Rowan #2
“Nah,” Cade said with a laugh. “I’m usually pretty social, but sometimes when you want to soak in hot water with your dick out, you don’t want to be around a bunch of guys who either can’t shut up or decide they’re going to start screwing around.”
I froze. “Screwing around?”
Cade leaned forward, and I could see short blond hair plastered to a tanned, handsome face that broke into a laugh. “Oh, sorry, naw naw, not like, the gay screwing around though. I won’t lie to ya, some of the guys around here can be pretty gay with each other, but ya know what?”
“What?”
“I think the ones actin’ the gayest are the straightest,” he chuckled. “Reminds me of the Army. Some of my boys could say stuff that made you wonder, but fuck if they weren’t the straightest folk you ever met. Got to the point that you could figure out which ones weren’t straight real easy.”
“Because they weren’t...doing gay things?” I guessed.
His hand appeared and tried to snap before he remembered his fingers were wet, and he grunted instead.
“That’s the one. I mean, some of ‘em would ‘cause they knew it wasn’t really gay, just boys bein’ boys, but the new ones?
They would be real nervous about that sorta thing. I heard that’s changed, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, guess you can’t figure out which ones are gay and which ones ain’t ‘cause they’re all doin’ it now. Good for them, a little grab ass ain’t gonna bother no one.”
“I...see,” I said, because no, the fuck I did not see in the slightest.
Cade grinned. “Sorry, hope I’m not givin’ the wrong idea or nothin’. I ain’t gay, but I hope ya can see I ain’t got a problem with all that. Folks are folks, don’t really care where you stick things or get things stuck, just so long as you ain’t a shit head, ya know?”
“I think I do,” I said. I didn’t know if his rough but accepting demeanor was charming or if the relaxation of the hot water was helping, but I wasn’t bothered by his presence. “I’m sorry if I don’t talk much, I’m not quite sure what to say.”
“Naw, don’t go worryin’ about all that,” he said with a grin. “I talk a lot, I know. Plus, I can see you’re really enjoyin’ the water. Is it your back?”
“I...didn’t think people asked those kinds of questions around here.”
“Oh, the people workin’ here won’t, they’re big on lettin’ people have their privacy and talkin’ when they want to...if they want to. But folk like you an’ me? We can ask, ya don’t have to answer, is all.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “My back. I had...an accident a few years ago.”
“Ah yeah,” he groaned, and I watched his legs appear as he floated on his back, forcing me not to pay attention to what else might pop above the surface. “Got a cyborg back?”
I thought about it for a moment and then laughed. “Yes, I suppose it is as much metal as it is skin, muscle, and bone.”
“Yeah,” he repeated, drawing his legs back and standing up.
Sheer politeness kept my eyes locked on his face despite the fact that he clearly didn’t care what he was showing.
“Kinda hard to see here, but my hips are the same, right down my leg too. Got so many damn rivets and screws, I’m part robot. ”
I looked and felt my stomach twist. He had clearly been in some sort of accident, or, considering his earlier comment, perhaps a fight that had gone wrong.
The skin around his hip and down his thighs showed the distinct puckered marks of burns as well as other scars.
Grinning, he lifted his leg, and I realized it stopped just below the knee, with only a nub of skin at the bottom.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened? I didn’t think we’d engaged in any active wars for some time,” I said as he eased himself back into the pool with all the grace of a water buffalo, sending water in every direction.
“Eh, we were holdin’ spots over in the Middle East, just not, ya know, ‘at war,’ whatever the fuck that means.
Don’t mean shit won’t go tits up; it can, and does.
We were tryin’ to get people out of a hot zone and thought we were in the clear.
Turns out we weren’t,” he said with a chuckle.
“Bird took a hit and everythin’ went to hell in a hand basket.
If it weren’t for my boys and their quick thinkin’, I would’ve been a smear somewhere in some God-forsaken shit hole desert. ”
He clearly had strong opinions on the region, but it was hard to blame him when he’d literally left parts of himself behind. “That was good of them. I suppose you trained them well.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Didn’t save them though. Saved me, but—”
“Oh, I...” I hesitated, then went for the truth because it was the only thing I could think to say. “I don’t actually know what to say. I’ve never been in that situation, and quite frankly, I’m terrible at comforting people.”
He stared at me for a moment before grinning.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, appreciate you at least thinkin’ you should try to make me feel better.
I ain’t never gonna feel alright, so no one should try.
Wish someone would tell these knuckleheads that, but they’re stubborn.
I’ll give ‘em that. Only reason I keep comin’ back is because the families keep payin’ for it, sayin’ they won’t stop until I actually get somewhere, whatever the fuck that means. ”
“You’re a long-term guest then?” I wondered.
“Yeah, this is like...my third run or somethin’ like that.”
“I suppose the program isn’t working for you then.”
“Me? Probably not. But don’t let me put ya off; I’m too thick in the skull for people to help.
But there’s been plenty of guys I’ve seen come through here who got helped.
Guys who got turned away by other programs, guys who were here as a last resort, guys who thought they weren’t never gonna feel alright again. It can happen, I’ve seen it.”
“And those that don’t have a whole lot that needs to be changed or fixed?” I wondered.
“Ha! One of those, eh?” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I’ve seen your type, too. And they come in the same way, but always leave in two different ways.”
“What ways?”
“Same way they came in, refusin’ to admit there’s anything wrong and that’s just how they’re always gonna be. See, we all got shit wrong with us, some of us more than others, but we’re all fucked up.”
“So you admit you’re fucked up but refuse to do anything about it?”
“Some shit can’t be fixed, I can admit that,” he said, sounding like he didn’t have a care in the world, let alone what had amounted to the horror show of serving in the military, losing part of his body and his ‘boys.’ I didn’t know a thing about military culture beyond what I’d picked up over the years, but I knew that those who served together for a long time, especially in dangerous regions, often developed a bond that was difficult to break and painful when lost. “And maybe some of ‘em are like that too, but the others who leave the way they came? They’re just stubborn...or scared. Reachin’ into your head and tryin’ to make shit work again is scary as fuck, I know that, but they won’t do it. ”
“And what’s the second way they leave?”
“Realizin’ that they were stubborn and blind, and that there was plenty of shit they didn’t deal with that they needed to. They’re usually the ones that come back with a different way of doin’ things and ready to listen.”
“And you think I’m one of those men?”
“Shit, I’m just guessin’ here. I don’t know you from some random fuck I met yesterday,” he said with a laugh. “If I was good at knowin’ people, I’d be workin’ here by now. But all I can do is what I can do, ya know?”
“I...suppose I do,” I admitted, unable to help but relent to the logic. I suppose when it came down to it, sometimes all you could do was exactly that; what you could do.
Not that it helped me a lot, but it was pleasant to find simple wisdom in unexpected places.
“Hello?” another voice called from somewhere behind Cade. “Rowan, are you back here?”
“Oh, it’s the virgin,” Cade said.
“The...virgin?” I wondered, a little startled.
Although I wasn’t sold on the idea of Luka being my Guide or his abilities in the job, I certainly couldn’t picture him being a virgin.
He was...well, his personality was the type that got along with most people, and he was definitely attractive enough that there was no way he had trouble finding someone to share a bed with.
“Yeah, he’s new and never got a...ohhhh,” Cade said with a laugh. “You’re taking his cherry.”
“Cade,” I heard Luka sigh, and I could see him moving closer through the steam. “No one’s taking my cherry, that’s been gone for ages.”
“Ages,” Cade said with a snort. “You can’t be that old.”
“I’m thirty-one.”
“Oh,” I said. “Christ, I thought you were younger than that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Luka said dryly as he came close enough for me to see him and.
..swallow hard. He had a towel tucked tightly around his waist, but everything else was right there for me to see.
I had been polite with Cade, but I felt my eyes linger on Luka’s body, from the chest that didn’t look that big in regular clothes, to the way water beaded on stomach hair that was so pale I wouldn’t have seen it without the water droplets. “Enjoying yourself?”
“I am,” I admitted, snapping my gaze away before I was busted staring at him. “Cade here has been very...informative.”
“He means I still don’t know how to shut up,” Cade said with a grin.
“Have you been here the whole time?” I wondered.
Luka shrugged, and I tried not to notice the way his chest bounced from the motion.
“I was in the other springs. This one is the one most people use for quiet. We don’t label it that way, but that’s how it gets treated.
I figured you might enjoy this a lot more if you didn’t have a dozen people you barely know around you talking about things you either don’t care about or know about. ”
“Oh,” I said, surprised by the accuracy of his assessment. “I see.”