63. Badges of Honor
badges of honor
Mirren
I’m so tired by the time we get home that Strider has to carry me up the stairs. Score one for a chivalrous man and a bum knee.
I’d love to blame him. Blame that extra stair we never negotiated, but my body is recovering.
Injury will do it. Surgery will do it. Hell, surgery—if history is anything to go by—will take it out of me for months.
And not just my stupid knee. My body is good about healing, but two major surgeries in under two years?
Stupid wanna-be incels.
“You’re all up in your head. What are you thinking about?” Strider asks as he sets me on my feet in our bedroom.
“Ricky Germaine.”
His chin jerks back. “That was the last thing I expected.”
“My stupid knee. Another surgery. My body. A busted op. Dumb terrorist wannabes. Totally logical train of thought.” I find the edge of the bed and plop down.
“If you say so. Do you have enough energy to shower?”
“Enough to stand there if you do all the work. Not enough to hold myself up if you try to make me come.”
“So an effective shower not a good shower?” he asks. “I get it. Be right back.” He returns, waving a roll of plastic wrap like a baton in a foot race. “Pants off, Jones.”
I stare at him in challenge.
“My pleasure.” Tossing the box on the bed, he kneels before me for the second time today. This time he unlaces my shoes and pulls them off, socks too, followed by my pants.
The plastic wrap application is precise, gentle, and covers more than necessary. But it removes any doubt I could have that my wound won’t be protected.
“Is that enough?” he asks from his position below me.
“You’re perfect.”
He offers an indulgent smile and stands, offering me two hands.
When I’m on my feet, he lifts the sweatshirt over my head, followed by my tee. My panties and bra are next. I’m left completely naked while he’s dressed down to his shoes.
“You’re perfect,” he says, scanning my body. Brushing a thumb over my cheek, he adds, “Though the bruises make me want to bring that guy back from the dead just to kill him.”
“I love you too.”
He starts the shower and comes back for me, setting me in front of the mirror to run a brush through my hair. I’m not unable but I’m loving the care and nurture he’s displaying. Glancing up, I gasp. My face is mottle yellows and greens and scabs dot my cheeks.
“You let me FaceTime your sister like this?”
“You, Mirren Jones, are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Sick, healthy, clean, a little stinky”—he sniffs and makes a face. “When you’re old, wrinkly, and gray, you will still be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
I mutter something about bifocals under my breath but let him guide me to the shower.
He quickly undresses and steps in behind me, making quick work of shampooing my hair as I lean into his chest.
Firm fingers press into my scalp, and I bite back a moan. Even though I want more, I don’t have the strength or energy for it.
He does the same with the conditioner before using quick, efficient hands to clean me everywhere, but where I most love his touch. He passes me the washcloth even as I feel heat at my lower back. “Sorry.”
“I’m not. It bodes well for me that you want me even in this state.” I turn to face him.
And gasp.
“What— Strider?” My eyes start at his shoulder that’s mottled in bruises, to his waist that’s blooming with purple where my knees were when he carried me, to his forearm, and finally to his wrist — the wrist I grabbed when he put his ring on my finger.
There are four little bruises lined up on his wrist. As if to see for myself, I flip it over and see a lone one—my thumb—underneath.
“When?” I lift my chin, getting the shards of the spray in my eyes, but needing to see the truth in his eyes.
“Apparently by the time we got to Austin.”
“And you didn’t tell me because…”
His chin lifts too. “To what? Burden you when you were coming out of surgery? To have you worry as we came home? To harm your recovery?”
“I could help!”
He looks at my knee and lasers me with his eyes. “It’s my job to make sure you’re okay. To take care of you. Not to have you worrying about something that’s under control.”
“Is it? Under control, I mean?”
“Mostly.” His voice is soft and small, and I know from all he’s told me that this kills him to discuss.
“Because,” I prompt.
“Because I’m on ridiculous amounts of pred. Because I’ve had a blood transfusion and another for platelets. Because I’m not going to die from being hard-headed. I’m watching it.”
My nose warms. There’s no chance of stopping the tears that top my lashes. “Every one of those is because of me.”
He doesn’t refute it. He can’t. He doesn’t lie.
He flips the shower off, and we stand there, him holding me at my waist since I’m so tired I could collapse.
“Aren’t they?”
“They’re all proof I’m taking care of you, Freckles. And that’s all I care about.”
“But—” My protest is cut off with a hard kiss.
“I don’t want you to have to nurse me back to health.”
My eyes go hard. “But you’re okay doing it for me? That’s not what this is. We’re in this together.”
“Yeah, baby, we are. We’re in you need me more right now even if you don’t like it. We’re in get you back on your feet mode. Timing sucks, but I’m okay. And I’m watching it. You watch it too. If something concerns you, we’ll act on it. It sucks, but it is what it is.”
Strider
Jamie told me not telling Mirren straight away would go over like a fart in church. What he couldn’t have anticipated—because I don’t think they see a side of her that I do—is her hurt. And that’s what breaks me.
She wants to go. She wants to get out of this shower as much as I do and can’t. And that powerlessness is her kryptonite. She’s strong, independent, always on her own timing with her own agency, and she’s stuck.
“Baby?”
Her shoulders heave, and I can’t take another moment. I grab her and take her to our bed, both of us soaking wet. Pulling her atop me, I make sure her knee is protected.
“Talk to me.” I smooth the hair from her face.
Her words come in clumps, between sobs. “I’m scared. And I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“Those bruises are my fault.”
“And every one of them I would beg for again and again if it meant I got to carry you to safety or take you down our stairs. Or to have your excitement at having your ring.” Taking her hand, I bring her ring finger to my mouth and kiss the knuckle where it sits.
“I hate that I’m flaring, but these marks are badges of honor. And they don’t hurt.”
“They don’t?”
I shake my head. “They look way worse than they feel. I’m just not healing properly, but I will, and you, my love, get the joy of me on pred, which isn’t pretty. My fuse is shorter. I can’t drink enough water, and I pee every two minutes.”
“Time to get that prostate checked, old man.” She shivers. “All jokes aside, I thought you were drinking more. But the meds and the naps have me all wonky.”
I fold the covers over her, and she settles deeper into my body. As much as I love this, she will hurt herself sleeping here. Just five more minutes. I need to hold her.
And she needs to be held.
“Freckles?”
“Hmm?”
“Why are you scared?”
She shrugs, her entire body going tight reflexively. Her voice is small and sleepy when she responds. “I just found you.”
“Oh, baby, I’m not going anywhere.”
Her body melts under my words and within moments her breathing has evened out as well. She’s exhausted. Her body is healing and every resource is going to where it’s needed most to heal her knee.
I don’t tell her my greatest fear is losing her, followed closely by leaving her too soon.
I don’t have to relay that I run, eat well, and do all the things to give my body the best opportunity to fight…
even if it’s fighting itself. Science, medicine, and technology are improving astronomically.
There will be a solution in my lifetime—my long lifetime—I’m sure of it.
I do tell her sleeping form that I love her and am in love with her, and if risking my body would save her life, I would do it one hundred times over.
It’s what men in love do. It’s what being in love means.
We risk it all. We love hard and loud. I’ll find all the places to be for her what she cannot be for herself, what she should never have to try, and then show up…
real, authentic. Her biggest cheerleader, a bulwark against everything that wants to oppose her, the man who is proud to stand at her side, letting her shine.