The Worst Wedding Date

If my mom doesn’t quit fussing over if I have enough pillows under my cast, I’m going to scream. “Mom. Please. It’s fine.”

She and Dad flew home early from Hawaii when they caught wind of my accident on social media. I’ve already had an earful about how I should’ve called, and I’ve already given an earful back about how I can handle having a broken leg all on my own.

Which is maybe an exaggeration, but Sabrina’s around, and our old middle school science teacher is recently retired and bored and has an entire crew lined up to check on me and bring me food at least three times a day, and my poor neighbor who was with me is checking up on me too.

Beauty of small-town living. Even when your blood relatives aren’t around, the rest of your town family is.

“We’ve never had broken legs in the family before,” Mom says. “This is terrifying.”

“The doctor says it’ll heal just fine. I can work remotely for a few weeks.” And then, when I’m out of this damn cast, I can go hiking again. Take time off to maybe even do an overnight backpacking trip with Sabrina. Ask Emma to go on a hot-air balloon ride with me in Denver when she gets back, given that it’ll almost be warm enough by the time I’m cleared for fun again.

Which I’m not telling my mom.

Not today, anyway.

“Are you hungry?” she asks. “Betty dropped off lentil stew for lunch. I can heat it up for you. She makes the best lentils.”

“I’m fine, Mom. I really am.” I’m not fine.

My leg itches, and it’ll be six damn weeks before I can scratch it. The painkillers are working, but there’s still some achiness in my shin. I slept like crap.

And I keep worrying over Emma on her solo honeymoon.

And then wondering what Theo’s doing.

If he’s in town or if he found a place to hide out while Snaggletooth Creek is crawling with reporters who are hoping for an exclusive photo of him.

Freaking Addison posting the video of Emma’s wedding disaster on TikTok.

I hope she gets fleas in a place that she can’t reach to scratch. That video exposed all of my best friends in our worst moments.

Mom purses her lips while she looks at me.

She’s in linen pants and a silk blouse. Pearl earrings. Makeup. The upgraded diamond wedding ring Dad bought her the first year the company had over a million dollars in profits.

“Did Dad cheat on you when I was a baby?” I whisper.

Can’t help it.

Sabrina was right. I didn’t want to know. But I guilted it out of her last night while she dropped everything to sit with me in the emergency room.

Mom gasps and her chin wobbles. “Who told you that?”

“That’s not really the important part, is it?”

She sighs and turns to the window. “Laney, sweetie, life’s complicated, and you need your rest.”

“I need a little more than that, Mom.”

“Rest first.”

“I don’t want to rest. I want to go sledding. I want to go see a frozen waterfall. I want to race go-karts in the middle of town in the middle of the night. I want to drink too much and need Sabrina and Emma to carry me home. I want to learn to scuba dive and go back to Hawaii and dive with the turtles. I don’t want to be safe. I don’t want to be smart. I don’t want to wake up when I’m seventy-four and realize my entire life has passed me by with no stories to tell about it beyond that time I had a really hot fling with a funny, adventurous, rules don’t exist guy during the best-worst week of my best friend’s life. And I want to know how many people in this town know that Dad cheated on you and just don’t talk about it because nobody says bad things about us because we’re the damn Kingstons and we fund too much around town to risk pissing us off.”

She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.

I probably have.

And I’m okay with that. I don’t want my mind back.

I want my heart back.

I flop back against the uneven pillow behind my back and stifle a grimace of pain.

Probably shouldn’t do that while my leg’s in a cast. “Never mind. I’ll take a damn nap.”

“You’re upset that we didn’t offer to help Bean & Nugget,” she says quietly.

“Did you know?”

She sighs. “You’re upset that we weren’t asked to help Bean & Nugget.”

“And that’s because…?”

She takes a long time to answer, and when she does, it’s on an even deeper sigh. “Christopher wouldn’t have cheated on you.”

So that’s it.

She picks men for me that she thinks won’t cheat.

Theo wouldn’t have cheated.

Would he?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Fuck Theo.

Just fuck Theo for making me fall in love with him and not having the balls to love me back.

I turn my head away and close my eyes. “I’d rather not get married at all than get married to someone who has the personality of a shoe insert. So if that’s all you plan on introducing me to for the rest of my life, please don’t waste your time.”

“The gel inserts or the old-fashioned inserts?” she asks.

I glance back at her.

That’s literally the funniest thing she’s said in a decade. “We used to laugh all the time. Now it’s all about work and responsibilities and what’s right for a family like us. I know you and Dad worked hard to build all of this, and I love our mission and our purpose at work, but at home…at home, I want to be happy. I want to laugh. I want to love my life and know that when I’m seventy-four, I might have regrets, but I don’t want them to be that I sat on my couch being boring and afraid of what may hurt me outside my doorstep. And that includes sex.”

She wrinkles her nose and goes pink in the cheeks.

And my doorbell rings.

I sigh and pull up my phone to check and see who’s there, and the minute I catch sight of what the doorbell camera is recording on my porch step, I gasp.

“What?” Mom lunges across the room like she’s a freaking mountain lion. “What is it?”

It’s Theo.

It’s Theo, but it’s not just Theo.

It’s Theo, in baggy jeans and a thick Carhartt jacket and a black beanie, like he’s in disguise, with what looks like a cat carrier hanging on his shoulder.

He shifts his weight and stares at the door for a minute, then looks down at the doorbell. An old beater truck sits in my driveway behind him.

That’s so Theo.

Have half a billion dollars in the bank, still drive the truck that grounds him.

“What’s he doing here?” Mom asks.

“Shh.”

He squats down in front of the doorbell camera and looks straight at it. “Hey. I don’t know if you’re in there,” he says. “I don’t know if you can hear me. But in case you can—I get it if you don’t want to talk to me. I was an ass. I was a certifiable ass, and you deserve so much better than that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Laney. So I brought the kittens. I don’t have to stay. I’ll go if you tell me to. But if the kittens would make you feel better, if they’d cheer you up—they’re yours. For today. For tomorrow. For forever. You can have my kittens for as long as you want them. If you want them. If you’re not here, and you see this later, the offer still stands. Send Sabrina to get them if you don’t want to talk to me. I just—I just want to do something—anything—to help you get better. And this is the best thing I could think of.”

“Kittens?” my mom says. “Kittens are—”

“Let him in.” I swipe my eyes and cheeks. That asshole. He’s bribing me with his kittens. And I know how much he loves his kittens. “Let him in. Or I’ll do it myself.”

I don’t have to ask her twice.

“I’ll hang out and wait for a few minutes in case you’re seeing this,” Theo says over the doorbell camera. “But if the kittens get cold, I’ll—Gail. Hello.”

My mom doesn’t immediately answer, and when she does, I brace myself.

But there’s nothing cool in her polite, “Please come in.”

It’s warm.

Kind, even.

I wouldn’t know she didn’t like him if I were a random fly on the wall. I do know she doesn’t like him, and even I can’t detect any lingering animosity.

I kill the stream on the video as Theo steps inside the door. My foyer is small, so it’s only a moment before Mom leads him into the living room, where I’m propped on the couch.

His brown eyes land on me, and I’m so mad that I’m crying right now.

I don’t want him to see me cry.

I don’t want him to know he hurt me.

Fuck Theo.

But I love Theo.

No matter how much I don’t want to.

He lowers his gaze and crosses the room to drop to one knee in front of me, setting the cat carrier gently on my rug. “Kittens?” he asks quietly.

“I will accept kittens.”

“You feeling okay?”

“I am so mad at you.”

He winces as he opens the carrier and lifts a gray kitten out.

Jellybean.

It’s Jellybean.

And she’s meowing as he sets her carefully in my lap.

“I left Fred home with Miss Doodles, but the rest of them are here. Litter box is in the car. I’ll come clean it. Or send someone else over if you don’t want to see me.”

“Why are you still being a dick?”

This is not me. It’s not. I’m the polite woman my mother trained me to be.

But I’m so angry with him. And I’m so glad to see him. And he looks so damn right in here. Like he’s the touch that’s been missing against the sage green couches and the lavender walls and the ivory brick fireplace.

Like he’s what makes it home.

His gaze wavers as he looks at me again. “I’m really bad at hope. Much better at action.”

“And self-sabotage.”

“Not mincing words today.”

“Should I be?”

He drops another kitten in my lap. Jellybean’s crawling up my chest to lick my chin. I close my eyes and let her while I order the tears to stop.

But Jellybean’s licking them all away, and it’s so sweet, and it’s making my heart all kinds of soft and open and vulnerable.

I can not be vulnerable to this man again.

Not if he’s only here out of guilt or obligation or anything other than because he wants to be here, with me, because I matter to him enough to have the hard conversations.

“I’m sorry, Laney,” he whispers. “I’m an ass.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Another kitten lands in my lap.

I know my mom’s hovering. Watching all of this. But she’s not saying anything.

And Theo’s still here, dropping kittens into my lap.

He squeezes my thigh on my good leg. “Want me to leave them long enough that they’ll need their litter boxes?”

“Yes.” I do. I want them here, with me, crawling all over me and making their little meows and licking my chin and climbing on my shoulders to sniff my ear and tickle it with their little whiskers.

I want them here, so he has to come back and check on them.

“Okay. Right back.”

The warmth from just being near him dissipates, and I peek my eyes open as I hear the front door shut.

Mom’s watching me with her fingers to her lips.

“Please don’t,” I whisper while I stroke Widget, who turned three times in my lap and is now splayed across my thigh, purring like the world depends on the strength of his purr.

She blinks quickly. “I—I didn’t know you were serious about wanting cats.”

“There’s so much about me that I don’t even know right now.”

The door opens again. Theo’s back in the blink of an eye with a big box of litter and three pans. I point down the hall. “Powder room, please.”

He nods and disappears.

Mom watches his retreating backside.

I close my eyes and lean back on the couch, six kittens all over me, and belatedly realize I have a kitten on my head, but there aren’t any pinpricks.

Theo trimmed their claws.

He’s a good kitten dad.

I pet Widget. I stroke Jellybean while she licks my chin, and then pull Snaggleclaw off my shoulder when she licks my neck and tickles me. Blinky and Panini attack each other on the blanket, spilling over my lap. Cream Puff’s giving me a scalp massage, but he abandons me right before Theo walks back into the room.

“Nice form,” he says to something over my head, “but wrong rocks. We’ll work on that.”

I look up as he pulls Cream Puff off of my curtains and sets him back on my lap.

Our eyes meet again, and if I didn’t have to grab my crutches to get off this couch, I’d be tackling him in a hug.

The last time I saw that much grief and regret shining in a person’s face was his mom’s funeral.

I’ve lost grandparents. An uncle. A friend or two over the years in tragedies.

But the look of complete hopelessness and helplessness on Theo’s face at his mom’s funeral was something that quietly haunted me for years until I managed to make myself forget in high school because he was such a complete dick.

The memory’s roaring back today though.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, dropping his gaze to the cast sticking out from under my blanket.

I shake my head. “Not much. Good drugs.”

“The you’ll forget all of this by morning kind of drugs?”

I shake my head again.

He nods once, and then he’s gone again.

Tucking his hands into his pockets while he strolls back outside.

“He likes you,” my mom says.

She sounds surprised. Like she didn’t think he was capable of liking someone.

Or maybe like she didn’t think he could like someone like me.

“He’s a really good guy,” I say quietly, “and I’m very, very mad at him.”

She eyes me like she’s afraid to ask the question.

The question. The only question.

Are you mad because he’s a porn star?

I’m not, surprisingly enough. I want to know why. I want to know how. But I deeply believe that he has a good reason.

A guy doesn’t get famous for having the internet’s most inspirational penis without having a story.

And I want to hear it. From him.

With an open mind.

No matter where he’s planning to go with his career from here.

“I’m mad at him because he didn’t have enough faith in himself or in me to fight for me,” I whisper to my mom.

She glances at the door as it opens again.

That’s Theo again. Carrying another bag of supplies.

Quietly belonging everywhere he goes, whether he’s causing chaos or setting up kittens with food and toys and litter.

Except I don’t think he realizes how right he looks no matter where he is. Especially here.

Is that why he’s quiet? I wouldn’t think he’d do anything quietly.

But he does.

And right now, he’s quietly hurting too.

I can feel it.

He disappears into my kitchen, and I hear the sounds of food bowls being laid out.

So do the cats.

All six of them perk up their ears and swivel their heads toward the kitchen.

“You are all so adorable,” I whisper to them.

Cream Puff leaps off the couch first with a long jump that took an extra big butt wiggle for confidence, sniffing as he heads cautiously toward the kitchen, slinking like he knows me and the bubble around me is okay, but the rest of this house is suspicious.

Jellybean follows, then Widget, and then the other three all together as a group, tumbling over each other.

Theo pops his head out of his kitchen, spots the kittens, nods, and disappears again.

“He’s odder than I thought,” Mom murmurs.

He’s nervous.

She makes him nervous.

He should be smiling. Cracking a joke. Relaxed.

He doesn’t hide in the kitchen long. And when he returns after running the water in the sink a few times, he’s holding a small brown lunch sack and a hair dryer.

He shoots a look at my mom, then crosses the room and helps himself to the seat next to me, sitting close enough that I can feel his warmth but not close enough for our thighs to touch.

Without a word, he hands me the bag.

I smell what’s inside before I open it. “You’re cheating,” I whisper.

“Expect any different?”

“No.”

My mouth waters.

I want the cookies.

I want them so badly.

But I make myself set the bag aside.

He eyes me like he’s waiting for the yelling to start.

I don’t want to yell.

I just want him to tell me why. Why he’s here. What he wants. What he’s willing to do to get what he wants.

Not tricks. Not kittens and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.

Me.

I want to know what he wants with me.

He looks down at the hair dryer. “They’ll tell you not to scratch down your cast. This one has a super low setting. Blow it down the cast if you itch. It’ll help.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah. Least I can—anyway. If I break one of my bones again, I might ask for it back.”

“Again?”

He flexes his left arm. “Climbing accident. You were all in college.”

We both fall silent.

It’s the most comfortable awkward I’ve ever experienced.

Or maybe the most awkward comfortable.

I miss him.

I had three days of realizing I knew nothing about who Theo truly is but enjoying every minute with him more and more and more.

I want to go on adventures. I want to see new places. Try new things.

Laugh.

Press boundaries.

Realize life goes on even when it’s not perfect.

And I want to do it with him.

He lifts his gaze to mine again. Takes a deep breath.

And looks away.

I could ask my mom to leave.

But something Claire said is sticking with me. I don’t want to be easy. I want to know I’m worth fighting for.

I love my parents. They drive me bonkers sometimes, but I love them.

And I am head over heels for Theo. I don’t want to be.

Unfortunately, I can’t help myself.

He’s everything I’ve been missing in my life and so much more.

But I don’t want to be easy. I don’t want to bend over backward to make everyone else comfortable. I want to know I’m worth fighting for.

I want to know if he’s willing to fight.

Will I fight for him?

Completely. Absolutely. Without hesitation.

But he walked away.

He walked away without giving me a chance to prove it to him.

If this is nothing more than neighborly guilt or neighborly kindness bringing him by, if he’s not all in, then what’s the point of fighting for him?

No matter how much it hurts?

You can’t make someone love you.

“I started on a dare.” His words come out so quietly that they almost don’t register at first. “It—it was dumb. The dare. The dare was dumb. And it got dumber the drunker I got. But I said I’d do it, so I signed up and posted a video of me knitting a heart, naked, while ripping off something I’d heard some radio deejay say about the double standard of having to be nice to extended family at the holidays while they insult your clothes and your car and your job.”

I saw that video.

It made me mad.

Mostly because I grew up going to those family holiday dinners and hating them, and I felt like he was talking about me. About what my parents used to deal with anytime we’d see my mom’s side of the family down in Denver.

“I didn’t think I’d get five followers, but people started talking about it in some corners of the internet, and next thing I knew, I had two hundred. So I posted another video. Same setup. Knitting a heart, dick hanging out, talking about finding where you fit after years of being a perpetual disappointment.”

My heart hurts.

I saw that video too.

Last night, actually.

I should’ve called anyone other than Sabrina to sit with me at the hospital.

She made me watch more of them.

I was just high enough on the painkillers to not fight her and just sober enough to remember.

“Then the comments started coming,” he continues. “You see me. Thank you. I needed to hear that today. And for the first time in my life, I was doing something that mattered. Something good. There were women who told me they were leaving their husbands after years of abuse and neglect because I convinced them they deserved love. There were women who told me they were taking the leap and going back to school. Starting a new job. Setting boundaries with bosses and kids and parents. There were dudes who told me I’d inspired them to come out to their families and live their truth. And it kept growing. And growing. And then the money came, and then the paranoia came, and everything kept growing. I kept working construction so nobody would ask why I didn’t have a job and Emma wouldn’t worry about how I was supporting myself until I asked her to do my taxes and had to tell her. I quit knowing who to trust and how to act and if the women who hit on me in bars saw the real me and liked it, or if they somehow secretly knew about my GrippaPeen channel. If they recognized my tattoos or my voice. I was so fucking glad I didn’t put my face on the screen and still paranoid that—”

“That they’d only like you for your money,” my mom interjects.

Theo and I both jolt.

He eyes her.

I gape at her.

She’s blinking quickly, like she’s trying not to cry too.

“That,” he says quietly. “Exactly that.”

She nods.

Then she nods again.

Like she knows she is exactly who he didn’t want to know.

He didn’t want her approval because she suddenly found out he had a big bank account.

“I—I apologize if it seems that I’m one of those people,” she says quietly. “I’ll try to only think of you as a porn star.”

I choke on a noise that might be a laugh, or it might be a sob.

I’m not entirely sure which.

“I’m not a porn star,” he replies. “I’m a naked motivational knitter.”

“Of course. I’ll make sure to tell Charles.”

“Are you two serious right now?” I ask them.

They both ignore me.

“I thought you’d take this worse,” Theo says to her. “You don’t need my money.”

She glances at me but still leaves my question hanging. “It’s quite the wake-up call to rewatch a video of your daughter yelling at you to shut up over your reactions to her, ah, favorite naked motivational knitter, and then to realize everything you’ve done to protect her has backfired the same way everything your own parents did to try to prepare you for the world made you resent them too.”

Mom’s face is going a mottled red.

Theo studies her for a minute, then nods. “I could probably get you a sound clip of some of my advice on the subject of parents respecting their kids’ choices.”

“That won’t be necessary. But thank you.”

“Offer stands.”

“What’s happening?” I point between them. “What’s happening here?”

“I’m realizing I’m late to get dinner in the oven at home,” Mom replies. “Laney, sweetheart, if you need anything, you know your father or I can be here in five minutes. Day or night. Anything. Theo, it was…lovely to see you again.”

“Is this reverse psychology?” I ask her.

She shakes her head as she reaches the foyer. “Love you, sweetheart.”

And then she’s pulling the door open before she’s even put on her coat and boots.

And it’s just me and Theo.

Me, Theo, and three kittens who are peeking back in at us from the kitchen.

“Why are you here?” I ask him.

He holds my gaze for an eternity. An eternity when I want to hug him and kiss him and tell him I love him and I don’t know if I can love him as big as he deserves to be loved, and an eternity when I want him to pull me into his arms and tell me that he wants me, only me, and that he’ll do anything to get me back.

Which is ridiculous.

I’m Plainy-Laney.

What in the world can I offer to him that he can’t find anywhere else?

He’s here because he heard I got hurt having an adventure and he feels bad.

“Never mind.” I twist in my seat, wishing I could get up.

“Because you’re my purpose,” he says quietly. “And even if you don’t want me anymore, you deserve to know how special you are and how sorry I am that I was an ass.”

My pulse goes on a breakaway. “If this is just a bunch of guilt—”

“My whole heart shattered into pieces when I heard you were hurt. Not because I wanted to be there keeping you safe. Because I missed out on being there to watch you fly. To watch you soar. To watch you do what I kept telling myself you wouldn’t do so that I could lie to myself and say it was a kindness to you to be a dick on Saturday night instead of fighting for you like I should’ve. I don’t want you to move on without me. I want you to move on with me. I lived in guilt for a lot of years before I found a way to accept myself for who I am, and it made me do a lot of shitty things. I don’t want to go back to living in guilt for pushing you away when you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted.”

“But why? Why me?”

He leans over and scoops up two kittens that he keeps for himself. “Because you know all of the darkest, ugliest, worst parts of me. You have a million reasons to hate me. To never want to see me again. But you spent last week believing in me as one of the good guys. You. Laney Kingston. Accepting me. Embracing me. Living with me. There’s nobody else in the world, Laney. No one else who could understand expectations and boxes and having to fight for the life you want to live. No one else who can challenge me the same. No one else who can make me feel like I’m on a bigger adventure than I am when I’m with you. I don’t want easy. I don’t want superficial. I meant it when I told you I don’t want some half-ass love. I want it all. And I want it with you.”

My heart is swelling outside of my chest. Tears drip down my nose. “For someone who’s spent our whole lives calling me Plainy-Laney, you sure do know how to make a girl feel special.”

He smiles softly and brushes a lock of hair out of my face. “Won’t get that from some boring-ass banker.”

“I don’t care what you do for work,” I whisper. “You’re doing good in the world.”

He shakes his head. “Time to move on.”

“Theo—”

“Posted my last video already today.”

“You’re quitting because of me.”

“Not quitting. Reconsidering my course. Penises are a dime a dozen. Got a pretty damn fine woody here, but they didn’t come back for my dick. They came back for what I had to say. And as someone very wise reminded me last week…I like to eat.”

My jaw won’t quite close. “Penises are a dime a dozen?”

He grins.

And then grins bigger.

And then the butthead giggles.

And it’s so cute that I drop my head to his shoulder and start laughing too.

“I was so mad at you ten minutes ago,” I wheeze into his shoulder.

He wraps an arm around me and kisses my temple, heat radiating out of his body. He needs to lose the jacket. He’s always too hot.

“I love making you laugh,” he says. “Favorite sound in the world.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It is. I’ve waited forever for this. I don’t take it for granted.”

Three more kittens poke their heads out of the kitchen.

Theo kisses my hair again.

My laughter subsides into a deep, contented sigh. “Sabrina told you about my leg, didn’t she?”

“Yep.”

“Was she a pain about it?”

“Yep.”

“Good.”

“She could’ve been a bigger pain. I deserved it.”

“You are so lucky I’m in a cast right now, or I’d be putting you in a headlock until you said three nice things about yourself.”

“Oh, look, the last kitten. Hey, did you see I brought you chocolate chip cookies?”

This man.

He’s a little bit of a mess. But so am I. And our fun together is just starting.

I lean back a bit so I can look up at him. “I’m going to demand proper dates.”

“Like the one with bacon?”

“Yes.”

He smiles at me, and then he’s kissing me.

Soft and slow and gentle, like he’s afraid all of me is as damaged as my leg is.

“I missed you,” I say against his lips.

“I’m still terrified this is a dream and you’ll never forgive me.”

“This isn’t a dream.”

“Are you sure?”

I kiss him again. “Nope. You’re right. Feels like a dream.”

He smiles at me. “A dream come true.”

“I’m your dream?”

“You’ve always been my dream, Laney. Always.”

“That must’ve been pretty awful.”

“Worth it.”

I smile back at him. The words slipped out so easily, but I fully believe him.

For all the years he annoyed me, I know exactly how he feels.

He starts chuckling again. “You’re thinking it was way worse for you, aren’t you?”

I shake my head. “Stay with me tonight?”

“Any night.”

“I don’t think I can make you pancakes for a few days.”

“I don’t want to stay for your pancakes.”

“Not even these pancakes?” I move his hand to my breast.

He squeezes.

My clit tingles.

And I officially regret my skiing decision yesterday.

Except for the part that breaking my leg is what brought Theo back here.

“How about I be in charge of everything related to you and your pancakes for the next few weeks?” he murmurs.

“That doesn’t seem fair to you.”

“Consider it an extended apology that I’ll enjoy very, very much.”

“You know I forgive you, right? You don’t have to keep making this up to me.”

He lifts his gaze again and studies me.

And I don’t think it’s because I’m leaping to the wrong conclusions.

I think it’s because he’s surprised I leapt to exactly the right one.

“You know what’s scariest right now?” he asks quietly.

“That you’re scared at all?”

He shakes his head. “Just how easy it is to love you.”

Just when I thought I was done with the tears for the day. “I think that means we’re doing something right.”

“Right and I have never been super tight.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you. We’ll get you through.”

He smiles at me again.

I kiss him again.

I can’t seem to stop myself. And I don’t want to. “I love you too,” I whisper between kisses. “But I think I have the harder job of the two of us.”

He outright laughs this time.

And then he shows me that it doesn’t matter that my leg’s in a cast.

He meant it when he said he’d take care of all of my pancakes.