Aldo gave a brisk nod, but his heart was busy climbing its way into his throat. He could run? And not just “might.” He would. If he could run again maybe…

No. Gloria deserved a man who could keep her safe, make her feel secure.

She was better off without him.

But it was her face that he saw through the rest of his appointment. Through the balance and strength exercises, the electrical stimulation, and finally the massage that soothed his screaming muscles.

30

“You don’t have to be my new therapy buddy,” Aldo told Harper once they were back in the car. This time it was physical exhaustion that had him acting like a bear. Annalise had dumped a stack of papers detailing at-home exercises on Harper on their way out.

“I don’t mind,” she said, slipping on her sunglasses. “But I’ll understand if you’d rather have your mom take you.”

He felt his lips lift in an involuntary smirk. “Very funny. Want to grab some lunch?” He hadn’t been hungry in weeks, but now he felt like he could lay into a side of beef.

Harper’s stomach gave an inhuman gurgle. “More than anything in the world.”

She took them through a drive-thru and put the top of the VW down in a sunny, waterfront park. Aldo watched her chow down on her burger with gusto.

“Have you talked to Luke?” she asked with her mouth full.

“A couple of times. Not since I came home though,” he told her. The conversations had been rushed. Aldo had gotten updates on Oluo, healing fast and raring to go back. But neither he nor Luke felt inclined to talk specifics about the incident.

Harper stared at him and chewed.

Aldo rolled his eyes. Maybe he was a little rusty on this conversation thing. “He sounds like he’s doing okay,” he told her.

“Does he?”

“He won’t let me thank him.” It had bothered him since that first call. Out of surgery, covered in bandages. He hadn’t even seen his leg yet. Someone had managed to patch Luke through to his hospital room. It was a short conversation in which Luke’s response to Aldo’s heartfelt, drugged-up gratitude was a succinct “fuck off.”

“For what?” Harper asked, the remains of her burger forgotten in her lap.

“He didn’t tell you that he dragged my ass out of there under fire while ordering everyone else to pull back?”

“He what?”

“Shit,” Aldo said. “It’s all kind of a red blur to me. One second, I’m driving down this stretch of road, the next I’m falling out of the truck. I couldn’t hear or feel anything. All I knew was I couldn’t move. I thought I was dead.”