Cade #2
“Well,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in the seat. “I don’t know.”
He rolled his eyes almost immediately. “You obviously know, so just say whatever it is.”
I took a deep breath. “Alright, well, I don’t know, ya just seem quiet lately. Like ya don’t wanna talk to me, and it’s kinda…felt like ya don’t wanna be around me.”
I shut up quickly before I said anymore.
I was already struggling with what I really couldn’t bring myself to say as it was.
It already felt awkward as hell to tell him I was feeling…
unwanted? Unliked? That sounded stupid, let alone putting it into actual words when he already had plenty to worry about as it was.
He watched me for a moment, tilting his head. “I’m sorry, are you…nervous?”
I felt my face warm. “M-maybe?”
He stared at me before snorting and turning his head to the side. “Seriously?”
I couldn’t help but fidget with the handle of the coffee mug. “I’m allowed to be nervous about stuff sometimes.”
Walker snorted. “I mean…yes, you are. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
I tried not to fidget. “I just…ya been actin’ kinda distant, is all.”
Walker stared at me, his nostrils flaring before he turned his head away with a sigh. “Of all the things for you to… And if I said it’s nothing to worry about, and you did nothing wrong?”
“I would…believe ya,” I said, and even I could hear the doubt in my voice and quickly added, “I mean it. I would believe ya. I just…I dunno, it’s been buggin’ me is all. But if that’s what ya say, I won’t push.”
Walker’s expression was pinched. “Of course you won’t, but you’ll let it eat away at you because you don’t want to upset me.”
“I mean—”
“I get it,” he said with a sigh, and took a drink of his coffee. “I wondered if I was going to have to say something at some point, but I didn’t want to. And before you say something like you look like you’re about to, no, this isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Okay,” I said carefully, believing him but not sure what else it could have been.
“I just…need a bit of space,” he said, looking at me in time to probably see the wounded look on my face. “Aw, don’t make that face. I just said it’s not you, it’s because…well, I guess it is kind of you, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
I frowned. “Now I’m just confused.”
“I figured,” he said. “Mostly because I’m trying to explain without having to explain myself, because once I do that, there’s no going back.”
“If it’s that bad, ya don’t have to,” I told him quickly.
“I just… A wall I had up before, mostly had up anyway, apparently didn’t come back after seeing you again.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Right, I’m making this worse by pussyfooting around. Look, the other day, in the shower—”
“I know you were upset—”
“Stop,” he said sharply, and I did. “It’s already hard enough without you jumping to conclusions.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“There’s literally no other way, so I’m just going to put it out there,” he said with a shake of his head. “I was…turned on.”
I frowned. “By Logan?”
“Jesus, by you.”
“Me?” I asked, my eyes going wide as I tried to…
No, wait, hold on. My mind flashed back to the locker room.
I’d been standing there, torn between being pissed off that Logan had been an asshole and worried that I had pissed off Walker.
When he’d made the comment about me being naked, he’d said it was…
distracting. Which had sort of made sense; I had been naked after all.
The only weird thing had been that he’d been…
well, I had looked and I hadn’t tried to think about it too much afterward, but he had seemed to be… excited. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Walker said with a pained look. “Back in the day, I kept…a mental wall up between stuff like that and everything else. But clearly, that didn’t stick.”
Huh, okay, so he had been, uh, hard. “Wall?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose with a groan. “Right, of course, I’ll have to go all in, because it wouldn’t go any other way, would it?”
“I’m still kinda confused,” I admitted.
“Look, you know I’m gay.”
“Well, yeah.”
“And you might not be aware of it, but our team wasn’t exactly a bunch of trolls.
And all of you were pretty comfortable touching and walking around in…
whatever. Which is normal, I know, and I don’t know if it’s true for every gay guy in the service, but I built a sort of wall.
I just…didn’t notice when guys were good-looking.
I didn’t notice they were hot, I didn’t notice they had nice bodies, and I didn’t notice when they had nice asses or were hung. ”
I blinked. “I mean, still not followin’ but that makes sense…sorta.”
I mean, if I were constantly surrounded by good-looking women who were comfortable enough to walk around in barely any clothes or no clothes, I would struggle.
I’d never really thought about Walker having to deal with that, especially with our team, because he had…
seemed to get used to everything. I’d definitely never thought about him being turned on by me of all people.
It didn’t bother me, but it was like that night he’d drunkenly slept on me; it wasn’t bad, but it was… weird.
“But I always had a harder time with you,” he said, and then wrinkled his nose.
“Pun not intended. I’m not going into that, don’t ask me, but it was always harder to put that wall up with you.
I finally did, but I guess in the past few years, it broke down, probably because I didn’t need it and I had other things to deal with.
But when I saw you the other day, I realized how gone it was.
I was…well, like I said, it was distracting. ”
“Er…you’re sayin’ you were turned on by me?” I asked and then shook my head. “Alright, no, that makes sense. I thought ya were, uh—”
“Hard?” he asked wryly.
“I guess ya ain’t feelin’ as awkward about it now,” I muttered, feeling my face warm.
“No point now I’m telling all but the details,” he said with a sigh. “But yes, I was turned on by you.”
“You’re, uh…into me?”
“I was into you from the moment we met,” he said with a sudden laugh.
“It was an uphill battle, so I wasn’t dealing with that all the time, which was hell, with how comfortable you were touching me.
But I did it…and it came back. So that’s why I’ve been trying to put distance between us, just a little bit, for a while.
Because it came back and I don’t want our friendship to…
I don’t know, suffer because I can’t control myself. ”
I frowned at him. “Why didn’t ya just tell me that?”
“Really?” he asked sourly. “I’m just supposed to say, ‘Hey, Cade, I’d prefer not to be as close to you for a bit because I saw you butt naked, thought you were the hottest thing I’ve seen in forever, and got hard?’ Because that would have been one hell of a thing to drop on you.”
I stared at him. “Uh…the hottest thing you’ve seen in forever?”
His cheeks colored furiously. “That… I got carried away. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But that means ya were thinkin’ it.”
“I…yes, okay?”
“The hottest?”
“Jesus, is this a lack of awareness thing on your part, or are you trying to fuck with me right now?”
“I…dunno how to answer that.”
He stared at me, then looked away with a pained sigh. “Lack of awareness it is then, fuck, I was hoping it was you giving me shit.”
“Why would I be givin’ you shit?” I wondered.
“Look, clearly you either weren’t paying attention when we were around normal people, like those times we were given leave and could go out, or you just…
No it totally tracks that you wouldn’t think anything of the attention you were getting…
totally tracks,” he said with a snort. “You’re an attractive man, Cade. You’re hot.”
“I mean,” I said nervously, scratching the back of my head. “I guess some might’ve thought that before.”
“Before?”
“Well, I mean,” I said, gesturing toward my body.
He leaned back, raising a brow. “You’re telling me that since the incident, you’ve not had any attention whatsoever?”
“Well…” I said, knowing I was being cagey, but I didn’t know how to admit the truth to him.
He stared at me for several seconds before his expression softened. “You haven’t gone out or tried to date, have you?”
I squirmed in my seat. “I…no, guess I haven’t. I mean, there was a lotta gettin’ fixed up and recoverin’, and then once I was, I just…didn’t seem much point. Not exactly been lookin’ my best.”
His softened expression shifted into a scowl. “Well, that’s a load of shit. I don’t know if that idea is coming from you or if some idiot put it in your head, but there’s nothing wrong with the way you look.”
“Nothing, huh?” I asked; it was my turn to be sarcastic. “Not one thing.”
He slammed the table enough to shake it and make me jump as he got up and leaned closer. “You listen to me. Alright? There is nothing wrong with you, okay? I don’t care if you got your leg blown off and you’ve got enough scars to make a-a…I don’t know, some comparison that’s clever and meaningful.”
I blinked at him, seeing he was homed in with intensity, practically vibrating.
I also couldn’t help but notice that his haphazardly placed pants were slipping down, they clearly hadn’t been tied tight enough, and I could see not just more of his flat stomach, but the short, dark hair threatening to peek out from the waistband.
“This, uh…supposed to be motivatin’? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I had to give better ones in the past.”