Chapter 1 The Gravity of Bone #7
His femur felt like it was being crushed in a hydraulic press. The muscles of his quadriceps, traumatized by the surgery and the PT sessions, were spasming in violent, rhythmic cramps that made his leg jump on the mattress. Every spasm sent a fresh bolt of lightning up his spine.
"Damn it," he hissed, clenching his teeth until his jaw ached.
He reached for the call button Elena had rigged up—a wireless doorbell that chimed in the main house. But he dropped his hand. He wasn't going to call Cole. He wasn't going to call Maya. He was a grown man.
He dragged himself upright. The room spun.
He grabbed his crutches.
He swung his legs off the bed. The blood rush was agony. He stood up, swaying, breathing hard.
He hobbled to the dresser. He reached for the bottle.
It was empty.
Ryder stared at it. He shook it. Silence.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no."
Then he remembered. Elena took the supply with her at night. She left him exactly the daily allotment. He had taken the last one at 6:00.
He was out.
Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in his chest. It wasn't just the pain; it was the loss of control. He was trapped in a body that was torturing him, and the key to the exit was in a medical bag five miles away.
He grabbed his phone.
He didn't think. He didn't check the time. He dialed the clinic number, knowing it forwarded to her cell after hours.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
"Stone Creek Medical, this is Dr. Rosales." Her voice was sleep-rough, husky.
"I need a refill," Ryder said. He didn't say hello. He sounded desperate, and he hated himself for it.
"Ryder?" A pause. The sound of rustling sheets. "It's eleven o'clock. You're not due for a refill until Monday."
"I'm out," he said. "The pain is... it's bad, Elena. It's a nine. The muscle is seizing."
"You skipped a dose, didn't you?" She knew. She always knew. "You tried to white-knuckle it, and now the pain is ahead of the curve."
"Just bring the bottle," he pleaded. "Please. I can't sleep. I can't think."
"I can't give you more oxy, Ryder. You've hit the daily max. If I give you more, I risk respiratory depression. Especially with your lung history."
"I don't care about my lungs! I care about my leg being sawed off with a rusty knife!"
"Ryder, listen to me. Deep breath."
"Don't tell me to breathe!" he shouted. He slammed his hand against the dresser. The empty bottle rattled. "I need help, Elena! Isn't that your job? Or are you enjoying this? Is this payback for leaving?"
The line went silent.
Ryder stood there, panting, gripping the phone. He heard his own words echoing in the room. Cruel. Unfair. The words of an addict.
"I'm coming over," she said quietly.
"Bring the pills," he demanded.
"No pills," she said. "But I'm coming."
Click.
Ryder dropped the phone. He sank onto the edge of the bed, burying his face in his hands. He was shaking.
He hated the pain. But more than that, he hated that she was right. He had pushed the pain away for six years with adrenaline and eight-second rides. Now that he was still, the bill was due.
Thirty minutes later, headlights swept across the ceiling.
The front door opened. Soft footsteps in the hall.
Elena appeared in the doorway.
She was wearing sweatpants and a heavy wool sweater. Her hair was loose, falling around her shoulders in dark waves. She wasn't carrying her medical bag. She was carrying a jar of something that looked like green salve.
She didn't look angry. She looked... resigned.
She walked to the bed. Ryder couldn't look at her. He stared at his cast.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "About what I said."
"I know," she said. "Pain makes people say stupid things."
She set the jar on the nightstand. It smelled of peppermint, arnica, and eucalyptus.
"Lay back," she ordered.
"Did you bring the oxy?"
"No."
"Then what are you doing?"
"I'm going to release the muscle manually," she said. "The spasm is caused by the trauma to the fascia. Chemicals mask it. Pressure fixes it."
She rolled up her sleeves.
"Lie back, Ryder. Or I leave."
Ryder lay back.
Elena sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under her weight. She wasn't the doctor now. There was no white coat. There was just Elena, sitting on his bed in the middle of the night, smelling of the cold wind and rain.
She reached for his leg.
II. The Hands
Elena unscrewed the lid of the jar. The scent of peppermint and wintergreen filled the small room, sharp enough to make Ryder’s eyes water.
She scooped out a dollop of the green salve. She didn't apply it immediately. She rubbed it between her palms, the friction warming the oil, turning it from a paste into a slick, aromatic liquid. The sound—shhh-shhh-shhh—was rhythmic, hypnotic.
"Your IT band is tight," she said, her voice low. "It's pulling on the patella and triggering the quad spasm. I need to strip the muscle. It’s going to burn."
"Everything burns," Ryder murmured. He gripped the sheets with his hands.
Elena moved her hands to his leg.
She bypassed the cast entirely, moving to the exposed skin of his upper thigh, just below the hem of his boxers.
Her hands made contact.
Ryder gasped.
It wasn't cold. It was heat. A sudden, shocking transfer of energy.
She didn't hesitate. She dug her thumbs into the meat of his quadriceps, finding the knot of seized muscle with the precision of a heat-seeking missile. She pressed down.
"Breathe," she commanded.
Ryder groaned, his head falling back against the pillow. It hurt—a deep, bruising ache—but it was a productive hurt. It was different from the jagged, destructive pain of the fracture. This was control.
Elena worked the muscle. Her hands were strong. Doctor's hands, Ryder thought. Healer's hands. But he remembered them as other things. He remembered them tangled in his hair. He remembered them tracing the scars on his back in the dark.
She began to move in long, sweeping strokes, pushing from the knee up toward the hip.
Slide. Press. Release.
Slide. Press. Release.
The rhythm took over the room.
Ryder watched her. She was focused on his leg, her brow furrowed in concentration. A lock of dark hair fell across her face; she blew it away without breaking the rhythm. She was biting her lip.
She was sweating, too. He could see a sheen on her neck.
"Is it easing?" she asked, not looking up.
"Yeah," Ryder breathed.
It was more than easing. The frantic, electrical storm in his leg was quieting down, replaced by a heavy, languid warmth. The oxytocin was hitting his system, flooding the receptors that had been screaming for opioids.
It was intimacy. It was the deepest kind of intimacy—allowing someone to touch the place that hurt the most.
Elena shifted her weight. Her hip brushed against the mattress. She leaned in, using her body weight to drive her thumbs deeper into his adductor.
Her hand grazed the inside of his thigh. High up.
Ryder’s breath caught in his throat.
The air in the room changed. The medical context flickered, threatening to collapse.
Elena froze. Her hands were still on his skin, slick with oil. She looked up.
Their eyes met.
For a second, the years dissolved. The anger, the secret child, the broken bones—it all vanished. There was just the current. The magnetic pull that had dragged them together since high school.
Ryder saw her pupils dilate. He saw the pulse fluttering in her throat.
"Elena," he whispered. It wasn't a question. It was a plea.
He moved his hand. He covered hers, trapping her fingers against his leg.
Her skin was hot. Her hand trembled under his.
"Ryder," she breathed. Her voice was shaky. "Don't."
"You feel it," he said. "Don't tell me you don't feel it. It’s not just the leg."
"It's the endorphins," she said, reciting the textbook. "It's a physiological response to pain relief. It's transferrence."
"It's us," he said.
He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.
"I missed you, Lena. Every day. Even when I was winning. Especially when I was winning."
Elena looked at him. She looked at his mouth. For a terrifying moment, Ryder thought she was going to lean down. He thought she was going to cross the line she had drawn in the sand.
He wanted her to. He wanted her to erase the last six years with one kiss.
But then, the Healer blinked. The Mother came back online.
She pulled her hand away. It was a sharp, tearing motion, like ripping off a bandage.
"The spasm is gone," she said. Her voice was brittle.
She stood up quickly, wiping her hands on a towel she pulled from her pocket. She backed away from the bed, putting distance between them.
"That should hold you until morning," she said. She wouldn't look at him. She was looking at the door. "Drink water. The massage releases toxins. You need to flush them."
Ryder lay there, his leg warm and loose, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
"Elena," he said. "Wait."
"Goodnight, Ryder."
She grabbed the jar of salve and walked out. She closed the door firmly.
Ryder listened to her footsteps retreating down the hall. Fast. Running away.
He lifted his hand. He smelled his palm.
Peppermint. And her.
The pain in his leg was gone. But the craving... the craving was a thousand times worse. Because now he knew exactly what he was missing.
He stared at the ceiling.
"Endorphins," he muttered bitterly. "Right."
III. The Wallflower
Two weeks later, Ryder Stone decided he was done with walls.
He was standing—precariously—in the corner of the Oakhaven Community Hall. The air in the room was a thick, humid soup of sawdust, cheap beer, overheated bodies, and the aggressive twang of a live fiddle band that was playing "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" slightly too fast.
Ryder leaned heavily on his crutches. His left leg was still encased in the white cast, but the swelling had gone down enough for him to wear a pair of modified jeans that Maya had slit up the seam and pinned with safety pins. He felt like Frankenstein’s monster at a prom.