Page 22 of His Wall

He walked me to the chair I had been working from. He kept his hand on my elbow the whole way. He set me down in the chair, and I leaned forward, pulled my right shoe off, rolled the ankle, and made my face do a small wince.

He crouched in front of me. "How bad?"

"Two. Maybe two and a half."

"I'll get ice."

"Mr. Cross, really — "

"Wait here." He was up and out the door.

I counted three.

Then I was on my feet.

I crossed to his desk. The drawer was locked. Same as always. The laptop was open, and the screen was live. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. My hands were not shaking.

Three screens. The directory tree on the laptop. A spreadsheet on the second monitor. The browser tab he had opened behind it. I tilted the phone, framed each one, tapped the shutter — silent mode, no flash. I caught the file directory. I caught the spreadsheet. I caught the browser tab.

I did not read any of it.

I crossed back to my chair and sat down. I pulled my shoe halfway on. Then I bent forward, gripped my ankle in both hands, and made my face what it had been when he walked out.

His footsteps came back down the hall.

He came in with a dish towel around a bag of ice.

He crouched in front of me again. His knee touched the carpet. He took my right ankle in his left hand and lifted it gently, setting the ice pack against the outside of the joint with his right hand. Then his left hand came around the back of my heel to hold the pack in place.

His fingers were warm. His thumb rested against the bone of my ankle. I did not move.

He looked up at me from the floor.

He was close. His hand was on my foot, and his shoulders were between my knees. The desk lamp behind him put his hair in a sandy halo and lit the small flecks of brown in the green of his eyes.

"Better?"

"Yes."

Neither of us moved.

His thumb pressed lightly against my ankle. A small, slow shift. The pad of his thumb moved a quarter-inch along the bone and stopped.

The air in the room changed.

My heart kicked. It was in my throat. The pulse of it under my jaw. He was looking at me, his mouth was a little open, his hand was warm against my heel, and his thumb was very still now, holding what it had moved.

I pulled my foot back slowly.

The ice pack came with my foot. He lifted his hand off my heel, and the loss of his warmth caught in my throat.

I set my foot down on the floor. "Thank you. I should head out."

He stood. His knees made a small crack.

The grin came back. Not all the way. The edge of it.

"Of course. It's late. You should get home."