Gift Wrapped in Tentacles (Tinsel and Tentacles 3.0 #9)

Chapter 1

Declan

Iwas deeply regretting coming home. To be clear, ‘home’ in this instance meant my parents’ house and it wasn’t actually home. I hadn’t lived with them for six years, since I’d graduated from university. But now, here I was, back under their roof and feeling like a child again.

My mum hovered around me, anxious and fussing and I knew it was because she loved me but I wished she’d stop.

I’d come out of hospital last week. My stump had healed about as well as it would but I was still adjusting and needed support.

I loved my parents and I was grateful for their support. I didn’t know what I would have done without them the past few months. But it was a lot. To lose my leg and then my apartment and then my independence.

My mum knocked on the door to my childhood bedroom.

“Declan? Are you ready?”

“Yes, mum.”

The words tripped off my tongue, exactly the same as they had years ago, when I’d lived here before starting my own life. I sighed and hauled myself to my feet. Well, my foot.

She was waiting outside the door for me, hovering nearby until I sat in the stairlift.

No matter how many times I told her I wasn’t going to fall down the stairs, she never believed me.

I gritted my teeth and said nothing. She hadn’t done anything to deserve my short temper, but nonetheless, it was hard to bite my tongue.

Dad drove me to my physiotherapy appointment. It was over in the town, about a fifteen-minute drive from my parents’ village.

We spent the drive in silence, the blustery early winter weather as grey and depressing as our car.

God, I wished Sonny were there. I missed him more than I missed my leg.

I felt unbalanced without his constant presence in my life but I couldn’t exactly ask him to put his entire life and career on pause to spend time with me in the middle of nowhere while I recovered.

Perhaps it wasn’t the drab countryside that was so grey, after all. Maybe it was just me.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said as I stepped out. It took me a moment to balance, and then I shut the car door.

“I’ll be here to pick you up, son.”

“Thanks,” I said again and began to make my way slowly inside.

I hadn’t realised quite how slow I’d be, actually. I’d given myself plenty of time to get there but I still only had two minutes to spare by the time I got into the reception area. Worse, I was panting with the effort. I felt so weak.

“Declan Yates?” asked the receptionist.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Go straight through. It’s the first door on your right.”

She indicated a corridor and I obediently set off, half annoyed that I hadn’t had a chance to sit down and rest and half grateful that I hadn’t, because getting up again could be tricky.

Just as I reached the door, my phone beeped with an incoming message.

I had to lean against the wall and transfer my crutches to one hand and open my phone with the other.

It was awkward and I most certainly wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, but that beep?

That meant this message was from Sonny. The only one whose messages didn’t get a short vibration and nothing more.

I opened it and read.

SONNY: Good luck with your physio! I’ll call you later to get the gossip.

My heart lifted just a tiny bit. Sonny would call me later. That was a little ray of sunshine to look forward to.

Then my phone beeped again and another message appeared underneath.

SONNY: Hey, if it’s a guy and he’s hot, give him a grope from me.

SONNY: Consensually, of course.

That made me smile even as my chest tightened. Sonny was open about his sexuality and liked to flirt. It was beautiful to see. Mesmerising. That’s what made me smile. He would most definitely feel up a hot physiotherapist.

And also it’s what made my chest tighten. Sonny was beautiful. Inside and out. And he had options. So many options.

And all of them were better options than me.

I slid my phone back into my pocket without replying. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be a blatant lie (sure, I’ll grope my physio if he’s a hottie) or desperately sad (please never grope anyone but me, Sonny, I love you).

Taking a breath, I knocked and pushed the door open. A pleasant voice said, “Mr Yates?”

I pulled a face. “Call me Declan, please.”

“Declan.”

As I looked up at the man standing beside the physio table, my step faltered as I was caught off guard.

He was a slender man about my age, shorter than me but he held himself upright.

The way he moved towards me, his hand stretched out to shake mine, showed that he had an easy, fluid way of moving.

Something about that movement was unusual, as though he were uncurling his hand to offer it to me.

Taking his hand, my skin prickled with awareness. I felt my body in a way I hadn’t in a long time.

He was pretty. As pretty as Sonny was, though he was shorter and dark-haired, whereas Sonny was willowy and fair. My ray of sunshine.

I had the sudden urge to press close to this man and wrap my arms around him and had to restrain myself.

Was it my imagination or did he hold my hand just a fraction longer than he needed to? Maybe Sonny had put ideas in my head. I tried to shake off the sudden feeling.

He released me and stepped back, giving me an easy smile.

“Good morning. I’m Erik, your physiotherapist. I’m here to meet all your rehabilitation needs, so don’t be shy about telling me what they are.”

A retort died on my tongue. That smile was distracting.

I wouldn’t say that I had much flirting game before my accident, especially since everyone I looked at, I compared directly to Sonny. Nobody could compare. Not normally.

Now, though, I had even less game.

Erik seemed to sense my awkwardness because he cleared his throat and gestured at a chair by the small desk which was just big enough to have a laptop balanced on it.

“Please, take a seat. I’ve been given some notes but I want to go over what you want from these sessions and what your limitations and boundaries are before we start.”

I moved over to the chair, taking my time to make sure I still had my balance, since I suddenly felt so…

so off-kilter. I was aware that Erik’s eyes were on me.

Perhaps I should have felt more of that under-a-microscope feeling that I’d got used to from my family and the hospital staff, but I didn’t.

I was sure I was being assessed but it didn’t feel… invasive.

For a second, I wondered whether he was checking me out.

I’d been pretty classically good-looking before the accident and had always had a lot of people coming onto me, even if I was never particularly interested in anyone who wasn’t Sonny.

It had been a long six months, though, and I had forgotten the feeling of being ogled.

“I see you’ve lost a lot of muscle mass recently.”

Oh. Oh, I see. Not checking me out, then. Just assessing, like all the doctors and physios before him.

“Yeah, I lost a lot of strength.”

There was no point in denying it. I’d been strong before the accident, hitting the gym a few times a week to keep my fitness and my bulk. Not any longer.

“If you want, we can work on getting that back.”

I stared at him, not sure if he was joking. He seemed to realise that and waved a hand. “We can get to that later. We have time. Why don’t you start by telling me what you’ve been doing with your previous physiotherapist?”

I outlined it as briefly as possible. None of it surprised him, so either he had actually read my notes or it was very standard procedure.

After that, he had me strip my outer clothes off and lay on the therapy table. Again, his eyes were scanning my body, taking me in. I tried to tell myself that he was assessing me with a detached, critical air but my skin still heated under his gaze.

“Can I touch your legs?”

I nodded and he placed his hand gently on my good knee. I felt the warmth that radiated out from him and wanted to soak in it like a bath.

Before he moved his hand, he said, “Please tell me if anything I do is painful or uncomfortable. Your body is your own and you have control here.”

All I could do was nod again because that was so far from how I felt I couldn’t articulate it past the lump in my throat.

Doctors rarely asked before touching me and they moved me round like a piece of meat.

I didn’t blame them, as such, because they had a job to do and limited time to do it, but it meant I was used to just sort of…

being there while they examined me. I never felt I was present. Certainly not an active participant.

Mostly, I did what they told me to and felt weak and useless.

Never in control.

Slowly, Erik began to move my leg, working my muscles in different ways.

His hands were warm and soft, which reminded me of Sonny, but Erik’s were surprisingly strong.

He lifted my leg and moved me around without any qualms. I began to feel relaxed, especially because he told me what he was about to do before he did it so I knew what to expect.

He got me up, made me walk up and down, made me sit, and somehow managed to spot that my lower back ached, even though I hadn’t told him or anyone about that. I didn’t want anyone to think I was even weaker than they already did.

“How did you know?” I demanded.

“Your muscles are tense. You can’t hide that. It’s physiological.”

“It’s only a bit achy.”

“It’s because you’re not standing correctly.”

I blinked up at him from where I sat on the physio table. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t know why none of your previous physiotherapists haven’t mentioned it but you need to learn to stand with the correct posture or you’re going to damage your back. Right now, you’re leaning to the side, compensating for a perceived weakness.”

“What do you mean a ‘perceived weakness’?”

Maybe there was a bit of ice in my voice as I asked that but this complete stranger was about to tell me that missing half a leg wasn’t a weakness?

Erik didn’t seem to notice how cold my voice had gone. He gestured to me to stand and I considered refusing, just to be difficult, before deciding that it would be childish.

So I stood and looked down at him.

In any other circumstance, I might have felt I was in control. After all, I was bigger. However, I’d felt the strength in Erik’s hands and forearms. Not to mention, I was nearly naked with only a pair of shorts on. Now I thought about it, he probably hadn’t needed me to take my t-shirt off.

I felt even more exposed as I realised that.

It might even have been what allowed him to see the way my muscles apparently moved in my back, all wrong.

And then Erik put his warm hands on my hips and pulled me forward slightly. I nearly tipped straight into his arms but his hands were strong and kept me where he wanted me.

Which, apparently, was not in his arms.

Before I could say anything, like ask him what the hell he was playing at, Erik slid those soft, warm hands around my waist and ran them down my sides and over my back.

My body wasn’t sure what was happening because it felt amazing, and Sonny might be the love of my life but Erik was sure pretty and he was touching me…

I hadn’t been touched like that in so long.

“I thought so,” said Erik.

He looked up at me, meeting my eye, and I felt my eyes go wide with panic. Every muscle tensed as I wondered if I’d said that out loud.

Erik slid his hands off my waist and took a step back.

“Are you okay?”

“I— What did you say?”

“I said it’s as I thought. You’re leaning to the side. Only a little, but the muscles in your back are compensating for your posture and you’re going to strain them if you don’t correct it.”

“Oh.”

I took a moment to process that and Erik waited while I did.

Finally, I asked, “What’s wrong with my posture?”

“You’re putting your weight over your right leg.”

I interrupted. “That’s the only leg I have left.”

He gave me an arch look, which was the first expression that hadn’t been one hundred percent professional.

“I did notice that your left leg ends below the knee. But you have a good quality prosthetic which allows you to distribute your weight evenly. You’re instinctively leaning away from what you perceive to be a weakness in your body. But this prosthetic is sturdy and your thigh is strong.”

I opened my mouth. Then closed it.

“What is it?” he asked.

His voice was so warm and calm. His presence was so solid. Even though he was barely older than I was, he felt like someone who knew what he was talking about.

Maybe that’s why I answered him.

“I’m afraid it will collapse. That’s why I don’t put my weight on it except when I’m walking and then I use my crutches, too.”

“We can work on that, if you like. Getting you to feel more confident in using your prosthetic.”

For some reason, I felt choked up. My emotions were all over the place today.

I could only nod and hope that Erik wasn’t going to ask me any more probing questions.

However, he seemed to realise that I was just about done. My muscles ached and I was fighting tiredness.

“Please, take a seat and I’ll help you get fully dressed again.”

“I can manage.”

He gave me that arch look again and it made me feel foolish.

“You’ve just done a lot of physical activity in a short space of time. With your body recovering, it will take a while before it has the energy to do that without it taking its toll. There’s no point in tiring yourself out unnecessarily.”

I capitulated silently and Erik helped me to dress again.

I got the feeling that he was restraining himself from smiling at me the way I might smile at a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Needless to say, I did not think Erik was ogling me by the time I walked out, slower than I had been and not sure how I felt about these physio sessions.

Before he shut the door, Erik said, “I’m glad you came to me, Declan. I’ve got plans for you.”

Well, Sonny didn’t need to ever know how my stomach squirmed at the suggestion I heard in that innocent sentence. It wasn’t quite arousal, but it was interest. I didn’t know what to do with it. I’d just never been interested in anyone but Sonny.