Chapter Ninety Two – Hop Along

Suvi stood up and walked over Olivia's lap to the other side of the couch. He turned in a few tiny circles, smacking Olivia in the face with his tail as he did, and curled up in a little ball. Olivia sighed and looked at him, one eyebrow raised. He just looked at her all innocently. With that face how could she stay mad at him? She couldn't, but she was getting a little bit tired of trying to smooth crumpled footprints out of her notebook. This wasn't the first time either. By that point her paper was a wrinkled mess and she could barely read her notes.

"Are you comfortable now?"

Suvi yawned and stretched out, shoving at her a little bit with his legs. Apparently after three passes back and forth across her and the couch he was finally comfortable.

"Silly boy," she laughed.

At least now she might be able to get some work done.

And then her phone rang.

So much for getting any work done. She tossed her notebook on the coffee table and got up to get the phone. On her way she saw Suvi sprawl out further across the couch. No way was she getting that spot back. She grabbed her phone and answered it.

"Hey, Ben."

"Hey," he answered, sounding slightly out of breath. "I need your help."

Her help? What was going on that he needed her help, and why did he sound like he'd been running up and down steps for hours?

"Okay, with what?"

"Getting from your lobby to your apartment," he told her a bit sheepishly.

"Why?" she laughed, assuming this was one of his jokes or games.

"Because I tired myself out hopping on one foot and can't make it any farther."

He… what? That was either the strangest fake reason to get her downstairs for some unknown but likely ridiculous or annoying reason or something was actually wrong with him. She really wasn't sure which.

"Why are you only using one foot?"

"Because I can't put any weight on the other one."

"Because you… Okay. Okay. I'll be right down. Just stay put and try not to fall over."

"I promise I will stay put. Can't promise I won't fall over. Sorry."

Olivia rolled her eyes and headed for the door, waving at Suvi to join her along the way. If Ben was still making jokes like that then he couldn't be hurt that bad.

"Just don't move."

She hung up and hurried down to the lobby. Suvi trotted along after her, off leash and without his vest. The people in the building knew him, and she wouldn't be down in the lobby long. Olivia found Ben leaning heavily against the wall and visibly favoring his right foot. When he spotted her he pushed himself off the wall and took two hopping steps toward her. It seriously pissed her off.

"You're supposed to be staying still. Two more seconds of patience and I can help you."

"My left leg is getting tired."

"And it would be less tired if you waited for me to take some of your weight."

She slipped under his arm and felt him immediately lean against her. After they took one step forward she saw him wince. He was definitely hurting despite all of the jokes. From how slowly he was moving he was exhausted too.

"What did you do?"

"Twisted my ankle, I think. Got it good though."

"I meant how, you dork."

Despite his pain he flashed her a bright smile and nudged her sideways. It ended up nearly off-balancing him, but as he'd expected Olivia caught and steadied him. She shot him a fierce warning look to behave which he promptly ignored.

"Playing basketball with the guys."

"Basketball."

That was halfway across the city. If he had taken his car she wouldn't have viewed the distance as a big deal. The problem was she knew that he hadn't taken the car. At the time of day he usually went it was faster to walk, and Ben considered it a good warm up and cool down. Which meant he had walked to the park and hadn't had his car with him to get here.

"Please don't tell me you hopped here."

"Nope. Took a cab."

"Thank you for showing at least some common sense."

"Hey, I have common sense. I called you didn't I?"

She couldn't help smiling at him, but it didn't stop her from basically dumping him unceremoniously against the wall when she reached her apartment. While she opened the door Suvi kept an eye on Ben. When Ben pushed himself off the wall to walk through the open door on his own Suvi bumped Ben's upper leg and knocked him back against the wall.

"Good boy," Olivia told Suvi.

She ruffled his ears and slipped back under Ben's arm with a bit of a smirk. Ben might have thought he could get away with that when she was partially distracted but that wasn't possible with Suvi around. He was her extra set of eyes and was a perfect hall monitor (in this case literally).

"You just can't win," Olivia teased.

"Guess not."

Olivia helped Ben onto the couch and shoved a few pillows under his leg to keep his ankle raised. After loosening the laces on his shoe as much as she could she slowly took his shoe and sock off to get a better look at his ankle. It was already black and blue and slightly swollen. She wouldn't be surprised if it was so swollen tomorrow that he couldn't get a shoe on.

"We should get an ace wrap on that. And some ice."

"Ow."

"Baby. Watch him, Suvi."

Suvi looked up at her and moved closer to Ben when she headed into the kitchen. She filled a bag with ice and cold water, grabbed two painkillers and a glass of water, and headed back to Ben. When she rested the ice on his ankle he drew in a sharp breath and flinched away. She got the bag settled though and handed him the pills and glass.

"This will make it better."

Ben took the glass and pills before flashing her a charming smile. He managed to pull it off rather well despite the pain.

"So would a kiss."

Olivia smiled and managed to squeeze onto the couch next to him. It wasn't enough to get her any more than barely sitting on the edge, but it worked.

"I love you, Ben, but I'm not going to kiss your foot."

"You could just kiss my lips. I'm not discriminate."

She leaned down and kissed him, brushing back his sweaty hair as she did. He was definitely going to need a shower though she wasn't sure how he would manage it.

"Let me go find you an ace wrap. Stay put and take your pills."

Again she left him sprawled across the couch as she wandered into her bedroom to dig though her drawers. She knew she had the wrap hidden away somewhere; she just didn't know where. It had been a long time since she'd needed it. Finally, after quite a bit of digging, she found it. When she got back into the living room she found Ben flipping through the notebook she'd tossed onto the coffee table when he'd called.

"What did I distract you from?" he asked as he waved the notebook at her.

She plucked the notebook from his hand and dropped it back onto the coffee table.

"It's for an upcoming conference."

"Yeah? Sorry I distracted you."

"It's fine. I wasn't getting very far anyway."

She shot Suvi a look, but he just looked up at her and his jaw dropped happily. Apparently in his mind stealing the entire couch and continually distracting her from work was no reason to be repentant. For now he was content on the floor, but with how demanding he'd been before Ben had arrived Olivia suspected he would eventually try to get his spot back. That would almost inevitably hit Ben's ankle. She would have to keep an eye on that. While Ben was doing a very good job of hiding the level of pain he was in, Olivia suspected it was pretty high and any bump, jostle, or pressure would do him in completely.

When Olivia took the ice off Ben's foot some time later she didn't like what she saw. Despite the ice, which should have kept the swelling down, his ankle looked bigger. She was starting to worry that he'd done more than simply sprain it.

"Ben, I really think we should get this looked at."

Ben pushed himself up so he could look at his ankle. Yeah, it looked pretty bad.

"It's probably just a bad sprain. We'll see how it looks tomorrow."

"Are you sure?"

"Yup. Just wrap it up. I'll keep icing it and hope for the best."

Olivia sighed at him but just shook her head and started wrapping the ace wrap around his ankle. He winced a few times as she did, which didn't convince her that he was making the right choice at all. It was his body though. She wouldn't be able to convince him to go to the hospital if he didn't want to go. At least not until tomorrow morning. If it looked worse tomorrow she wasn't going to let up until he saw someone about it. Until then he was definitely staying off that ankle. And she might just keep pestering about seeing a doctor anyway…