“Just an observation, not a rating. I can objectively notice that a woman is very attractive without diminishing her as a person by assigning her a number based on society’s arbitrary standards of beauty.”

“Dude, you need to give me your man card,” I said. “You’re one of those ‘woke’ males, aren’t you?” Truthfully, I respected that Jackson wasn’t a dick about women, bucking the misogynistic stereotype of most muscle heads, but I would rather swallow my tongue before I’d admit it.

He stared at me with his unnerving gray gaze, and I got the distinct feeling I didn’t fool him one little bit. I definitely needed to fire him.

“An eight-point-five,” he said. “She’s a little scrawny for me.”

In spite of myself, I laughed. Then I choked on it, realizing that having a hot tenant was not good. In fact, it was bad, very bad. I did not want any distractions during my recovery, and Annabelle Martin—that was her name!—my unwanted renter, was an eight-point-five. Shit! Then again, maybe Jackson graded on a curve. Maybe his hotness meter would register as a five for me.

I took four steps, keeping my hand out to grab the rack of barbells I passed if I started to crumble again. It wasn’t necessary. I reached the wheelchair, turned, and lowered myself onto the seat with the familiarity that had come from the past nine months of hauling myself around in the stupid thing. I hated it. I hated that I needed it. I hated what it represented. But mostly, I hated that I was afraid to be without it.

I put my feet on the footrests and spun the chair so that I faced the floor-to-ceiling windows, which were curtained by heavy drapes. I cast Jackson a dark look, at which he wagged his eyebrows. He moved the curtain aside just enough to let me see out, too.

My tenant was seated on her patio in one of the two cushioned chairs that faced the pool. She was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt over a pair of black-and-white-plaid pajama bottoms. There was nothing sexy about the outfit and yet the sight of her in her sleepwear, with her painted pink toes peeking out beneath the hem of her pants, felt oddly intimate.

I watched as she lifted her coffee mug to her lips. She was pale, as if she hadn’t seen the sun in months, with long dark hair, and average features that were neither stunningly beautiful nor hideous. Compared to the women I’d dated back in the day, she was plain with a side of pretty, but nothing I would have looked at twice.

“Meh,” I said. “I’ve seen better.”