A Heart to Heal

“Hey, Dad, watch this!”

Heather gasped as Simon made an attempt to pop one of the wild wheelies Max was known for—and succeeded only in toppling himself out of the chair. Mr. Williams let out a “Don’t do that!” and flew out of his own chair—for everyone had to play in chairs again to even the odds—grabbing Simon’s arm before Heather even had a chance to blink.

“I’m fine!” Simon declared, pulling his arm out of his father’s grasp. The air in the gym suddenly thickened. Heather didn’t know quite what to do.

Max did. In a matter of seconds, Max spun over next to Simon and proceeded to catapult himself out of his own chair. Now there were two people on the ground, with Heather and Mr. Williams standing in shock beside them.

“Didn’t that hurt?” Simon asked, as stunned as anyone else in the room.

“Not if I can’t feel anything below my waist. Of course, I wouldn’t advise this as a general practice, but it’s easier to show you how to get up than to sit there and explain it.”

“I can help him get up,” Mr. Williams interjected, reaching between Max and Simon.

“No, Dad,” Simon protested. “Let me see how Max does this.”

Mr. Williams looked ready to object, but Heather walked over and gently touched his elbow. “Let him try,” she whispered, seeing the panic in the father’s eyes. “You can step in if he gets in trouble.”

“What do I do?” Simon was as cool as a cucumber and obviously not a bit hurt.

“First—” Max winked “—you find somewhere else for the people around you to look because this isn’t pretty. Point out a flower or a puppy or something.”

Simon managed a wry grin. “They’re staring right at us.”

“Well.” Max elbowed Simon as if being sprawled out on the gym floor were all part of the plan. “Think of something.”

Simon pointed clear across the gym. “Hey, Dad, could you go get the Ping-Pong ball where it landed over in the corner?”

Mr. Williams did not look as if he cared for this one bit. Heather offered him an encouraging smile, eyebrows raised in a silent invitation to just play along.

The pause before Mr. Williams said, “Sure, son,” felt excruciating. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he stepped away from Max and Simon and walked across the gym floor.

As she followed Mr. Williams, swallowing the urge to turn and look at whatever it was Max was teaching Simon, she heard the smile in Max’s voice as he instructed, “Okay, pull your chair over here and put your left hand up on this.”

She walked in the direction Simon had pointed, catching Mr. Williams’s eye one more time. “I know that was hard,” she said, keenly aware that she truly had no idea how hard it might have been.

Brian Williams was trying; she had to give him that. He wanted to turn and watch as badly as Heather did—it was all over his face—but he made a show of searching for the little white ball both of them quickly realized wasn’t anywhere near where Simon had sent them.

After he heard Max’s overloud, “There you go, back upright,” Heather turned and threw up her hands in mock failure, inwardly delighted at the beaming and seated Simon—right next to a seated and slightly winded Max. Something hummed under her ribs as she realized what it had cost Max to toss himself out of his chair like that.

“Hey, look, Dad—the ball was right here all the time.”

Did Simon actually just wink?

“No kidding,” Mr. Williams said, his voice a mixture of emotions Heather couldn’t quite read. Was he proud of his son? Or annoyed at being “played”?

“Yeah. And I’m fine,” Simon repeated.

“Upright and awesome.” Max held up a fist and Simon bumped it in the universal high school sign of victory and admiration. “Only, I’d hold back on the wheelies till you get better at them. Knocks the cool right out of the whole thing if you tumble like we just did.”

“True.” Simon looked at Max. “We still beat you.”

Max pasted a dejected look on his face. “You and your dad creamed me and Ms. Browning. I’m not used to losing—we’d better find something else to play next time where I can be sure I’ll win.”

“Then it can’t be chess,” Mr. Williams offered. “He beats me every time.”

Surely this would bring some crack about chess’s geek factor. Max probably stuffed the Chess Club into lockers on a weekly basis in high school. Heather saw the barb come across his face, then watched as he swallowed whatever wisecrack was on the tip of his tongue. “Not really my thing, chess. But I’ll think of something and run it by Ms. Browning and your dad before I set it up, okay?”

Heather had to work to keep her mouth from dropping open. Somehow she was sure Max Jones never sought approval for anything—he definitely seemed more like the “do what you want and apologize later if you get caught” type. Was Max doing a little maturing of his own?

After they’d packed up the equipment and walked Simon and his dad to their car—and Max had gotten a lot of mileage out of a “walk you to your car” bit—Heather found herself at a loss for how to deal with this new side of Max.

She knew where to start, at least. Sitting down on the short wall that framed the school steps, she folded her hands in her lap. “Thank you.”

“For what?” His face told her he knew exactly for what.

“I want to say for behaving, but that doesn’t sound very good.” She fiddled with her watch, suddenly finding his eyes a little too intense. “You know what you did back there. I just want you to know I appreciate it.”

“You mean launching myself onto the floor so Simon wouldn’t feel like a train wreck? That was kind of fun, actually. Although, I expect I’ll find a few bruises in the morning.”

“Did it hurt?” The minute the words left her mouth, they felt like the most insensitive thing she could have picked to ask.

Max held her gaze for a moment—something that made her insides buzz. The man had astounding, expressive eyes. “It’s okay to ask stuff like that, you know. I don’t mind. If I think you’re stepping over the line, believe me, I’ll tell you.” He shifted in his chair. “No, it didn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. I’m deadweight from the waist down. But it also means I can’t tell if I’ve hurt myself, so flinging myself out of chairs isn’t the smartest thing I could be doing. That was more of an impulse.”

“It was a good one—I mean, provided you didn’t get hurt. Did you see Simon’s eyes?”

“Couldn’t miss it. Kid lit up like a firecracker. Do you think that’s the first time he’s told his dad to back off a bit?” Max was as excited about Simon’s confidence level as she was.

“Could be. And you found an appropriate way to make that happen.”

He got that heart-slayer gleam in his eyes again. “Look at me, Mr. Appropriate. Who knew I had it in me?”

She hadn’t. Up until today, Heather had worried that he would grow bored and skip out on Simon in a matter of days. Looking at him now, she could see his investment in Simon was surprising even him. “You did a great thing today. I hope you know that.” Before she could think better of it, she nodded toward his shirt. “You even dressed for the occasion.”

“You noticed.” He preened the collar on his polo shirt, grinning. “Had to dig deep in the closet for this. Not a lot of call for business-casual attire at Adventure Access.”

“Not a suit-and-tie kind of office?”

“Are you kidding? This counts for formal wear at AA.”

The visage of a tuxedoed Max at the wedding where Alex married Max’s sister popped back up in her imagination. He must have had ladies lined up at his feet when he could walk.

The horrid nature of that thought shot through her—what an awful, terrible thing to think! Why was Max Jones such a mental minefield for her good sense?

“Okay, what was that?”

She hated that he noticed. “Nothing.”

He pointed at her. “You just had a cripple thought.”