A Kind of Magic

"Hi," he said, using the speech function on his phone, "I'm Cain Edwards, I'm here to see Roman. Am I too early?"

Cain was an excellent cook, the dishes he made were simple, but delicious and he enjoyed making dinner for the two of them to enjoy together after they finished work. Meals were typically quiet affairs, as they were busy using their hands, but partway through their dinner, Cain stopped eating and got Juni's attention. "Juni, I know we're happy, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me, but do you ever think about...us maybe making things official between us?"

“I promise.  If something happens and it’s more serious than just a couple of stitches, you’ll be the first person I call.  I’ve got a follow up appointment next week if you want to come along, hopefully it’ll be healed enough for them to come out by then.  I’m just going to be on some antibiotics for a little while and it should all be fine.”  Cain smiled gently when she took the water, but he was worried about her, he’d seen this before, but he never knew if there was anything he could really do to help or make her feel better.  “How can I help?  Do you want me to just close the curtains and go away? I can do that.” 

“If it was serious, I would have texted you, I promise, but I was only there for about an hour and there was no reason to pull you out of work for this.”  He squeezed her hand with his good one before he continued, “I don’t want you to worry about me, and if something serious happens you will be the first person I call, unless I need an ambulance.  This wasn’t that bad, I promise, honestly...I sneezed and my hand moved away from where it should have been, but I’m okay.”  He leaned over and kissed her temple, “Okay, you think about what you’re in the mood for and I will bring you some water, let me know if you think  of anything else.” 

“I’m sure,” Cain signed, “It doesn’t feel great, but it wasn’t too bad, I was in and out in a couple of hours, they just want me to take some antibiotics for a while, just so things don’t develop into an infection, but I’ll get the stitches out next week and I’ll be back to normal.  I’ll take it easy tonight and get back to work tomorrow, Roman is sending his people to pick this up next week and I’ve still got a lot of work to do on it.” 

He nodded and held his arm out to her so she could take it and he could guide her over to the couch.  “We can order in later, if you’re not hungry now, but is there anything else I can do to help?” 

Once the Uber pulled up to the front of the house, Juniper got out, thanking the driver with the text app on her phone and then she went inside the house, closing the door behind her. She had to hold herself up with the help of the wall, letting the room spin. She gave it a moment before she walked further into the house, spotting Cain walking up to greet her. She saw the bandage immediately and frowned. “Hey. It was okay. What happened to your hand?” She signed, letting her bag fall to the floor next to her.

Cain and Juni had been together long enough that they were good at being able to read each other and he trusted her to tell him if she was struggling to the point she needed his assistance and he could tell she was having a rough day, but she was strong and he knew she could handle herself.  He could see that it would be a bad idea to upset her right now, and thankfully his injury had been fairly minor and he wasn’t in any kind of pain, so playing it off was easy. 

“It’s nothing,” he signed, “Slight accident with my table saw but I got a couple of stitches and I should be fine in a couple of days, nothing to worry about.  It did get in the way of my making dinner tonight though, at first I thought I’d just take you out, but it might be better if we order in tonight, what do you think?” 

He’d been focusing so hard on the construction of his project that he’d accidentally cut his hand on his table saw.  It wasn’t too serious, but when it didn’t stop bleeding, he’d given up for the day and decided to drive himself to the ER and came home with a couple of stitches in his hand and decided to take a nap with Carol on the couch until he heard Juni open the front down and got up to meet her.  “Hey,” he signed, singing just slightly as it pulled at his stitches, though it really wasn’t too painful, “Did you have a good day?”