Did you really just say that to a guy in wheelchair, Dani? Really?
His eyes widen slightly and I want to crawl into a hole and die. I look away and am tempted to get up and run out of here as fast as my Sergios can carry me, but then, he bursts out laughing, his entire body shaking and he reaches out to pull my hand away from my mouth.
I dare a quick glance at him and find him grinning at me. “Wow, look at you, already making jokes, huh?”
What the fuck kind of a reaction is that? Why the hell is he laughing?
He pulls my hand up to his mouth and presses his lips to my palm.
“Relax, Danika, just because I can’t walk doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good joke. And, for the record, I would have said yes.”
“Huh? Said yes to what?”
He smiles again and squeezes my hand. “To dancing. I play basketball. I’m sure I could figure out the dancing thing, too.”
His reaction helps me release the breath I’ve been holding, and I try to calm the churning in my stomach. I look into his unfairly handsome face and just can’t avoid asking it. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He sighs and releases my hand before running his back through his hair. “I don’t know, honestly. It didn’t come up at my office, or at dinner. I knew you couldn’t see my chair from where you were standing in my office, and I beat you to the restaurant and was already in the booth. It isn’t really something you tell someone in a text message.” He pauses and drops his hands onto his lap. “And, frankly, I was worried about what your reaction might be. This is the first time I’ve been interested in someone since the accident.”
Accident. The word sends chills down my spine before I even know what happened. Whatever it was, it must have been violent and awful for him to end up like this. “What happened?”
When he closes his eyes and drops his head back, I fear he isn’t going to answer me.
Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
Just as I suck in my breath to apologize for being so intrusive, he drops his head forward and meets my eyes again.
“Car accident…almost three years ago. I was in Europe, skiing with my sister, Star. I took her there as a graduation gift. She had just finished getting her nurse practitioner license. Skye, her twin, was supposed to come with us but she ended up ditching the trip to be with some guy. Our third day there, we were driving back to our lodge and a semi jackknifed on the road. I couldn’t swerve to avoid it. We were on a mountain pass and there was a giant cliff on the other side.”
A picture forms in my mind of a dark, narrow, winding mountain pass—those roads are terrifying enough without envisioning a giant semi-trailer barreling at you. I try to hide my reaction, but a shudder runs through me and I know he notices because he winces slightly. “The trailer hit our SUV and pushed it through the guardrail. We rolled down into the ravine. I lost consciousness at some point and don’t remember much, which is probably a good thing,” he says, glancing down at his hands clenched in his lap.
My eyes are burning with tears, but I refuse to cry right now.
Pull yourself together!
I shake my head and wipe at my eyes while he’s not looking at me. When he glances back up, I notice a sheen in his eyes too and it makes my stomach lurch into my throat.
“I was in a coma for almost two weeks. When I woke up, I was in a hospital in Germany…” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “…and my whole family was there to tell me my sister was dead.”
A gasp escapes me before I can stop it and the tears that have been threatening finally fall. He gives me a sad smile, and I can only imagine how much talking about this must rip his fucking heart out. I want to climb onto his lap and hold him but that would probably be inappropriate, given my actions today.
“I’m so sorry.” I manage to eke the words out in between sobs and when I wipe my eyes again, I see tearstains on his face too. He nods, never taking his eyes off me.
“In addition to lots of broken bones and lots of cuts and gashes, I underwent several back surgeries while I was there. I won’t bore you with all the medical shit. My spine was partially crushed, but because it wasn’t severed and the injury was so low, I’m actually pretty lucky.”
“What do you mean?” How can someone call themselves lucky when they’re paralyzed?
“I have what’s referred to as an incomplete spinal cord injury and it’s at the base of my spine, which basically means I still have some feeling in my legs and have very minimal movement of them, but not enough that I can really control them and I’ll never walk again. I work with a personal trainer who is also a physical therapist almost every day to help keep myself in as good of shape as I can.”