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“We’ll get you the Lamborghini of arm slings,” Jimmy tells her as he takes the plastic bag of her belongings from the nurse.
“I prefer Porsches,” Kim says as she fumbles with the pen in her left hand, trying to get a good grip. Jimmy swallows, watching the firm set of her lips, the defiant jut of her jaw as she finally manages to scribble out her initials on the discharge form.
“You’re all set,” the nurse says. She points to the cast. “Don’t get that wet. Have a good night.”
They walk down the hospital hallway and he is surprised when Kim reaches for his hand with her good one. She gives him a squeeze as they pass through the sliding doors and he swallows again, acutely aware of how remarkable it is that she is alive.
When he pulls over to retrieve her papers from the side of the highway, she thanks him, her voice thick with emotion. Her blouse, torn and bloody, lies wrinkling in the bottom of the bag from the hospital. They’d had to cut her out of it, a dull jagged line down the front. Jimmy blinks to erase the images swirling in his mind as he reaches for a table of contents about to float away with the sudden gust of wind as a car passes.
At the apartment, she sits on the edge of the bed and Jimmy unzips his sweatshirt from around her.
“Something without sleeves,” Kim murmurs, pointing to a drawer.
Jimmy holds up a gray tanktop he finds on the top of the pile and she nods. She looks impossibly small in only her slacks, her eyes focused on a point not even in the room. With more care than he’s ever taken in anything, he lifts the shirt over her head, careful not to jostle her too much.
“It’s okay,” she says quietly, like she can tell he’s afraid he’ll break her.
His knuckles brush her breast as he tugs the shirt down over her torso and she turns her head slightly to press her lips against the inside of his forearm. It’s not quite a kiss; it’s more tender than that. Jimmy gives her shoulders a squeeze and clears his throat so he doesn’t say he’s terrified. He returns to the dresser, searching for pants.
Kim stands and is able to unclasp her pants with one hand, wiggling her hips and letting them slide to the floor.
“Nice moves,” Jimmy chuckles. He holds up a pair of pajama pants with dachshunds on them. “These ok?”
Kim nods.
“A personal favorite, if I do say so myself,” he adds, leaving the joggers on the bed and scooping to pick up her slacks.
“The hanger’s--” She points.
Jimmy folds her navy pants neatly along the crease and returns the hanger to its spot in the closet. When he turns around, she’s trying to pull her pajama pants up with her left hand, lips once again set in a straight line and brow puckered. He kneels and helps her with them the rest of the way, suddenly remembering a few weeks ago when he’d complimented her ass in these pants, and she’d shoved his shoulders playfully, in a time where they shared an office and she could shove with both hands and he was allowed to practice law in the state of New Mexico. Above him, she rests her hands on his shoulders and hums her thanks.
She falls asleep even more quickly than usual, already breathing deeply before he even turns her lamp off. Making sure not to disturb her, Jimmy shuffles quietly into the living room and picks up the plastic bag from the hospital, opening its contents onto the coffee table. Her blouse, ruined. Her cell phone, miraculously intact. And at the bottom of the bag, curled in the corner and glinting in the dim light, her necklace. Jimmy pulls it out gingerly, like it’s an extension of Kim herself, and sees that the chain has become knotted, tangling at the top near the clasp.
He heads to the kitchen and rummages through the junk drawer until he finds a safety pin. He unhooks the clasp and loops the point of the pin through the first knot, working slowly and confidently like he’d seen his mother do a hundred times in the dim light of their kitchen table. When Kim wakes up in the morning her necklace will be untangled and back on her dresser with the rest of her jewelry, the one thing he was able to undo and make right.
--
She would never, ever ask. But one day he catches her frowning at herself in the mirror, puzzled as to how she’s going to do her hair for a meeting that afternoon, so he offers. And to his absolute surprise, she accepts, directing him to an unassuming wooden box collecting dust on one of her bookshelves.
“Always wondered what was in here,” he says, picking it up and hearing its contents shift.
She smiles, the healing scab around her eye crinkling up with her skin. All of a sudden something warm blooms in his chest and he wants to hold her close, to bury his face in the crook of her neck. Tell her what Chuck told him, how it was one thing to feel it but it was another to know it unequivocally. He wants to tell her she’s the only thing that matters, that will ever matter, that day after day he wakes up unsure of how to prove himself worthy of her, though he knows she’d never ask him to.
“Barrettes,” she announces as he places the box in front of her on the dresser. She picks through with her left hand, her capable fingers grazing over dull gold bobby pins and a small sampling of tortoiseshell hair clips, a few of which he recognizes from years and years ago. Finally after a moment she makes her selection and hands him a simple but pretty one.
“Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner,” Jimmy says, taking it from her. In his other hand he takes her hairbrush and moves to stand behind her, saying, “Alright, be gentle, will ya? It’s my first time.”
“Shut up,” she says with a good-natured chuckle. “Don’t overthink it.”
Jimmy makes a face at her in the mirror, then swipes the brush through her hair confidently, avoiding the carefully curled ends as best he can. Once it’s lying smooth he slips the barrette over the fine strands and secures it at the base of her neck. It’s different from her usual work updo, but the effect is the same: competent, calm, cool. But she’s always made everything look easy.
He steps back and assesses his work. “How’s that look? Have I completed my 500 hours of beauty school?”
Kim smirks and turns to look at it with her hand mirror. “No graduation day for youuu…” she sings off-key, then catches his eye. “It looks great, Jimmy. Thank you.”
He nods. “Really? Great! Gotta add that to the old resume. Additional skills: hairstyling - beginner.”
“Oh, this is the work of an intermediate, at least,” Kim says, admiring it in the mirror again.
“Guess I better give Mrs. Nguyen a call, see if she needs a junior hair stylist,” Jimmy jokes.
“Don’t put me down as a reference,” Kim riffs, securing her sling. “I was not satisfied with my last pedicure.”
Jimmy sucks his teeth. “See, that’s a bummer, because I have pictures of that for my portfolio and everything.”
Kim fakes a wince. “Ohhh, that was your portfolio? In that shoebox under the bed? I thought that was just a bunch of freaky pictures so I threw them all out when I was cleaning.”
“Guess I’ll just have to take some new ones then,” Jimmy shrugs, unfazed.
She chuckles as she slips into her shoes, and for a moment he doesn’t remember that his brother’s dead, or that her arm is broken, or that he’s not a lawyer. For a moment the entire world is tucked in the corner of her mouth, and the sun rises and sets with the tug of her lip.
--
He gets home and she’s standing on the balcony, an unlit cigarette dangling from her fingertips, threatening to teeter over the edge of the railing and into the parking lot.
“Hey,” she says softly as he shuts the door behind him.
“You need a hand with that?” he asks, pointing to the cigarette.
She scrunches her nose and looks up. “Too windy, the lighter kept blowing out.”
Kim pulls the lighter from her pocket and hands it to him, then shifts, leaning her weight against the railing. She’s taken her sling off, and has traded her blazer for a zip-up sweatshirt sitting snugly around her shoulders, but she remains in her blouse and skirt. He wonders if she was waiting for him.
Jimmy steps in closer to her, cupping his hands around the slightly blackened end of her cigarette, and she rubs a bare foot against the front of his shin, overtop his pants. With a flick of his thumb the lighter comes to life, and when Kim puckers her lips the tip glows orange. It is just dark enough that the flame flashes in the blue of her eyes.
He moves beside her against the railing, facing out, watching the people in the building across from them as they flick their lights on and off, coming and going against the backdrop of his and Kim’s lives. Beside him, she exhales.
--
“So, what, you gonna get an office with your nameplate on the door and everything?” Jimmy says, helping her pull a faded periwinkle shirt over her head. It comes to rest just below the waistband of a pair of gray terrycloth shorts.
“I guess so,” she says with a shrug, though she’s much more exhilarated than she’s letting on. She’d had an extra Moscow mule at Forque and he can taste the ginger on her lips when she closes the distance between them with a kiss.
“Excited, huh?” Jimmy asks when they part.
Kim looks at the floor and smiles, swiping her good hand across her face. “I guess so,” she says again. She looks up at him and smiles again. “We match,” she says, pointing between them to their similarly-colored shirts.
“Do we?” Jimmy asks. “I think I’m a little more purple--”
She cuts him off with her lips on his again, her good hand reaching out to tug at his belt buckle, pulling their hips together. Jimmy reaches a hand to the back of her neck, holding her there, making sure she’s still real. That she isn’t gone yet. Her kisses are insistent and hungry; open-mouthed and sloppy is never her opening move.
“What am I gonna do when you have two hands again?” he chuckles, giving in and helping her unzip his pants.
“Oh, be afraid,” she whispers, her eyes glinting. “Be very afraid.”
Her hand grazes his waistband and her palm tickles his stomach as she leans in, giddy off her new job, her new future, her new life. When she lowers her hand into his boxers he twitches away from her instead of into her grasp.
“Woah, uh, easy Gonzales,” Jimmy mumbles.
“Huh?” she mutters against his throat.
“Speedy Gonzales,” Jimmy explains, his voice tight. “ The baseball player?”
“I have my hand down your pants and you’re talking about baseball?” Kim teases. But something is pricking the corners of her eyes, something sharp is making her upper lip curl and he can see it all: the way she’ll pull away first from his body, and then from their life, retreating to the dark-wooded safety of a downtown law office, one without rocking chairs and a custom-painted wall at reception.
“Sorry Kim, I uh…” He gently takes her wrist between his fingers and removes her hand from his boxers. “I think I had too much to drink tonight.”
“Oh. Sorry. Uh--” She stammers, uncharacteristically embarrassed.
“I can--” He jabs a thumb towards the bed. “Show the lady a good time, if you’re interested.”
Kim shakes her head, but he can’t tell until she speaks if she’s rebuffing or affirming him. “Oh. That’s… uh. Yeah. That’d be nice.”
They hesitate for a moment, awkwardly waltzing around each other like teenagers until she gives a frustrated laugh and settles on the edge of the bed. Jimmy laughs nervously as he lowers himself onto his knees, his hands coming to rest on the tops of her thighs. He kisses her once, twice, slower this time, not responding to her insistent nips at his lower lip. Then his hands are at her waist, pulling down her shorts that he’d helped her into only moments ago, taking her underwear with them.
She doesn’t lie back, she stays upright, watching as he lowers his head and begins kissing a path up her inner thigh. He hears her breath quickening, feels her femoral pulse beating against his cheek as he hooks his arms underneath her thighs and teases her, running his tongue along the crease of her thigh on one side, then the other. Kim makes a frustrated sound, her good hand twisting in his hair, sending a shiver down his spine. It’s enough to drive him towards her center, reveling in the sensation of her legs unconsciously spreading further as his lips make contact, then quickly shuddering closed as his tongue starts to move up and down. Above him, she lets out a long exhale and then stills, moving quietly with him for the next few minutes.
She is warm, but not nearly as vocal as usual, occasionally humming her assent and mostly staying still. Jimmy mixes it up a little, tilting to adjust the angle of his head, sucking where he usually licks, but she doesn’t feel like she normally does, doesn’t move or whisper like he’s used to. She might as well be a stranger sitting on the bed above him. After a few more minutes, Kim sighs and lazily reaches her left hand between her legs, her fingers moving clumsily in a direction they’re not used to as she tries to finish what he couldn’t.
“You want me to, uh--” he asks.
“No,” she hisses, lying back now, her cast awkwardly cactusing out to her right side. “I got it, just a second.”
“Should I--” Jimmy slides a finger inside her and her hips rise to follow the movements of his hand. They move together briefly, but then Kim makes another frustrated growl and scoots up the bed, away from him. Without her thighs around him, her warmth in his hand, he’s suddenly cold.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
Her eyes study the bedspread, her good hand covers her mouth. “Yeah,” she mumbles after a moment. “I uh… don’t worry about it, it’s fine.”
Jimmy tries to remember the last time she felt this far away from him. He turns away from her and leans back against the bed, defeated and hollow. The roaring of his heartbeat in his ears is what tells him he’s alive. It’s the loudest sound he’s ever heard.
--
“Last one,” Jimmy says as he enters the bedroom and holds the plastic bag aloft.
“Last one,” Kim says triumphantly, holding her right arm up for him. She’s already halfway out of her pajamas, mostly healed and just battling her mobility at this point.
For the last time Jimmy carefully wraps her cast in plastic, wondering if he’ll actually miss the familiar rustling of the masking tape. He knows Kim won’t, watching her face as she ticks off her mental checklist.
“What time’s your appointment?” he asks.
“9:30,” she says, glancing to the clock. “And then I’m picking up my car at noon.”
“No more cabs, only the best for Kim Wexler,” Jimmy says. He finishes up taping with a flourish and helps her out of her tanktop one last time. She shimmies her underwear down her legs as she walks to the bathroom.
He takes a long, appreciative glance at the lithe line of her back, the ample curve of her bottom as she reaches to turn on the shower. “I never got to sign it,” he says, almost a little sad.
A smile tugs the corner of her lips, following his gaze. “My ass?”
“I didn’t know that was an option,” he chuffs. “No, your cast.”
“What would you have written?” she asks, the hair around her temples starting to curl as the bathroom fills up with steam.
He thinks for a moment, remembering signing the yearbooks of pretty girls in high school, the pen sweaty in his palm as he wrote the seven digits of his phone number, careful to make sure she could tell the difference between the 7s and the 1s. He feels that way when he looks at Kim now, the same disbelief at being approached by her, incredulous that she’d spoken to him at all.
Finally after a moment he says, “HAGS.”
Kim stutters out a laugh. “Excuse me?”
“Have a great summer,” Jimmy says. “HAGS, never change.”
“Oh yeah,” Kim says with a smile, remembering. “Never change.”