I blinked at her because—holy fucking shit—I'd tacitly hired her, and then—then all of this happened. "I'm sure it's fine but thank you for your concern."
"Okay. I see how it's going to be. I have to convince you to do things even though we both know they're the best course of action. That's cool. I can do that." She buttoned my shirt and gave the placket a quick pat when she was finished. "Ash, your shoulder is probably dislocated and if you allow it to stay in that condition, you'll have long-term damage. I could be wrong but I think you like being able to pull shirts over your head and wash your hair and, I don't know, play squash."
"You think I play squash?"
She held up both hands, shrugging. "Let's just say I'd believe it if you did."
Another one of those growl sounded in my throat. "I don't play squash."
"Well, you're doing something to maintain"—she zigzagged a finger at me—"all of this. I'm sure you'll want to be able to kick the golf ball and swing for the field goal and long jump to home plate."
"Now you're just being ridiculous," I said.
"Maybe," she conceded. "But don't forget you won't be able to type real fast on your laptop if one of your arms is fucked-up." Her eyes widened in amusement as I considered this. "Yeah. That's a big one, huh? Bigger than giving up pickleball or cornhole."
"Giving up what?" I asked, laughing.
"Oh, come on. You know, pickleball. The game you get when you screw with the genetic code of tennis, ping-pong, and badminton." She nodded as if this should make sense to me. "And cornhole is the hipster cousin of horseshoes, quite frankly. If I had a slab of plywood, I would definitely drill a hole in it and then ritualistically toss some beanbags into that hole. For sure. That is good, old-fashioned entertainment right there."
"I think I heard my sister saying she's having some cornhole games set up at her wedding reception next weekend." I glanced out the window, hoping I'd find an explanation as to why we were still trapped in the airplane despite being parked at the gate.
"See? You'll need to be in top cornholing shape," Zelda replied. "And I don't know your sister but I'm positive she wouldn't want you and your jacked-up shoulder situation ruining her photos. By next weekend, you're going to have a teeter-totter thing going on, one shoulder higher than the other. Sorry, Lurch, but your sister isn't allowing that." She shook her head. "What do you say? Why don't we call that doctor now?"
Finally, the aircraft doors gusted open and the passengers around us surged to their feet. Zelda shrugged her backpack on and waited in the aisle for me to join her. I followed but made the error of trying to swing my laptop bag over my injured shoulder. The pain nearly buckled my knees. Zelda observed all of this and tried to take the bag from me but I brushed off her advances and shifted it to the other arm as if I wasn't choking back a horrible cocktail of vomit, tears, and wounded animal whimpers.
We walked up the jetway and through the busy terminal in silence. When we reached the escalator to the baggage claim, I gestured for her to go ahead of me.
"It's funny that this is your chivalry," she said, paused at the entrance. "Of all the ways for you to show any gendered deference, you choose the ladies-first route here."
I had fifteen different things to say to her. Most of them contradictory and too opaque to form into clear thoughts. Most of them lurked around the reality that I didn't know how to interact with Zelda. She didn't fit into a tidy LinkedIn headline. She wasn't the standard formula of adjective, job title, career goal. And she was unlike anyone else in my life. I didn't know anyone who existed the way she did, all blue-streaked hair and moon tattoos and math tricks. And the rest of it too—her willingness to let me get away with shit as long as she could point it out in the process. Her refusal to take no for an answer. Her addictive warmth. I didn't know what to do with her.
All I could say was, "Zelda, people are waiting behind you."
She stepped onto the escalator. I followed.
If I was the kind of man who measured masculinity by shows of strength, that masculinity would've been