29. Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Lennox
This is the best dream I’ve ever had.
Roxie’s ass is pushed up against my front, shimmying every so often. My hand slides across her stomach, pulling her tighter against me.
Groaning into her hair, I thrust my hips gently into her. Her hair. It feels so lifelike, tickling my nose.
My eyes pop open to find my dream is really my reality.
“Oh shit,” I whisper, scooting back, but it’s too late.
“Oh my God,” Roxie shrieks and jumps out of bed. Her panty-clad ass is doing nothing to calm my raging morning wood.
“Oh my God,” she whispers this time, trying to pull her T-shirt down to cover her ass. She’s failing miserably, though.
Rubbing my hand down my face in a poor attempt to hide my smile, I eventually get myself under control.
“I’m sorry. I’ll just … go.” Slowly making my way out of bed, careful of overtaxing my leg first thing in the morning since I’m not wearing my brace, I head toward the door before I turn back to her. “I’m sorry for unknowingly pushing things, but I’m also not sorry it happened.” Then I leave without waiting for her response.
Is it risky to tell her I want her? Without a doubt. But if I’m serious about finding a way to get them to stay here, I also want her to know this is about more than friendship for me. There’s no mistaking me for being selfless right now.
The walk back to my room, with the sun barely rising in the distance, is full of panic. Realizing what I revealed to Roxie has me doubting my confidence. Maybe I’m taking on too much at once. Maybe I’m delusional about Roxie and me.
But if I don’t try, will I ever know if it’s mutual? Most likely not.
Plopping down on my bed, I stare at the rising rays of sunshine coming through my window. My adrenaline is spiked, flooding my system in a way that feels like I did the scariest thing in the world. Maybe I did, considering. But I take a minute to breathe through it, like Roxie taught me.
I’m unsure how much time passes, but once I’m finally feeling like I’m in a place to face Roxie, the sun has fully risen. Checking the clock, I see it’s well past our normal morning routine, and she’s already left to drop off Pixie at school.
A shower. That’ll help. A shower, then face Roxie head-on. It’s not like I can really avoid her, especially if my goal is to get her to sign off on my physical therapy.
The spray washes away my uncertainty. I want to start making changes, and although that wasn’t really the way I wanted to go about it, it was a change in the right direction. Right?
Fuck. I don’t know .
What if I messed everything up, and this pushes them away? Sends them away from Bluebell Falls for good?
After shutting off the water, I dry off, the same thoughts swirling in my head. I get dressed with muscle memory before heading out to the living room.
“Oh good, you are here.” Roxie’s voice draws my attention. She’s sipping coffee at the kitchen island, looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
What the fuck? Did I imagine everything this morning?
“Uh, yep. Just needed a minute, then I took a shower.” Way to give her a play-by-play she didn’t ask for.
She nods, placing her mug in the sink before coming over to me. “I have a thought about your PT today, but I want to run it by you.”
“Uh, sure.” Confidence is nowhere to be found.
“I want to do another assessment. Gauge where you are currently and figure out where your end goal is. I…” She pauses. “I honestly think you’re pretty close,” she says softly.
I can’t tell if she’s happy or sad about that, but I’m scared shitless to find out.
“Okay.”
I don’t know what else there is to say. Do we keep avoiding our late-night closeness? Our complete demolition of boundaries? I don’t know how much longer I can keep it inside. Hell, this morning is proof that I’m dangerously close to saying fuck it.
“Oh, okay.” She sounds shocked by my easy agreement. “I’ll just go get everything for it.”
She disappears into her side of the house before I can say anything else, not that I have anything compelling to add .
I go about setting up a dining room chair in the living room, just like I normally do, and I’m suddenly nervous about what doing an assessment will mean for my plans. I don’t have time to wait for Roxie’s family to show up. It means I don’t have time to wait and see if she sees me the way I see her. It means I need to figure out my shit today and be able to show her I’m worth her time outside of being a job.
By the time she comes back with all her paperwork and tools, I’m knee-deep in overthinking, unable to find my way to the surface.
“Lennox, you okay?” Her beautiful face comes into my field of vision.
“Great,” I squeak out. After clearing my throat, I try again. “Great. You ready to get started?” I sit in the dining room chair and wait, trying to clear my feelings from my face. I start some basic exercises before she speaks up.
“Whoa there, Turbo, slow down. I don’t want you to have a warm-up.” She chuckles.
“Sorry, totally forgot.” My eyes stay forward, not wanting her to see just how much is going on in my head. The second she looks into my eyes, she’ll see it all, though. She’s eerily good at that.
“All good. That’s actually a great sign. Let’s do everything we did the first time. Nothing crazy, and do not push it until it hurts. I want you to go until it feels comfortable, nothing more.”
I nod, adjusting in my seat.
She sets down all her things, turning in her notebook until she gets to the page she wants.
“What’s got you thinking so hard today?” Roxie asks casually. Her tone makes my avoidance moot.
How can she be so casual while I’m sitting here losing my goddamned mind over her?
I debate how much to get into with her. I could spill my whole soul, scare her away, and then ruin the best thing that’s happened to me in forever. I could not say anything, stick to our standard tactics of avoidance. Or I could push her away and risk alienating her, which sounds horrible. In the end, I go for as honest as I can at the moment—something that needs to happen and something I have a decent amount of control over.
“Work. Well, what work looks like once you clear me, I suppose.” It’s something I haven’t wanted to think about because I still don’t know if I’ll be able to go back to being a park ranger.
“Ah, I was wondering when this would come up.” She smiles over at me, nothing but understanding on her face.
“I miss it. So damn much, but then when I think about what going back looks like, I panic. For fuck’s sake, I can’t even think about getting on a trail without a full-on panic attack. In what world does that equate to getting my job back?” My voice is raw with emotion when I lay it all out there.
It’s a fear that’s been growing over time but one I didn’t want to voice. I’m not sure why I’m unloading it all on Roxie right now, but it feels needed. It’s better than telling her I’m dangerously close to breaking any kind of unspoken physical therapist/patient rules there are.
“You’ve been through a lot in a very short amount of time, and all of it has been tied to Sam Houston National Park. It’s understandable that there are still a lot of emotions tied to it. Have you thought about talking to someone about things?” she asks gently, and it’s the first time she’s brought up talking to a therapist.
Kudos to her for that because I wasn’t in a receptive place to hear that before now. Ask Oakley, Ledger, and hell, even Arlo. I think I yelled at them over this exact topic more than we had real conversations right after I got out of the hospital.
But the more I think about my future, the more I think it might not be so awful. And after my talk—well, breakdown, really—with Ledger, therapy seems like the right answer for me right now.
“I think…” I sigh. “I think it’s probably a necessity whether I want to do it or not. I’m sure as hell not equipped to handle this all on my own, as evidenced by”—I gesture around wildly—“everything. But I don’t even know where to start.” It sucks admitting that.
“Well, that’s step one. I’m not sure anyone really wants to go to therapy, but they see it as a step to get them in a healthier place. A step to get them to a place within their life where they are truly happy.”
“Makes sense,” I mumble as she starts manipulating my leg.
“If you stay this tense, your assessment is going to be shit,” she grumbles.
“Yes, Boss Lady.” I smirk over at her as I will my muscles to relax.
“Don’t deflect.”
“Yes, Boss Lady,” I repeat. Her sigh reaches my ears, and it makes me love winding her up more.
“This is the last time I’ll say anything about this unless you initiate it, but I think looking into some ongoing therapy would be good for you. Not because you can’t handle things on your own, not because you aren’t fully capable, but because you don’t have to be all those things. Lean on the people close to you, release some of this burden on your shoulders. It doesn’t prove you’re any less strong, and I promise no one will think less of you.” The earnestness in her voice almost undoes me.
“Will you think less of me?” The words barely leave my lips, and I almost hope they don’t, until her doe-like eyes meet mine .
“Len… Never. You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, despite the fuck-off facade you wear with pride. I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to help you, not just with the PT.”
This might be the first time in a very long time that I don’t doubt someone’s words. But it also makes my chest hurt, knowing she’s only here to help me. Nothing more. Nothing less. It reinforces my need to no longer be her client, to graduate, in a sense, so I can show her what could be.
Maybe I’m delusional, wishing for an ideal that isn’t real. All I know is that I have to make the attempt. To protect her and Ivy.
She holds my stare and hesitates.
“You have inspired me every single day since I’ve met you. The journey may be hard—hell, it may be downright unbearable—but you have already proved to everyone how damn strong you are. Now, you need to prove it to yourself.” Her words trail off to a whisper before she rises up on her knees and presses a kiss to my cheek. “There’s a whole world out there for you to conquer. It’s time for you to believe you can.”
Sitting back on her heels, she continues the assessment like she didn’t detonate a bomb right in front of me. The feel of her lips against my cheek sears into my memory and lights a fire in my soul, bringing the memory of our last kiss front and center.
It seems it’s time to start believing in my own abilities and potential. Shove the doubt away and really trust that I’m capable of getting what I want. All it took was a boss lady and a pixie to make me see it.