After the Fall

that anyway.”
    “Sure, absolutely.” He stood and picked up his empty beer bottle. “Anything in particular?”
    “There’s turkey in there, I think. Nothing fancy.”
    “On it. Just, um, wait there.”
    “Damn. And here I was thinking about taking a jog around the block.”
    “Be my guest.” He shrugged. “Can’t be held responsible if your sandwich is gone when you get back.”
    “Hmm, well, in that case I’ll wait here.”
    “Good idea.”
    He disappeared into the kitchen. I listened to him going through the motions of preparing some food, and in the otherwise silent living room, I sighed. It was good to have him here right now. I couldn’t deny that.
    Pity he was here for the reasons he was. It hurt like hell to watch him dealing with his crumbling relationship, and I hoped they either got it together or moved on separately before it killed them both. The two of them had been a good match. Such a good match. It was a damned shame the way things had fallen apart the last year or so. Neither of them was willing to let it end without a fight, but I wondered how long it would take before they finally agreed it was over. There had to come a point where even a relationship like theirs wasn’t worth saving.
    “I’m not ready to let it go yet,” Brad had told me the night he’d moved out of their place and into mine. “There’s got to be a way to make it work again. I mean, we had something really, really good.”
    Yeah, you did. And look at the two of you now.
    My only two serious relationships had been volatile and miserable, and both had ended the way volatile, miserable relationships usually did. No police involvement or violence, fortunately—well, besides that ceramic mug I’d thrown at a wall during one of the last fights with Steve, and a picture that had fallen off the wall thanks to Brent slamming a door—but there was nothing amicable about either of those splits.
    If what Brad was going through was how a happy, stable relationship eventually ended . . .
    Fuck that. I was fine on my own.

I slept on the couch that night. It wasn’t the most comfortable place in the apartment, but sleeping there meant I didn’t have to move my busted ass from the living room to my bedroom. And with the prescription painkillers, I could have slept anywhere without complaint. Yay, drugs.
    Eventually, something nudged me out of a weird dream—one of those trippy-ass ones that I forgot as soon as it ended—and I blinked a few times until my eyes focused.
    My phone buzzed unobtrusively on the coffee table. Swearing and grumbling in my slurred, half-awake voice, I clumsily searched for the phone with my left hand. When I’d finally convinced my eyes to focus on the screen, I groaned at the sight of two missed calls.
    Then I checked the time.
    9:18 a.m.
    My heart stopped. I was supposed to be at work at eight.
    “Shit,” I muttered, and quickly speed-dialed my boss.
    “Tucker Springs Acupuncture,” Mike said.
    “Mike, it’s Nathan.”
    “Oh, hey!” Something banged on the other end, and I guessed he’d sat up suddenly in my desk chair and smacked the armrest on the desk like I always did. “Where are you? Everything all right? You’re usually here before I am.” He didn’t sound annoyed in the least, just concerned.
    “Uh, well . . .” My brain was still hazy from both sleep and the painkiller that had put me to sleep, and the explanation wasn’t coming easily.
    “Nathan?”
    I cleared my throat. “It’s kind of a long story, but my ride yesterday didn’t, uh, turn out quite the way I’d hoped.”
    “Oh, shit. What happened? Are you okay?”
    “I am, but . . .” I gnawed my lip, not sure why I was so nervous about asking when I knew damn well Mike wouldn’t object at all. “I’m gonna need a few days off.”
    “Sure, yeah. Of course. Anything you need. How bad is it?”
    “I’m pretty banged up, but it’s nothing that won’t heal.”
    “That’s good to hear. Listen, the details can wait. Most important thing now is for you to get some rest and take care of yourself. I’ll manage things on this end.”
    I closed my eyes and sighed, trying not to worry about the mountains of paperwork that would be waiting for me when I came back. “Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it.”
    “Anytime. And if you need any treatments, let me know.”
    Acupuncture wouldn’t fuse the bones back together, but damn if twenty minutes of letting some needles soothe these tender muscles and calm my