful in a long time.

“Don’t you call my wicked-cool Honda a minivan.”