Worth It All(23)

Curious, Casey moved to the mat. He kept it bouncing off the tops of his feet, alternating right and left, before giving it a final flick and catching it in his hand. “You want to try?”

Casey eyed the ball. “I’d have to put my leg on.”

“Yep, you would,” he said evenly, letting it be her decision.

She thought about it, but in the end he got some participation, wearing her prosthesis.

After a few minutes, Casey moved to sit close and stretched her leg out beside his. “Do all your friends have a leg like you?”

He took a second to think about how best to answer. “Well, there’s Simon.”

“What about your other friends?”

He tried to think of other friends and came up short. “I have five brothers, but—”

“Five? That’s how many years I almost am. That’s a lot.”

“I also have one sister.”

Casey’s face scrunched into a frown. “Well, that’s sad. You need more girls.”

That brought a sudden burst of laughter from him. Paige laughed too, which made it even better. “My sister, Lizzie, would be extremely happy to hear you say that.”

“Do all your brothers and your sister have one leg?”

“No. Just me.”

“Oh.”

“But that’s okay. There’s really nothing they can do with two legs that I can’t do with one.”

“Me too,” she agreed. “But…”

“But what?” Paige coaxed.

She stared at her prosthesis. “I don’t know anyone who has one of these.”

JT watched her blue eyes, hoping he was helping. He understood how, in her mind, it was the device that made her different. He’d known people in rehab like that. Those that felt fully capable but despised the very thing that could give them more mobility. In Casey’s case, maybe it was more about wearing something that no one else wore, like walking into school with clown shoes on.

“You know me,” he said. “What if we were friends? Then you’d know someone and I’d know someone.”

“You’ll know two people and I’ll know one.”

“Hmm…true. But you know Simon, right?”

“Oh yeah.” Her face brightened. “So we’re the same.”

“Yes. We’re the same.” Looking into her sky-blue eyes and saying that caused some odd shifting around in his chest. She moved back to hang on the bars and he glanced at Paige, who was looking after her. When her head turned and she gave him a grateful smile, her eyes a bit watery, something else shifted.

Her eyes held his intently. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He stood and held out a hand to Paige and got that inexplicable feeling of rightness again just from the simple sensation of his fingers closing around hers. He thought she felt it too, if her sudden nervousness was anything to go by.

She let go of his hand and gathered her things.“Come on, Case. We have to go.”

“I’ll walk you out,” he offered.

“Okay.”

“Casey,” she said again, and Casey let go of the bars and obeyed.

They hadn’t gone more than five steps before Sean, a double-leg amputee, stopped him. “Hey, man, got a quick minute?”

JT hesitated, his eyes going to Paige.

“It’s okay,” Paige said with a smile. “We can find our way out.”

“Bye, Jake,” Casey said.

Sean went into a description of a problem he was having on the right side and not the left and an idea he had for the fix. JT listened and nodded, his attention divided between the man in front of him and Paige walking away.

“Let’s set up an appointment,” he finally said to Sean.

“Okay, sure.”

JT caught up to Casey and Paige just as they reached the double glass doors. Even from several feet away, he’d heard Casey’s high-pitched voice, clearly unhappy. “Hey. Everything okay?” He held the door for Paige, then fell in step beside them.

“No, it’s not okay,” Casey answered. “I don’t want to get shots.”

“Ah.”

Paige paused to pick her up. “Casey, you knew we were going to the doctor today. For some reason she thought I’d forget.” She said it with a smile but he caught the fatigue on Paige’s face before she covered it. He could only imagine the amount of stress she faced every day. He wanted to wipe that worried look off her face and replace it with the hazy, baffled desire he’d seen after their kiss.

“Or change your mind,” Casey said.

“I can’t change my mind, Case. It’s a rule.”

“But I’m not even five yet!”