I back out of the bathroom and slam the door shut, but it does not erase what I’ve seen. My jerkwad neighbor is well endowed. Not in a terrifying “Do you shoot porn?” kind of way but more of a “That would be a welcome stretch.” It also appears that he was trying to manage relieving himself while dealing with morning wood. I didn’t realize that was possible.

A bloodcurdling scream and a low thud follow as I slam the door. Since the noise didn’t come from me, it means it came from him. Obviously I scared him as much as he scared me.

“Shit. What the hell do I do?” I ask the wall as I press my ear to the door. I can hear groans and whimpers from the other side. “Are you okay?”

“No.” The single word is followed by more groaning.

“I’m coming back in,” I warn. It’s not like I can leave him in there anyway. I have to get ready for work.

I turn the knob and peek through the narrow gap. He’s still on the floor. I push the door open farther and cringe. He’s managed to pee all over the seat. And he may have sprayed the vanity. Gross. At least it doesn’t seem to be all over the floor too.

I notice a few more details now that I’m back in “feeling bad” mode instead of “panic and shock” mode. Once again he’s in only a pair of boxer briefs. These ones are bright yellow with CAUTION written all over them, like the tape they use at crime scenes. He was fully dressed when I left him on the couch last night.

From across the hall his body is a lot to handle visually, but this close, good God, this man is stacked. Muscles layer over muscles, everything tight and defined. He’s just . . . a lot. And he takes up a considerable amount of space in this bathroom.

Based on the way he’s breathing like an angry bull, he’s also in pain. That still doesn’t explain where the rest of his clothes went. I’ll come back to that, though.

“What do you need?” Apart from a shower, most likely.

“I can’t reach my crutches.” He motions to where they lean against the wall on the opposite side of the vanity. It’s not particularly far, but I’m assuming his level of pain makes him incapable of getting to them.

I reach over him and flip the toilet seat down first, then grab the crutches and position them on either side of him. It’s awkward, since he’s facing the toilet, and I’m forced to stand behind him. My feet are sort of touching his, which is weird, but there’s not much I can do about that. He braces on the handgrips and swears a blue streak as he slowly hoists himself up.

As someone who is trained in injury rehab and physical therapy, I should know what to do, but usually the people I’m treating are wearing more clothes and haven’t scared the shit out of me or insulted me on several occasions. Also, this guy probably weighs twice what I do. I slip my hands under his arms to . . . I don’t know . . . provide support?

“What’re you doing?”

“Helping you?” I’m fully pressed up against his back. His incredibly defined, very warm, very hard, muscly back.

“By humping me from behind?” he grunts.

I step away, because screw him. He stumbles and loses his hold on one of his crutches, forcing him to use the counter to brace his weight again. I hope his hand is in his own pee.

“Will you sit down before you break something?” I snap.

“I’m trying. You’re all up in my personal freaking space.”

“I’m not even touching you anymore! And I was helping. God, why are you such an asshole?”

“Because I’m in pain! Why are you such a morally defunct home-wrecker?”

“What?”

He spins around, and again it’s more graceful than I’d expect for someone his size, in his condition. I temporarily forget the home-wrecker comment when he bashes me in the shin with the end of his crutch. It might be covered in rubber, but it hurts like hell.

I drop to the floor and clutch my shin as he sits on the closed toilet seat. “Ow! Seriously?” This is what I get for being nice to someone with a pretty face and the personality of a praying mantis.

My current position puts me right between Jerkwad’s spread thighs. I’m also almost at eye level with his CAUTION crotch. As distracting as his underwear is, I finally understand why this guy is in so much pain. “Holy shit! What the hell happened to you?”

The inside of his left thigh is a mottled mass of mostly black, purple, and a lot of blue spanning all the way down to his knee.

“I hurt myself.”

“How the hell do you get a groin injury like that? What were you doing?” I’ve never seen one this bad—not even in my textbooks from college, or the videos I’ve watched online.

“Fucking around, obviously.”

“Sex caused this?” Jesus. What kind of shape was the woman in if he’s this messed up?

He rolls his eyes. “Not sex. I was playing hockey.”

“You play hockey?”

“Yeah.” He looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“What kind of hockey?”

His lip twitches. “The professional kind.”

I can feel my eyebrows pop. “Like NHL? For Seattle?”

“Yeah.” He seems as though he’s waiting for some kind of reaction.

It would’ve been nice if my brother had told me my neighbor was also his teammate. Although maybe I should’ve put two and two together. Then I remember the hit we saw yesterday. “Are you Winslow? Number fifty-two?”