Chapter 10
10
WREN
I dig my thumb along Atlas’ deltoid and across his trapezius, directly over his surgery scars, trying to help release them from the lock they seem to be in.
He tenses and flinches under my touch, whipping his head to the side to cast an icy glare at me. “Fuck, Wren.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t stop, though, kneading my fingers into his flesh, trying to work out the rock-hard tension there. “I have to do this, Atlas.”
He hisses through the pain. “You don’t have to enjoy it so much.”
I smirk at him. “You think I’m enjoying hurting you?”
He huffs out a half laugh mixed with a groan. “Sure fucking seems like it the way you’ve been going at me for the last half an hour.”
For a moment, my heart aches for him, and I am tempted to stop, to give him a break from the deep-tissue massage that I am going to have to do daily if we have any hope of helping ease his discomfort. But I can’t stop. I can’t give in to my sympathy for him.
Stay strong, Wren.
“I already explained this to you. Based on my examination of your MRIs and the medical records from your doctors and previous physical therapists, it looks like when they rebuilt your shoulder, the tendon was attached too tightly, which means all the muscles around it are overcompensating, tensing up. That’s why you’re not able to move it without pain.”
“And what is this masochistic massage going to do?”
I release a heavy breath. “Well, theoretically, deep-tissue massage and working the muscles on the opposite side, combined with weights and other machine usage like the reformer, will help rebuild and compensate for the tension on the tendon side.”
Atlas’ lips twist into a scowl. “I’m pretty sure that’s what my old therapist already tried.”
I keep kneading his skin, his tattoos moving under my fingers in a mesmerizing swirl. “He did. But…”
Atlas glances back at me again. “But what?”
Chewing on my lip, I debate how best to say this without pissing off Atlas any more than he already is. “Well, I have a feeling you weren’t the easiest patient to work with, and he probably wasn’t able to do everything he wanted to because you fought him on it.”
A growl slips from his lips, but he doesn’t exactly object to my statement or try to argue that it isn’t true.
“I know how stubborn you can be, Atlas, and I know how hard it is for you to give yourself over to anyone and let me try to fix something you want to do on your own, in your own way. And believe me, I know it fucking hurts. But if you want any chance of getting better, we have to keep doing this every day—massages, targeted weights, and traction that will be very painful.”
He presses his lips together in a firm line as he watches me, the unease in his gaze, the disbelief that what we’re doing is actually going to help.
I recognize it because I felt it myself, having given that same look to people who were trying to help me, too.
That ache in my chest intensifies, so I rest my hands on the back of his neck and gently glide my thumbs up along the rigid muscles there.
His eyes drift closed, and he releases a soft groan, leaning into it and relaxing. “Christ, that feels good.” He drops his head back against my stomach and opens his eyes to glance up at me. “How about we do this instead of the painful shit?”
I grin at him and press a quick kiss to his forehead. “Because we’re not going to get anywhere with the easy stuff.” Pausing my hands, I lock gazes with him. “You know, this pain, what you’re experiencing, what we’re going to have to put you through for the next couple months, you can do it. I have complete faith in you.”
It takes a moment for Atlas to react to my statement, and when he finally responds, his voice comes out soft and uncertain. “Why?”
“Because I’ve done it.”
His icy gaze shatters, and he reaches back and wraps his arm around my waist, tugging me around him and settling me across his lap in one smooth motion only someone with his level of strength could accomplish.
I loop my arms around his neck and run my fingers through his hair. “I had this nurse when I was in the burn unit. She was a lovely older woman. Cajun, from the real heart of the Bayou. She had moved to Texas a few years earlier, and we shared a bit of a bond. One really bad day, she told me something that has stuck with me, something I think you need to hear.”
“What’s that, Little Bird?”
“She told me that I had already survived the worst day of my life, so she knew I could survive anything else thrown at me.”
He goes rigid under me, absorbing my words as he searches my gaze. His hand glides along my left arm, across the bumpy, shiny, grotesque scarring. “Wise woman.”
I nod slowly, trailing my fingers down the back of his neck. “And she was right. I did survive the worst day of my life. All those hard days in the hospital and trying to get my life back…” My voice cracks as I fight the sob threatening to come out. “Nothing compared to the day of the fire.”
Atlas squeezes me tightly. “What happened?”
Shit.
I knew I would have to tell him eventually, that he would want to know. Because I want to know all about the shooting and what scarred him so badly, too.
This is as good a time as any.
If I really want him to trust me in doing this, I need him to understand everything I’ve been through, to truly believe he can do it, despite the pain and exhaustion he’s feeling.
I drop my head against his shoulder, pressing my face into his neck. “I was asleep. My dad…he wasn’t a bad guy. He tried, really tried, and actually, things were okay for the first few months I was there. I missed all of you, missed Gramps, but Dad was good to me.” I swallow thickly. “Then he started using again…”
Atlas’ arms tighten around me again, and he presses a kiss to the top of my head. But he doesn’t press me to continue, doesn’t try to force the words out of me when they struggle to come.
“He’d been clean for, God, a long time, according to my grandmother. I don’t know what made him relapse. Maybe it was Mom’s death and my coming there.” Saying those words out loud makes all those feelings come rushing back. The pain and guilt that I may have been what pushed him over that edge. Tears sting my eyes, and I have to force myself to keep talking when all I want to do is shut down and enjoy the feel of Atlas’ arms around me. “It went on for a few weeks before the fire. I knew what was happening. I was old enough and recognized it from seeing it with my mom. That night, he shot up and passed out on the couch, somehow knocked over a candle he was using to cook over, and the whole house went up.”
“Christ…”
Atlas barely whispers the word, but it hangs heavy in the air around us, laden with his anger and disbelief.
“The window in my bedroom was basically painted shut, hadn’t opened in years, and the fire came down the hallway so I couldn’t get out that way. I had been out swimming earlier in the day and still had a damp towel hanging on a hook on the back of my door. I tried to cover myself the best I could with that, moved as far away from the door as possible.” I gulp, the memory of inhaling the suffocating smoke so vivid I can still taste it. “The last thing I remember was the flames reaching me. I passed out from the pain or the smoke inhalation. I’m not sure. But I came to in the hospital in the most intense agony I’ve ever experienced, and they told me my dad was dead, that he hadn’t made it out. Apparently, the firemen came in through my window and got me just in the nick of time before the flames fully consumed me…”
It’s all I can manage to get out.
I can’t explain what it felt like those months in the hospital.
The pain.
The helplessness.
The feeling of loss, not only of my sole living parent but also of what was my life.
For a second time in six months, what I thought I knew had been ripped away from me. My world spun a one-eighty.
I didn’t know what way was up or down or what my future looked like.
Atlas is quiet for a moment, holding me tightly, but I can feel the shift in his demeanor, the way he moves under me, pulls me even closer. Needing it as much as I do in this moment.
“Nurse Martha got me through that, all those months in the hospital. Her words kept me going, and eventually, it got better. When anything was hard after, like going back to school and having people stare at me and my scars, I always tried to remember her advice.”
“What happened when you got out of the hospital?” Atlas presses his lips to my temple. “Why didn’t you come back here to live with your grandfather?”
I entwine my fingers with his and squeeze. “My paternal grandmother lived in town. We spent quite a bit of time at her place during the months I was there prior to the fire. She was at the hospital with me every day, and I ended up staying with her. I guess I could have asked to come back, especially when Gramps came to see me and expressed his desire to bring me to New Orleans. I thought about it. But…”
Even after all this time, I can’t say the words, can’t admit them to him, not knowing what it will do and how he’ll react.
Atlas has experienced something awful.
He’s still reeling from his own trauma.
And he doesn’t need the guilt of knowing he played a role in my decision to stay in Texas.
I try to pull away from him, but he grasps me and shifts me back so I have to face him, taking my cheek in his rough palm.
Warm blue eyes that hold nothing but affection meet mine, trying to break through the wall I’m putting up. “Little Bird…why didn’t you want to come back?”
ATLAS
I sense her hesitation, feel the rigidity in her thin frame pressed against me, can see that she doesn’t want to answer my question and wants to escape before she has to.
But I’m not about to let her hide from me or avoid answering.
Not about something this important.
“Wren, please. Why didn’t you want to come back?”
A single tear slips from her eye, trickling down her cheek to my thumb. “Because I didn’t want you to see me like that. Like this…I didn’t want—”
She chokes on a little half-sob, and I drag her back against me, burying my face in her hair.
“Jesus, Wren.” I press a kiss to her forehead, my soul shattering at her words. Knowing she didn’t want me to see her like this, that she thought it would matter in any way. “You should have come home.”
We missed so much time.
So many years that we could have spent together—whether as friends or something more.
Everything would have been so different.
Better…
Wren hiccups a little sigh. “I wish I would have, too. Things with my grandmother weren’t great. She tried to be there for me in the hospital, but she wasn’t a warm woman. I think she blamed me for my father’s relapse and death. She never came right out and said it, but I felt it. She thought I wouldn’t do anything with my life after the fire because of the way I looked. So…”—she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly—“I set out to prove her wrong.”
I squeeze her tightly, so badly wanting to take away all the pain I hear in her words, even if it was things she felt as a child. “You did. Your studio is beautiful. It’s going to do incredible.”
“I hope so.” She pushes away from me and shifts on my lap to straddle and face me, looping her arms around my neck. “But this isn’t about me, Atlas. I didn’t tell you for your sympathy. This is about you .” She rubs the back of my neck slowly, deep sweeping circles that elicit a little groan from deep in my chest. “I know it’s hard to come home and do this every night after you’ve already trained with Gramps. But you’ve been through the worst day of your life. What I do to you is going to be nothing compared to that, right?”
Her words should ring true.
But something about them doesn’t.
A nagging feeling in my gut that I’ve had for years that finally seems to make sense now.
I give her a sad smile. “Getting shot fucking sucked. At the time, I absolutely thought it was the worst day of my life. All the pain, the fear of almost losing Benjamin and the girls, of what might have happened if I hadn’t taken that bullet. Then Astrid getting shot in the car and almost dying next to me in that warehouse while we waited for Roselli to let us bleed out. All of it was…it was horrible, Wren. But…when I really think about it, it wasn’t the worst day of my life.”
Her brows rise. “Then what was?”
Looking into her warm bourbon eyes, the truth seems so crystal clear.
I brush my thumb across her lips. “The day you left.”
Her gaze softens, and tears return, shimmering across the surface. “Atlas…”
“I’m serious, Wren.” I brush away the tears from her cheeks. “Things were never the same for me after you left. I thought about you all the time, kept that photo from the ‘wedding’ because part of me always thought of it as real. And now that you’re back, I know why I never felt anything for any other woman I’ve been with. Even the ones I wanted to. Because I was always waiting for you.”
Wren opens and closes her mouth several times, like she can’t figure out what to say or how to respond to my words.
I take her face between both palms and tilt her lips to mine for a feather-light kiss.
“I’m going to do this because it’s you, Little Bird. Because you’re telling me I should. Because I don’t trust anyone else, and I never did. All those other therapists and doctors, they all wanted me to give up, told me it was pointless. It made me not even want to try. But you’ve given me hope that I might actually get somewhere, that maybe my career isn’t over. If anyone can help me, it’s you. Because I’ve survived the worst day of my life in losing you, and now I have you back and will do anything you tell me so I don’t lose you again.”
More tears streak down her pale cheeks, and I wipe them away as she leans in and presses her lips to mine.
“For a big, badass fighter, you sure can say the sweetest things.”
I grin against her mouth, then wrap my arms around her waist and tug her even tighter against me, so she can feel my cock hardening between us. “Well, that may be, but if you keep up this no-sex rule, I’m not going to stay sweet for very long.”
She laughs and drags her fingers along my scalp, making me groan again and my cock twitch where it’s pressed against her warm heat. “No distractions, Atlas. Concentrate on getting well. I have your treatment plan all figured out. We stick to it.”
Which means the no-sex rule stands.
As much as I’d love to argue with her about it and try to convince her to relinquish her grip on that idea, it would be a waste of energy that I can’t expend right now.
Not when the last couple days of workouts with Jenkins and coming home with Wren to have her work me even harder have already proven my stamina isn’t what I thought it was.
“What about your grandfather?”
Her brow furrows. “What about him?”
“Isn’t he going to notice something’s going on?”
Wren grins, running her fingers through my hair. “I think he already figured that out when I moved in here with you.”
I smirk at her. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, what if the exercises and treatments you have me doing make it impossible for me to keep up with the training?”
Sympathy fills her gaze. “I know how important camp is, and I know that Vince Gordon is an incredibly difficult opponent. So, you need every minute you have to prepare for him, but if you need to take a few days off, I know Gramps will understand because I think…”
“You think what?”
She bites her bottom lip, considering her answer for a moment. “I think he might’ve brought me back here intentionally.”
“What do you mean?”
A little sigh falls from her mouth. “I don’t know. I just got this feeling that maybe he overstated how much he needs me here because he wanted me to come back and work with you.”
I chuckle. “That would be a very Jenkins thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
She nods. “It would be.”
The old man was always working behind the scenes. He always played the long game. Everything he does to prepare me for fights has ulterior motives.
Getting Wren back to ensure I’m ready for Gordon isn’t out of the question by any stretch of the imagination.
“I’ll figure out a way to deal with your grandfather, Little Bird. I won’t put any sort of strain on your relationship.”
Those dark brows of hers rise again, and she places her hands over my heart. “Don’t you think moving me in with you only a week after I arrived is going to cause issues between you two?”
I grin at her. “I’ve been avoiding that conversation with him for the last few days and keep telling him it’s because of my concern about Satriano—”
She fights a smile. “Isn’t it?”
Tightening my grip on her, I grind my cock up against her core. “You know that isn’t the only reason. Even if Satriano hadn’t shown up, I would have had you here eventually.”
“You’re very confident in that.”
I don’t bother fighting my smirk. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have come home with me if a dangerous mobster hadn’t shown up in your studio?”
Wren twists her lips, considering my question coyly. “You might have been able to convince me…”
Feathering my lips over hers, I chuckle. “With what? My incredible charm and charisma?”
She rests her forehead against mine, gripping my T-shirt in her fingers tightly. “No, by showing me that you kept that photograph.”
I pull back from her. “One Polaroid is all it would have taken to get you in my bed?”
Somehow, I doubt that.
She had a wall up the moment I stepped into her studio. Wren had every intention of keeping me at arm’s length as much and as long as possible. This woman came back to New Orleans trying to ignore our shared past and friendship and thought she could somehow do it with me right next door every day.
Her cheeks pinken, and she ducks out of my hold, glancing away. “It’s embarrassing to admit this, Atlas. Probably easier to just show you.”
“Show me what?”
Wren slides back off my lap and climbs the stairs toward our bedroom with a quick glance over her shoulder at me.
What the hell is she up to?
She disappears into the room for a moment, and when she reappears at the landing, she has her hands clasped suspiciously in front of her.
“What do you have there, Little Bird?”
Whatever she is holding so close to her chest must be important. The look in her eyes tells me she cherishes it the same I did that photo.
When she reaches me again, she slides back onto my lap and lifts her left hand.
My heart stalls for a moment before it starts beating rapidly against my ribs. “Is that…”
The tiny lime-green piece of plastic wrapped around her pinky finger came straight out of a quarter machine in the hostess area of one of the Hawke restaurants. Though, over the years, I’ve forgotten which one.
But I never forgot sliding it on Wren’s ring finger that day.
Or saying, “I do.”
“You kept it.”
She grins. “Of course, I did. It’s my wedding ring.” Wren plays with it, spinning it around. “It was one of the only things that survived the fire because I kept it in a little metal keepsake box.”
It makes hanging on to that picture seem not as sappy and ridiculous as it often felt over the years after not hearing from her for so long. It makes everything I’ve felt—this quick rush to claim her and the craving to have her with me constantly and keep her safe—so much more real.
Brushing my lips across her finger and the plastic dinosaur on the top of the ring, I grin at her. “Maybe I’ll have to get you a better one.”