Cade #2
He waved me away. “Trust me, the less you try to get into that man’s head, the better. Go on, go find your friend. I’ll be here if you need to talk about…food again.”
“Sure,” I said brightly as I walked off to the steady beat of my leg against the ground. I was feeling better about the whole thing; at least I finally had something I could say besides “I dunno” when I tried to talk to Walker.
His class would nearly be over, so I headed to the room where they held the sessions. The tune was back in my head and I was humming as I went, grabbing the door and opening it, only to come to a stop when I saw a group of men twisting on the ground like they were trying to audition for a porn set.
“Er,” I said, realizing I should have at least knocked before entering, but it would have been a lot better if I had peeked in to see if the class was over. “I, uh…sorry.”
“We’re nearly done, but you can join us,” the instructor said, and I couldn’t remember his name considering I’d never joined the classes.
“Ah, no,” I said, looking down at my leg. It wasn’t like I could do a whole lot, not yoga anyway. “Not really lookin’ to wave this hunk of metal around. Was just here to, uh…pick someone up.”
The instructor’s eyes darted to my leg, but his pleasant smile remained. “Well, take a seat then. Maybe a little mindfulness will find its way to you.”
I shot Walker a look when he used his forearm to cover a smile, and I was conscious of the noise of my leg on the floor as I walked to the chair and sat down.
It didn’t occur to me that I could have just backed out of the room with my embarrassment.
It was too late now; I had already disrupted everyone with my entrance and walking loudly across the room.
I would just have to sit and endure knowing I’d made a show of myself and just… behave.
There were some familiar faces in the room, and the instructor continued from where he’d left off.
The whole thing seemed…silly, it was more about contorting your body into uncomfortable positions and focusing on your breathing.
I wasn’t sure what was supposed to be so relaxing, though I knew Isaac had apparently been really good at it while he’d been here. For me, it just looked awkward.
My attention eventually shifted to Walker, who was finally focused on what he was doing instead of trying not to laugh at me for being a noisy jackass.
The intense look on his face caught my attention because I hadn’t seen it before.
It was the sort of face he reserved for when he was working hard stitching someone up or trying to stay alive in the middle of a fight.
Except what he was doing was twisting his body to follow the instructions and try to hold the position when he was told. The latest position had bent him so his shirt had fallen up his body to reveal the taut stretch of stomach as he quivered slightly with the exertion of holding in one place.
I blinked, suddenly focusing on the lines of his body in a way that had only been mildly interesting before.
Beads of sweat were collecting on his forehead, but his stomach stayed flat even as it rose and fell with his controlled breaths.
I had appreciated his diligence about keeping in shape, but now it was… different.
The next position dropped his shirt, much to my disappointment.
I barely remembered there were other people in the room as I stared, swallowing as I realized that he, uh…
he had a really nice butt. The next position made that even more obvious as it stretched the fabric of his shorts over the curve of his ass and while I recognized the signs of a man who was not afraid to include squats, I realized I wasn’t watching him just because he had a good workout routine.
I hadn’t actually done much the other night, other than kiss him; he had taken care of the rest. I hadn’t even grabbed his ass, which was definitely something I would have done with anyone else I’d screwed around with.
Now I regretted not getting a grip on it, to see if it was soft or if it was pure muscle.
The next position was probably meant to stretch the thighs and the back, but it just made me think of someone riding cowgirl…
or I supposed cowboy for this group. Which wasn’t doing much to help because now all I could think was what he would look like naked, sweat beading his forehead as he rolled his hips on top of me rather than holding the position.
God, what would it look like to see my cock slide into him, burying deep as I—
Crap.
Shifting, I leaned forward, placing my forearms on my knees as the class was called to a close after a set of breathing exercises.
I probably should have considered doing some of those myself because I was having a hard time focusing on anything but Walker.
He didn’t look like he’d had a miserable time, as he’d been insinuating he might when the class had been offered to him.
I thought it would be good for him to do something besides hanging around me all the time, but now I inadvertently found myself watching him intently, and it felt like I was violating him just by being here.
“Hey,” he said as he walked up, wiping his face. “That was a good call. Can’t say I was in for all the mindfulness crap, but it was nice to put my body through more than just working out.”
“Yeah,” I said roughly. “Glad ya had a good time; figured you could use somethin’ different.”
He frowned. “You alright?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, not quite lying. I had a better idea that the other day wasn’t just because it had been sex, but I couldn’t say getting a boner as I watched Walker do a workout counted as ‘okay’ either. “I, uh, can we go back to my room?”
“Are you sure everything is okay?” Walker asked cautiously, and I figured his wariness was because he wasn’t sure he wanted to be alone with me, because that meant I had something to say to him. Which was true, but—
“Fine,” I said quickly, making sure I wasn’t about to show a room full of guys just how much I could tent the front of my pants as I stood up and nodded my head toward the door. “Just…wanna talk to you about somethin’ is all.”
“Sure,” he said slowly, and I swear I saw him brace for impact.
“Great,” I said, putting my hand on the back of his shoulder and guiding him as gently as I could toward the door. “Let’s do that.”
“Shit, alright,” he muttered as he walked a little faster.
“Ah, Cade?” the instructor called, and I growled in frustration.
“Yeah?” I asked, putting on a smile.
“There are positions you can do even with that leg, if you wish to join us in another session,” he said with a smile. “So don’t feel you have to exclude yourself.”
“He will,” Walker said, and when I looked at him, he shrugged and walked out.
Leaving me to look awkwardly at the instructor and giving him a pained smile. “Uh…see ya.”
I hurried after Walker as he headed toward the dormitory. “What the hell was that?”
“Hey, if you’re going to push me into going into one of those sessions, it wouldn’t hurt you to join us,” he said with a smirk. “Plus, consider it payment for rushing me out and dragging me back to the dormitories.”
“I ain’t draggin’ no one,” I muttered.
“Plus, maybe it would be good for you to do something that isn’t just working out and jerking off in the showers,” he told me with a roll of his eyes.
“I remember you bein’ a lot nicer than this,” I grumbled.
“Clearly you don’t remember your history very well,” he said, grumbling as he dropped his towel and bent to grab it. Which was just the refresher I didn’t need, that he did in fact have a nice ass and I had to bite down with all my willpower not to reach out and grab it. “Because I was never nice.”
“Sure,” I said with a huff as he continued walking, apparently completely unaware of what was going on in my head. “Whatever ya say.”
“I do say,” he said as he stopped at a door.
“This ain’t my room,” I said.
“You want to talk? We can talk in here, at least I can take a shower after you’re done…saying whatever you came to say,” he said with a frown as he tapped his key to the panel beside the door and it slid open.
“Ya make it sound like you’re walkin’ to your doom,” I muttered, realizing he was freaking out a lot more in his head than he was letting on if he was going to make a comment like that.
Walker pulled the collar of his shirt back and frowned, wrinkling his nose, peeling it off and throwing it into the laundry bin.
My eyes lingered on the marks along his back, not just the scar on his hip that wrapped around to the front.
There were other little ones as well, but the one on his right side was small considering what it had looked like the last time I’d seen it, just a puckered bit of skin that might once have been mistaken for a car lighter scar.
I reached out to rest my fingers on it before I could think about what I was doing. His hands had moved to his shorts, probably preparing to take them off for the shower, and then froze when he felt my touch. “What are you doing?”
“Just…lookin’,” I said, running my finger over it. “Understandin’ what you meant…about scars bein’ stories. This was the one that took ya away from us.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“Don’t be. I was the one who gave the all-clear when I shouldn’t have,” I said back to him.
It remained one of my greatest regrets; there had been nothing I could have done short of insubordination for the rest of my team, nothing could have saved them from what happened that day, except not being there.
But this? I had given the all-clear, and my team had trusted me.
I had been tired from days of no sleep, barely any food, and rationing our water supply, but I knew better than not to order caution as we checked for anyone left alive.
The shooter had only got a few bullets off before all of us, Walker included, had filled him full of lead.