Chapter 1 The Job #10
“Oh, are we taking each other’s clothes off while Mom’s in bed?” I joke, falling back on my best coping mechanism: the dirty humor Tessa hates.
She clicks her tongue and grimaces—not at my innuendo, but at the nasty bruise darkening my ribs. “Weston, who did this?”
“Just some jerk I was sparring with. Come on, it’s not that bad.”
“It is bad. You’re in pain—I can tell.” She takes me by the shoulders and forces me to lie back on the sofa. “Just sit still and let me get you a cold compress.”
I tip my head back against the pillows, shutting my eyes. God, I’m so sore. Tessa returns moments later with a bag of crushed ice wrapped in a dishcloth and places it on my side. It feels like a sharp blade sinking between my ribs.
I recoil in surprise, cussing like a truck driver. Tessa winces—at my pain or my language, I’m not sure which.
“Sorry, I know it hurts… but this will help the swelling.”
I nod stiffly, holding the ice against my ribs. “It’s okay. I’ve dealt with worse.”
Tessa manages a sad smile, propping another pillow behind my head. “Are you comfortable? Here, take these off.” She reaches for the ankle zipper on my track pants, sliding it up to access the prosthetic leg closest to her.
“Take what off, my pants?” I tease her between moans of pain. “Jeez, you really do get wild after your mom goes to bed.”
Tessa rolls her eyes and blushes. “Shut up.”
I feel her fingers brush over my knee, searching for the release on the socket.
She’s watched me take off my prostheses enough times to know how they work—but this is the first time she’s ever done it for me.
I never thought I’d say this, but it’s strangely…
arousing. I start to notice how incredibly sexy she looks, sitting there in my oversized hoodie, her messy hair like two curtains framing the sunny window that is her face.
With a click, my left leg releases, and Tessa gently places it on the floor before moving on to the right. I try not to think about the fact that her hands are inside my pants right now, dear god—
I press the bag of ice into my side to distract myself with a fresh jolt of pain. It’s a surefire way to make any pleasant feelings go away. Once both my legs are on the floor, Tessa rolls up the bottoms of my track pants and peels off my prosthetic socks, which are soaked in sweat.
She winces when she sees my stumps. “Weston… you have blisters.”
I close my eyes. “I know.”
“You shouldn’t be walking on them. Don’t you know they’ll just get worse?”
“Yeah. But I don’t have time to dry my legs between classes. I can’t help that I sweat a lot.”
“You wouldn’t be sweating so much if you wore shorts,” Tessa argues.
“I can’t wear shorts.”
“Why not? You wear shorts all the time when you’re training at school, doing track meets—”
“Track is different. School is different. Everyone knows me. They don’t ask stupid questions.”
Tessa falls silent, tracing her soft fingertips over my knee.
“I know,” she whispers. “I’ll be right back.
” She stands and walks down the hallway to the bathroom, returning moments later with a damp cloth and a tube of ointment.
“Scootch over,” she says, sitting down and pulling my legs across her lap.
When she begins washing my stumps, I sit upright. “You don’t have to do that, Tessa. It’s gross.”
She pushes me back against the cushions and leans in to kiss me softly on the lips. “No part of you is gross.”
Maybe it’s the way she says that—so sweet and honest—or maybe it’s the way she kisses me, or maybe it’s the argument I had with Bruiser tonight, or maybe it’s just a mix of the pain and the exhaustion and the effort of swallowing back everything I’ve wanted to say for the past seven days…
I don’t know what it is, but at that moment, something inside me just gives out.
A knot tightens in my throat, and I press my eyes shut, covering my face with one hand because I’m too ashamed to let Tessa see me in tears.
See me in pieces.
Broken.
“Oh, Weston.” She puts down the cloth and wraps me in a hug. “What happened? Please tell me.”
My voice comes out thick as I fight back the tears I refuse to let fall. “Bruiser let me go.”
“Why?”
“Because of who I am,” I whisper. “What I am.”
“Did he say that?”
I shake my head. “No, he tried to make some excuse about it not being the ‘right time’ to work for him. He said I needed to fix my attitude, that I was letting my ego get in the way. Maybe it’s partially my fault. Maybe I pushed him over the edge tonight with Devon.”
Tessa frowns. “Who’s Devon?”
That’s when I realize how little she knows about this whole mess.
So I start at the very beginning and tell her everything—from the first day when Bruiser dropped his coffee cup on the floor to all those little moments when he treated me with kid gloves, to Leia’s game of mouse-and-mousetrap, to the sparring match with Devon and the way Bruiser said, There’s more to it than you think, kid, but wouldn’t tell me what “more” there was.
Tessa listens to the whole long-winded story as she smooths ointment over my blisters. When she’s finished, she leans back with my knees in her lap, her fingers threaded through mine.
“Well, maybe there is more to it than you think,” she offers gently. “I mean… maybe Bruiser has a point.”
“A point about what?”
Tessa tips her head to the side, like she isn’t sure how to say what’s on her mind. “Well, you can be a little…”
I narrow my eyes at her. “A little what?”
“Like that,” she says with a smirk. “Defensive. Cocky. Protective of your ego.”
“Pfft—what ego? I don’t even have an ego.”
Tessa laughs, tossing her head back. “Don’t get offended, Wes.”
“I’m not offended,” I fire back, crossing my arms over my chest. “See, a guy with a big ego would be offended, but I’m not. You can say whatever you want to me. Anybody can—I don’t care.”
“Yet you care what Bruiser thinks of you,” Tessa argues. “You’ve spent the past week throwing your back out to impress him. Why?”
I’m quiet for a moment. I’ve never really stopped to face that question head-on. Maybe she’s right; maybe I have been too defensive to be honest with myself. But it’s easier to let my guard down here, with Tessa’s hand in mine and ice on my ribs and a quarter of my body parts sprawled on the floor.
“I guess I wanted to impress him because he’s the kind of guy who won’t be impressed by anyone. And I was… cocky enough to think that I could be the one to impress him.”
Tessa nods slowly, tracing her soft fingertip over my rough knuckles. “So you wanted him to think you were special… different. But then, when he treated you like you were different, it made you angry.”
I frown at her for a long moment, bending my brain to see it from this perspective. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Reinterpret events in this really philosophical, mature way that makes me feel like a stupid little five-year-old.”
Tessa snorts a surprised laugh. “That’s not what I’m doing.
I’m just saying… and I could be wrong, okay?
This guy could be a total jerk. I don’t know him.
I just think sometimes we get used to being treated a certain way by other people, and we start to assume everyone is going to treat us like that, when really, it’s just…
well, to be honest, it’s another kind of prejudice, isn’t it?
To assume you know what someone thinks of you just because lots of other people think that way about you? ”
I shrug one shoulder, contemplating it. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Tessa gives me a weak smile, reaching over to play with my hair.
“I think maybe you should talk to him about how you feel. Just be honest. Be yourself. And I don’t mean the bulldozer version of you who gets all angry and stubborn and huffs and puffs and refuses to look at anything from someone else’s point of view. ”
I scoff. “Are you saying all this offensive shit about me because I literally can’t get off this couch and walk away?”
Tessa smirks, raising her eyebrows. “Offensive? I thought you weren’t offended by anything.”
God, she pisses me off like nobody else.
She also turns me on like nobody else.
“Come here,” I growl, pulling her down to my level and kissing her—slow, deep, like nothing else matters. Because right now, nothing does.
She’s the opposite of everything at the boxing gym—all silky skin and soft lips and strawberry-scented hair and flowers on her pajama pants.
As she cups my face in her hands and kisses me, I get lost in this feeling of us together.
It’s like stumbling upon the gates of heaven after an agonizing road trip through hell.
“Weston?” Tessa whispers, pulling back a few inches to look me in the eye. “That girl you said was… coming onto you…”
I try not to smirk at that halting, jealous undertone in her voice. Maybe it’s my “ego,” but there’s something satisfying about seeing Tessa unnerved by the idea of another girl making a pass at me.
“Is she pretty?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Couldn’t say. I only have eyes for you.”
A smile melts over Tessa’s lips, her gaze softening as she leans in and kisses me again.
Her fingers curl through my hair, and my hands cradle her waist—accidentally slipping under her hoodie and skimming the smooth, bare skin of her lower back.
I’m acutely aware of the fact that she’s sinking closer and closer, but I don’t realize just how close until her elbow jams into my side.
“Ow!” I blurt out, breaking our kiss—except I say more than just ow. I say things that probably make Tessa feel tainted from kissing my “potty mouth.”
She doesn’t call me out on it this time because I have a good excuse. She just struggles upright, all pink-faced and cute, gasping, “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. We shouldn’t do that tonight. You should sleep.”
I groan, shifting onto my uninjured side. “I’d sleep better if I could cuddle you.”