Walker
I eyed my phone on the shelf, considered opening it and scrolling, and…
thought better of it. I had been here almost a month, and I had avoided going anywhere near the net.
The most I’d done was download a few games and books, but I hadn’t opened any social media or read any news.
It had technically been a provision of the ‘suit’ who had given me the ‘fair’ deal of coming here to avoid trouble coming down on me or my family, but it wasn’t enforceable when they hadn’t taken anything from me.
Except…it was nice not to have an ear to the ground or my finger on the pulse of current events.
Arete wasn’t the place I thought I needed, but that didn’t mean there weren’t perks to being here.
Secluded in the mountains, far from the nearest town, and without a constant barrage of news, reels, and talk shows, it was as if we were in a bunker after the end of the world.
Truth was, if it wasn’t for the fact that someone would know if the apocalypse happened, the world could have blown up outside these mountains and I wouldn’t know.
It was something I had sort of expected when I’d first been introduced to how things were handled around here, and I had resented it.
I suppose what I really resented was being forced to do the bidding of someone else, especially when I didn’t want to do.
I had to admit that in its peaceful, calm way, this place had worn me down.
It felt like I was on vacation…but not. Honestly, it felt wrong to sit around and treat this place like some fancy resort rather than a place to help people.
I had gone to a few of the group counseling sessions they held to make it look like I was trying, just in case my ‘handler’ could peek in on my progress.
Sitting in on one of those was enough to show me I had been bratty about coming here.
Despite how some of them looked outside those sessions, a lot of the men here were struggling with demons I could barely fathom.
With an annoyed flick, I pushed the phone away and straightened when the door to Cade’s room opened and the man walked in. Well, it was more like he limped in, somehow favoring the leg that shouldn’t have had feeling.
“Damn,” I said, sitting up and getting off the bed. “You alright?”
“I’m fine,” he grunted as he made his way toward the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.
“It doesn’t look like you’re fine,” I said. “What happened?”
“It’s fine,” he said, then looked at me, grimacing. “I’ve been doin’…physical therapy.”
I paused at that. “Really?”
“Ya gave me enough shit about it,” he said with a huff.
That was neither strictly true nor a lie.
I hadn’t been riding his ass about it since I’d brought it up a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t dropped the subject.
His mobility was fine, but there was a stiffness to his movements that didn’t need to be there.
The only time I had ever seen him move smoothly had been when he’d sneaked up on Logan and me to ambush the guy.
There were also times when I could tell he was getting worn down whenever he had to walk for extended periods and especially climbing stairs.
“I only wanted it for you so you’d have some extra help,” I told him.
“I know,” he grumbled, and then shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry, it was…not great today.”
“I take it they had you doing it while you had the leg on?”
“Yeah, told me to take it easy.”
“Good, then take the leg off and come lie down, or sit. Whatever you want.”
“It’s fine,” he grumbled.
I eyed him suspiciously. “Are you going to be a pain in the ass?”
“I’ll sit down,” he said with a growl, hobbling to the bed and dropping with a groan. When I approached him, he eyed me suspiciously. “What’re you doin’?”
“I’m going to help you get the leg off,” I told him.
“Don’t,” he said with a sudden intensity that made me hesitate as he twitched the leg away from me as if I could just reach down and snatch it off him.
Though it fit what remained of his upper thigh, it had a harness that wrapped around his waist to help keep it in place, so it wasn’t like I could run off with it.
“What?” I wondered in surprise. “Cade, what the fuck, man?”
“It’s fine where it is,” he said with uncustomary sharpness as he glared at me. “Leave it.”
“Absolutely not,” I told him. “If they said to rest with it off, there’s a good reason. They probably want to give the skin a rest and air to breathe, which it’s not going to get if you’re sitting there with your pants and leg on.”
“It’s fine!” he snapped again when I reached out, and this time I saw the worried glimmer in his eyes.
I huffed. “Cade, is this some self-conscious thing?”
“No,” he said, but he had never been good at lying, at least not to people he trusted.
“Cade, I have seen you completely naked and vulnerable, both platonically and sexually. I am well aware of what you look like, and being without a leg isn’t going to suddenly change what you look like to me, alright? Now let me help you so you can recover properly!”
“Would ya stop bein’ my goddamn medic for five fuckin’ minutes?” he snarled, swatting at me now I was growing closer with more persistence.
“No,” I told him, dropping onto the bed on my hands so that my face was near him. I knew I was pushing him too hard, and what he needed wasn’t me riding his ass. I softened my voice. “But I can also be your friend…and maybe something more.”
“Something more?” he wondered.
That would require getting onto the topic that the shift from a nonsexual relationship into a fully sexual one had changed things in my head.
It wasn’t as if I’d told him my feelings for him had just been sexual back then and now, but neither had I elaborated that there had always been the chance of something more.
This wasn’t the time to bring it up, though, and not just because there was something more important to deal with, but because… well, because.
I kissed him gently, putting my weight on his chest as I let our lips explore one another carefully.
“I want to help you, and not just because I’m a medic who doesn’t know how to quit, but because I care, okay?
I promise, nothing is going to happen in my head that will be disgusted or pity you for it; give me some credit. Trust me.”
“I do,” he said, but he was clearly uncomfortable with the idea. “I-I guess.”
“Good,” I said, kissing the corner of his mouth, which I had discovered by accident was a way to make him grin bashfully.
Apparently, he was a sentimental romantic, but that wasn’t all that surprising.
That wasn’t really my style, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get him to do what I wanted… for his own good, of course.
I eased back and let my hands slide from his chest over his stomach.
Smiling, I pushed my hands up his shirt to run my fingertips back and forth over the hard muscles, letting them play through the dark red hair.
I had always been a fan of body hair, not excessively so, but I was glad guys had stopped trying to get rid of it all the time.
“This supposed to be helpin’?” he asked, but there was no irritation in his voice as he watched me, and was in fact, trying to hold back a smirk.
It had been a little over a week since we had first broken through a barrier that I wouldn’t have dared touch, let alone put a crack in, and he had adapted well.
I wasn’t sure how long it would last, if it would last at all, but for now I was happy to see the interested glint in his eye.
“Fine, fine,” I said, tugging his pants to loosen them. The next step required him to lift his hips off the bed so I could remove them. It was tempting to remove his underwear as well, but as tempting as it was to start something, I wanted to get him comfortable first.
That was easier said than done, however, because I could sense his tension, and he was quiet, but I heard the way he sucked in a breath when I undid the harness for his prosthetic.
Loosening it, I slid it off and gently took the leg and brace, setting both aside because they would need to be wiped down.
I couldn’t help but take a quick glance over the remains of his leg and sigh when I saw the bright red irritation.
“Sorry,” he muttered, trying to avoid eye contact.
“I was sighing because it’s obvious you’re not taking good care of yourself,” I said, raising a brow. “Now I know they had to have given you something for the leg.”
He was still staring at the wall. “Bathroom drawer.”
They had at least given him a cream to help with the irritation.
I glanced at the instructions and the date it had been handed out and repressed the urge to yell at him.
Apparently, he had been going for treatment for a couple of weeks now and hadn’t bothered to break the seal on the bottle.
It was a miracle it was just a red mess rather than broken skin and bleeding.
I suppose it was a boon that he didn’t do any cardio when he worked out, and avoided moving too much since the two of us were pretty lazy together.
When I came back, he had shoved a pillow under his head but was still refusing to meet my gaze. I sat down and got to work applying the ointment. “This is going on later too, just so you know.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, and I repressed a smile.
I knew he was self-conscious about his leg, but I also knew part of it was that he hated being a patient.
I now understood it was because of some noble need to seem perfectly fine, to show no weakness to those he thought might rely on him.
Noble…but stupid as hell. He was at Arete for a reason, so clearly he was not fine, but again, now wasn’t the time to bring that up.
“How is the muscle pain?” I asked, and when I didn’t get an answer, I sighed. “All your muscles, Cade. Not just the leg, which I assume isn’t feeling great. Is it aching, or is it tightness?”