Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Ferris
This felt like a date. Logically, I knew it wasn’t one. Quinn was my physical therapist, and he was the source of the searing pain making my ankle and shin throb like someone had taken a bat to it. Not to mention, he’d been very clear about setting boundaries about keeping things patient-therapist.
But he was feeding me.
And smiling at me.
And finding a bunch of little excuses to touch me beyond what a PT would do.
Of course, I wasn’t innocent. He was too easy to sway into. Too easy to lean against and take his hand and…yeah. Keeping it professional was going to be harder than I expected.
Normally, I could compartmentalize. I was used to putting people in boxes and keeping them there.
That had been one of the easiest things for me.
It wasn’t the first time I’d had an inappropriate crush, but the moment I realized the person was not for me, I set them aside and rarely thought about them again.
It had happened a few times with professors, and once it was done, I could sit in their lectures and not be bothered.
So why was Quinn so damn different? Why was he so easy to want and so difficult to let go of?
Being in his office wasn’t nearly as comfortable as I would have been almost anywhere else, but he let me take his desk chair, which was padded, and brought another one up so I could put my leg up. It was thoughtlessly sweet.
He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his injured leg out straight, the other tucked close to his body.
He wasn’t flexible the way a goalie was, but he hadn’t lost much of his hockey training.
I could picture him on the ice, falling down into splits, stretching over his legs, bending himself into pretzel shapes.
And I’d felt how strong he was with the way he’d held me and rocked me up and down on his…
Okay, no. Nope. I couldn’t let myself go down that road.
“Ferris? Are you okay?”
I didn’t realize I was choking on my swallow of water until he said something. Then I became profoundly aware I was lacking oxygen. I managed a deep breath after I swallowed it all down and shook my head.
“You’re not fine.”
“I am. I’m sorry.”
With a small sigh, he reached over and squeezed my ankle. “Again with the apologizing.”
“I’m not normally so messy. Being with you makes me nervous.”
He frowned. “I make you nervous?”
“You’ve had your penis inside me,” I said, then realized, after the look on his face, that was one of the things we’d agreed not to speak about here. “I’m being awkward.”
His mouth turned up in the corners. “You’re being honest. But your honesty is kind of making me blush.”
I could see the tips of his ears going red. “I don’t mean to embarrass you.”
“Ferris,” he said, my name a sigh on his lips. But he didn’t sound annoyed the way most people did. “I’m not embarrassed. I like that you say things the way they are. But it makes it hard when all I want to do is put you on my desk and kiss you until your toes curl.”
“That might hurt—oh.” Oh. He didn’t mean literally. I bowed my head and shrugged. “I want that too. I don’t like being professional.”
“Fuck.” He ran a hand down his face, then did a complicated shift from side to side until he managed to get up onto his feet.
He tossed his burrito wrapper in the little bin by his desk, then came to a stop in front of me.
His hand hovered a few inches from my jaw, and I knew then what he wanted to do. “Ferris.”
“You say my name a lot.”
He smiled fully this time. “I like your name.” He licked his lips. “Come home with me.”
I blinked at him. “But—”
“I know. I know I set rules and asked you to follow them, and I’m a massive asshole for asking this. But…fuck it. I want you. I can’t have you the way I’m craving here in my office, but outside the doors, it’s different.”
I stared at him. I wanted to say yes. Every part of my body was screaming to say yes. “Aren’t you worried it could cost you your job?”
“Yes.” Plain and simple. Just like that. I appreciated that he didn’t try to make the answer complicated.
“Are you worried I’ll turn you in?”
He met my gaze and held until my eyes flickered down to my favorite spot—the little curve where his chin met his bottom lip. “If you turned me in, it would be because I did something very heinous, and in that case, I’d probably deserve it. But I need you to know something.”
“Okay.” I sounded breathless.
“You can say no to my request, and nothing between us will change. I will still want to treat you. I will still want to be your friend—as much as you’re interested in being mine.
I have never done this before. I’ve never crossed this kind of line, and I know for a fact you are the only person I’d be willing to take this risk for. ”
I let those words sink in. My brain turned them around and around, like those nuns with their rosary beads I’d seen when my dad took me to his childhood church. It took a while for me to wrap my head around what he was saying, but when I finally got it, I looked up into his face.
“What does it mean? If we do this?”
He looked torn. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can make any kind of promise to you right now. I know that’s completely unfair—”
“No.”
He took a step back.
“I mean, no. I mean…” I let out a small grunt of frustration.
My words were going to fail me if I wasn’t careful.
But he always turned me upside down. It reminded me of when I was very little.
Whenever I’d get something I really wanted—whenever I was happiest—I couldn’t speak.
All that was left were noises of joy, which got me strange looks from everyone.
But Quinn never looked at me that way.
I took a long, slow breath. “I mean…I don’t want any promises. This is all very complicated, and the only thing that makes sense is that I want to kiss you. And I want to have sex with you. But I don’t want you to lose your job because of me.”
“It will never be because of you. I’m making this choice for me.” He held out a hand to me. “Come home with me,” he said again.
I couldn’t make my tongue move in the way that would give him the word he wanted, so instead, I slipped my fingers against his, interlocking them, and let him pull me to my feet. He touched my jaw then—as though he’d been waiting for permission.
And his face was alight, like he was grateful for it.
“Ready?” he whispered.
I swallowed heavily, gave myself a moment, and then I nodded.
I had been ready for a long, long time. I just hadn’t realized I could have this again.
Me: I’m going to be late tonight.
Mama: Where are you going to be?
Me: Please don’t worry.
Mama: Beta, this is not a joke.
Me: I’m not joking. I’m out with a friend.
There was the longest delay, and for a moment, I thought my mom might panic and call the police or something equally reckless. But just as we hit the main road, heading in a direction I wasn’t entirely familiar with, a text came through.
Mama: I know you’re an adult, but I will never stop worrying. Be safe.
I put a heart on the message and then tucked my phone into my pocket, my gaze fixed on the road ahead of us. I didn’t like looking out the side windows. The passing scenery always made me dizzy.
“Everything okay? If you changed your mind—”
I looked over at Quinn. “Do you want me to change my mind?”
His eyes widened. “What? No! Why would you think that?”
The answer seemed both simple and obvious. “You keep asking me.”
He swallowed heavily. “I’m going to let myself be inspired by you, okay? And I’m going to be honest.”
I tried to hide a smile as I nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
He took another long, slow breath. “I don’t really know what you see in me. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m attractive, and I know that we had a really good time the night we were together. And I also know I’m not some ancient old man teetering on the edge of retirement…or worse.”
“Geriatric?” I offered.
He winced, then rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you for that.”
Quinn said it like he was responding to sarcasm, which I didn’t totally understand, but I chalked it up to one more thing I wasn’t going to get.
“I haven’t had the best opinion of myself over the years,” he said, his voice a sort of soft rumble.
The timber of it felt nice—almost tactile in a way.
I wanted to reach over and touch his mouth to feel it, but I also knew that would be bad social manners, so I squeezed my hand into a fist instead.
Quinn glanced at me for a second at the red light.
There was pain on his face. “I had one very bad, very short marriage. And any relationships I had after that fell apart before they could get any deeper than sex. I figured it was a me thing.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Maybe it was.”
“Ouch.”
I laughed nervously. “No. I-I mean…yes. I…” I trailed off, my voice failing me.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m not actually offended. Tell me what you’re trying to say.”
I took a moment to recenter myself and focused on the pain in my ankle to keep me grounded.
“People aren’t universally liked, right?
Even people who most people think are hot, there are some people who disagree.
Last year, a couple of us got really high and started talking about celebrity crushes, and everyone thought I was a complete weirdo because my first crush was on Ian McKellen. ”
“The Lord of the Rings guy? Gandalf?” Quinn had the same tone as everyone else did that night.
I ducked my head, and my cheeks went hot. “Um. I know it’s weird.”
“No, sweetheart. No.” I felt a touch on my wrist, not too soft, not too hard. I relaxed a fraction, but I still couldn’t look up. “Mine was Sean Connery. Not young and hot, James Bond Connery. I’m talking Indiana Jones’s dad Connery.”
I looked up at him and burst into laughter. “You like nerds!”
He shrugged as he put his hand on the steering wheel. “Yeah. I think I do. And trust me when I say I got a lot of weird looks about that.”