“I can’t see shit,” I complain.
“Your glasses are in your pocket.”
“Oh.” That explains it.
“Come on, babe. Jump. I’ll catch you.”
“Aww, he called me babe. That’s cute.”
He laughs.
“That was out loud, wasn’t it?”
He nods and holds out his massive hands. “Come on. It’s only a few feet.”
“Looks way more.”
Ollie laughs again and climbs the first two rungs of the ladder to bring him closer.
I huff. “Fine. But I hope you’re a better goalie than you are a sniper.”
“Ouch, Lennon. Ouch.”
I laugh my ass off as I slide my body into the manhole. Then I laugh more at the word manhole. Because apparently pot makes me mature. Super mature.
Maybe I should go backward instead of forward down the ladder, but I can’t turn now, and it’s small and cramped, and damn, half a joint and everything’s blurry.
My foot gets stuck on one of the rungs, but my body’s too uncoordinated to stop me from falling.
An unmanly squeak leaves me, and the last thing I see before falling to what I can only assume will be my death is Ollie’s smile. I land on top of him with a thud, surprised to find I’m not, in fact, dead. He lets out a grunt.
“Did I hurt your manhole?” I ask.
He bursts out laughing. “High Lennon is fucking funny.”
I whine. “I don’t like being high. Makes me think I can fly … and rhyme, apparently.”
“You’re such a lightweight. Are you okay?”
I reach into my shirt pocket and pull out my glasses to slip them on. “Yeah. You? Am I going to have the Dragons suing my ass for breaking their best forward?”
His hand skims down my side and palms my ass. “I won’t let anyone near this. I promise.”
“My hero,” I quip.
“Not a hero. I’m just determined to make it mine.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I think Ollie knows what his words are doing to me, because he smiles as if he can read my mind.
I want him to want me like that. I want him to possess me, and fuck me, and wait … he said he doesn’t do that. I go to open my mouth to get him to clarify, when—
“Uncle Ollie!” a little voice screams.
I scramble off him and notice the twinge in my foot. My ass lands on the lawn, and I wince as more pain shoots up my leg.
Shit. I think I’ve twisted my ankle.
“Hi, honey,” Ollie coos. “I, uh, fell, and my friend was trying to help me up.”
With all the innocence of a child, she doesn’t even blink. “Grandma’s looking for you.”
“Of course, she is,” he mutters.
We climb to our feet, and yup, definitely injured something in the fall. I put weight on my foot and hiss at the pain.
“Are you okay?” Ollie asks, wrapping his arm around my waist.
“Ankle.”
He bends down to lift my pant leg. “It’s swelling.”
“That’s what he said.”
Ollie ignores my joke. “You might’ve broken it.” He turns to his niece. “Can you go get Uncle Vic or Leo? Or your daddy if you can’t find the others?”
She scampers off with a nod.
Ollie pulls me closer. “Here, lean on me.”
I can’t help it. I break into song. “When you’re not …something. Sooooommmmmething. I don’t knooooooow the words.”
Ollie shakes his head. “I hate to see how much pain you’re gonna be in later when you’re not high.”
“I don’t think I’m high anymore. It already hurts.”
“You’re so high. Come on, let’s get you inside the house.”
We start hobbling our way to the front door when I gasp.
“How are we going to explain this? We got high and fell out of the treehouse?”
Ollie finds me hilarious, apparently. “Okay, I’ve decided you should be high all the time. Like always. It’s pure entertainment.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. My articles won’t make sense.”
“They don’t make sense when you’re stone-cold sober either.”
I mock offense. “To repeat your words earlier. Ouch, Ollie. Ouch.”
Ollie kisses the top of my head. “You started it.”
I want to stay like this, with Ollie’s warmth wrapped around me and his lips close, but as we enter the house, he deposits me on the couch in the living room and pulls away. I try to cling to him, but he pushes me back into the seat.
“I’ll be right back. I’m just gonna get you some ice.”
“I’ll get it,” a voice says from the doorway to the kitchen.
I tilt my head back and see Leo’s retreating form upside down. “The basketball brother has a nice ass.”
When I pull my gaze away and meet Ollie’s, he cocks his eyebrow at me.
“But you have a nice face.”
Ollie tries to cover another laugh and sits on the coffee table in front of me and brings my leg up so my foot is in his lap.
Slowly, he unties my shoe and gives me an apologetic look as he removes it.