CHAPTER 14 #2
I think one of my favorite things about older Chris is that he likes my stupid jokes and never makes me feel awkward for blurting out something embarrassing, like I just did.
I still don’t see how it wasn’t obvious that I was a sucker for him back then, but I plan to ease into this crush with better compliments than that one.
He makes no comment, so I focus on working systematically up his spine to the brick wall that is his overworked shoulders. Damn, how many crunches did he do? There are enough knots here to open a Shibari exhibit.
“After the accident…there was an article…”
My hands slow. His voice comes out so quiet and forlorn that I barely catch what he’s saying.
“Well, there were a lot of articles, but there was this one sports journal, Football Today. I’d never even read Football Today before.
I’ll never forget the headline: Mighty The Fallen.
I remember staring at it through a swollen eyelid from where my face hit the dashboard and thinking, yeah, that about sums it up. ”
I don’t realize my hands have gone still until his back rises and falls on a sigh. My heart twists inside my chest.
“It was a good article,” he remarks casually.
“The guy was a hell of a writer. A year later, I was sitting at Austin Limits High School, my cane propped against the bleachers, watching a game just as a reason to get away from my parents for a few hours, and then it hit me. I could be that guy, maybe… I mean, my fingers still worked. I could cover athletics—without the poetic doom and gloom that he did, of course. That was my one condition. Anyhow.” He shrugs against my hands.
“So, what do I know? Maybe it was the perfect name.”
The pain in the center of my chest radiates to my throat, making it difficult to form words.
He’d just realized his ambitions were ruined, only to have someone come along and trample all over the rubble.
He was twenty-three. Only twenty-three, and a news headline essentially told him he was nothing and never would be again.
I don’t condone the poor decision he made, but that doesn’t seem fair.
Clearing his throat, he shifts in place.
“Sorry. You were expecting a workout partner and instead got sucked into having to put your hands on an ex-hookup while he tells you uplifting stories.” He leans back like he’s intent on rolling back onto the mattress, but my knee prevents him from going further.
Craning his head, he flashes me a stoic look.
“You don’t have to doctor me. I’ve lived with this for years. ”
“It’s fine,” I practically choke, rattling my head back and forth. I ease my hands off him, though. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, thank you. Don’t get me wrong. It felt good, but…I’d rather be in pain than see you feeling sorry for me.”
He lets out a self-deprecating puff, a meek smile playing on his lips. However, there’s nothing humorous about the moment. He just shared a piece of his trauma with me, and I can tell it cost him something. I want to trade him a hell of a lot more than a massage for that in return.
I think now is a good time to quit holding back the sentimental thoughts I’ve had about him. This isn’t a crush. It’s an attachment that’s rooted so deep in my heart that whatever home I build on it will withstand a lifetime of storms with a foundation that strong.
“I feel sorry… for not being there when you needed someone, because I would have been. And I put my hands on you because… Well, I’m kind of addicted to making you feel better.”
You’d think I spoke in tongues the way he’s gaping at me. I see the moment when my spilled secrets really register. A flush creeps up his cheeks, and he redirects his gaze to the mattress. Okay. Not awkward.
He clears his throat as his fingers play with a ripple in the duvet.
“As a Narcotics Anonymous graduate, I feel like I should probably tell you to seek some kind of treatment program for that, but,”—he pauses, darting a peek at me, his tongue slipping out to wet his lips—“if you’re looking for an enabler, I won’t complain if you don’t stop. ”
Well…that settles that. Now my face is probably red too. I cover my chuckle with a cough and pick up where I left off. The soft grunt he makes as I knead his shoulders has me wanting to bend down and press a kiss to the offended area.
“I doubt there’s a cure,” I murmur, half-intending that to have only been for my ears.
But heck, I’m on a roll. I still have the need to heal young Chris as much as older Chris, so I set another confession free.
“I, um, had a really hard time seeing you go, actually. That’s why Jamie was so standoffish with you.
I kind of sulked about it for…” Okay, maybe specifics would be too much of a confession. “For a while.”
This time, I don’t get a flirty, encouraging reply.
I get silence. He’s gone tense again under my touch.
The longer I continue to work on his muscles, the more self-conscious I feel.
Side note: Some secrets are apparently better left unspoken.
I open my mouth to try to get my foot out of it, but a stupefied whisper beats me to it.
“You never said anything.”
“You…had plans. It would have been wrong of me to say anything, and… and I didn’t think you’d want me to. Which is fine,” I’m quick to add, pulling my hands back because, shit, this is a whole new level of awkward. “You told me from the start that we were nothing.”
He reaches over his hip and places a hand on my forearm. “It wasn’t nothing. I didn’t think I was allowed to have anything else besides the future I’d been training for, so I…” And like that, his hand is gone. He grips his hair above his forehead and mutters a curse.
I want to crawl in on myself until I disappear. Curling my toes inside my shoes, I force myself to stay put.
I think I’m the one being turned down now.
It’s fine. It isn’t, but it is. I told myself I would be okay with whatever happens between us, and I meant it.
Honestly, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Fifteen years was a long time to hold it in, and someone needed to restore whatever that reporter’s words took from him.
“I knew.”
The soft words have me blinking at his shadowed profile.
Eyes closed, he lets out a long stream of air.
“I think I knew sometimes—the way you looked at me… It made my heart feel like it was going to beat out of my chest. It scared the shit out of me, because the only other thing that made me feel anywhere close to that good was when I was on the field winning. That, I knew how to do.”
My obsession was too much. Imagine that? I chuckle despite the fresh loss of both my old and new hopes, plucking at the comforter.
“Well, I’m flattered to know I was as good as football. Coming from you, that’s huge.”
He reaches out and grips my arm again, giving it a squeeze.
“You are so much more than that, Remy. But that probably doesn’t do the sentiment any justice, considering I don’t have football now.
” Shifting, he turns over and leans up on an elbow.
I wait, suspended, snared by the pleading in his eyes.
“I never imagined anyone could look at me the way you do—like they see something and they mean it. Seeing myself in your eyes and wondering if it’s a dream…
” His head shakes. “All the pain, the accident, the years in between then and now, I’d go through it all over again if I knew that getting to know you was the reward on the other side. ”
Don’t kiss him. Don’t. Kiss. Him.
Yes, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard, but maybe he’s just having a moment of gratitude over pulling himself out of the rut he was in. He did that, not me. He didn’t have to show up at my house every morning for the last two weeks and force himself to socialize out of his comfort zone.
Swallowing, my nervous laughter is as weak as I feel. “You don’t have to sweet-talk me for a massage.”
He smiles and rubs his thumb over the soft skin at the hinge of my elbow, spreading gooseflesh up my arm. His lips part and then…my stomach produces a ferocious growl that has Gale popping up on all fours at attention. Can you say bad timing?
“Shit. Have you eaten?”
“Yes. I had a kraken for lunch. He’s still digesting.” He snickers at that, but still looks endearingly concerned over the state of my noisy stomach. “I was too busy to take my lunch break today, but I’m fine. I’ll grab something when I get home.”
Pressing his other hand to the mattress, he hefts himself up and nods for me to move, swinging his legs off the edge of the bed when I get up. “Let me make you dinner.”
“Oh, no. Chris, you don’t have to feed me.”
Swiping a shirt off the end of his bed, he wrestles it over his shoulders and stands, concealing the patterns on his skin.
I can tell he’s still stiff, his spine forcing him to lean forward slightly.
That puts his gaze nearly level with mine when he turns around.
And, holy shit, I could swim in it, the tender set of his brow doing all sorts of things to my heart.
“Let me make you dinner,” he repeats, softer this time, tilting one brow higher, but there’s nothing intimidating about it. Gale hops off the bed with a half-sneeze, half-snort, wagging her tail excitedly as though she knows what the word ‘dinner’ means. God, they’re a pair.
“Only if I can help.”
If victory had a name, it would be the smile that stretches across his face. He leans in and gives the side of my hip a swat.
“Fucking-A right you’re gonna help. We don’t take no freeloaders here, do we, Gale?”
Patting his leg, he hobbles out of the room, his uneven footsteps echoing a cadence similar to my pulse, Gale eagerly trotting at his side. Yeah. He’s it for me. Sighing, I follow the big man with big feelings and his big dog down the hallway.