Chapter Ten Interrupted
I got almost no sleep. He was a quiet sleeper, but whenever he moved, I woke up. Was he getting up? Leaving? No, he’d just turned over or stretched out. But I had to make sure each time.
I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly, there was daylight, and I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. Then I remembered he was here, and I turned over. He was propped on his elbows, watching me, looking as tired as I felt. But also amazing.
“Hey.” I sounded like my vocal cords had been dragged over tarmac.
“Hey,” he said.
“We slept together.”
“Did you actually sleep?” he said.
“I dozed off a few times. Kept waking up to check you were still here. Thought you’d go back to the couch.”
“Why would I do that?”
I shrugged. “Just thought you might. You didn’t, though.” I clapped him on the shoulder. I liked the way he felt, nice and solid.
“Is that okay?” I said.
“You don’t have to ask permission to touch me like that.”
“Sorry. I’m still getting used to...” I checked the clock. “I gotta get ready for work. If you wanna stay here and catch some extra sleep while I’m in the shower, help yourself.”
“Sure.”
I grabbed some clean clothes and went to the bathroom. I saw myself in the mirror looking pretty rough and pale with shadows under my eyes. And I was grinning like an idiot. Because I’d slept with him. I felt like someone had hung a gold medal around my neck.
I showered in a daze. By the time I got out, I was paranoid he’d left, so I pulled on all my clothes before I was fully dry and practically ran back to my room. And he was still there. He’d fallen asleep lying on his side, half under the blankets.
“Eddie?” I said softly.
He didn’t move. He looked so vulnerable and nonthreatening, and he’d said I could touch him, so I placed my hand over the dip in his side just below his ribs. My hand sank into him, and I shook him gently. My hair was still wet, and it was dripping onto him, leaving translucent dots on his T-shirt.
His eyes fluttered open, and he looked at me.
“Shower’s all yours.” My hand was still pressed into him. “You look...good.” I moved my hand up and down his side. “You feel good.”
And then my body...responded. I yanked my hand away and stepped back.
“Yeah. Um, I’ll make breakfast.”
“Sounds good,” he said.
He didn’t get up, which was good because I needed space right fucking now. I went to the kitchen.
What the hell just happened? It had never happened that fast for me. I’d almost— Did he notice? I know he notices that stuff. Shit.
The bathroom door closed, and the shower started, and I tried to pull myself together. I really, really needed to jack, but I couldn’t risk doing it, because he could come out of the bathroom any second. But also, if I jacked because of him, it would mean—I wasn’t ready for what that would mean.
I pulled myself together enough to make bacon sandwiches for us, and by the time he got out of the bathroom, I’d gotten myself under control. I was also running late for work. I grabbed my sandwich as he came into the kitchen.
“I have to go,” I said. “I made you a sandwich.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll see you later, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said.
I went to the front door and pulled off the chain.
“Hey,” he called after me.
I went back to the kitchen. “Yeah?”
He took a bite of his sandwich. “Maybe we could fool around tonight?” He said it casually, like he was suggesting we watch hockey.
“Um.” Shit.
“Only if you want to,” he said.
“Yeah...I’d like that actually. See you later.” I let myself out.
Okay, he wanted to... And I’d told him that I wanted to. Tonight.
Get a hold of yourself, Porter.
I was late to work because I missed my stop.
My brain was going in a million directions.
It didn’t help that I was training Trish’s replacement, Hilde, on how to code the different dog behaviors from video recordings.
Hilde was flirting with me, laughing, and putting her hand on my wrist, which I couldn’t pull away because I was typing.
I wouldn’t have minded that if I didn’t have a hot date with my...
what? I didn’t have a boyfriend. I had him. Tonight. We were going to...
I kept making excuses to get up, and I’d go to the stairwell, run down the stairs to the first floor, then turn around and run up the stairs to the top floor. Then I’d do it again. It was either that or scream. But I was going crazy. I almost took a header down the stairs on my second lap.
Come noon, I was turning myself inside out.
“Do you want to get lunch?” said Hilde.
“I can’t.”
I couldn’t handle food. I needed to burn off the energy filling me up so much I was gonna pop.
So instead of getting lunch, I offered to walk Goliath.
Goliath was one of our research dogs. They had volunteers who walked the dogs, but the lab staff did it too.
Usually, I’d take one of the greyhounds, because they didn’t pull on their leashes.
The other dogs were hit and miss, behavior-wise.
They were all rescues, most without leash training, and because a different person walked them every day, they weren’t being trained consistently.
When I got to the kennels, all of the dogs were out being walked except for Goliath.
As near as we could figure, he was a mastiff / pittie / Saint Bernard mix, and he weighed over two hundred pounds.
The volunteers didn’t walk him. He was way too big and strong, and he pulled like a plow horse.
Roger walked him. Roger was six foot four and could carry Goliath over his shoulder.
He was adopting Goliath as soon as he completed his last toy trial.
Roger wasn’t in yet, so I took Goliath out, figuring if he made me run, it would help burn off my anxiety about tonight.
The sky was overcast, but it was pretty warm for May, and I figured the rain would cool us off. Goliath broke into a lope. I wasn’t anywhere near as fit as I had been when I’d been dancing professionally, but I could keep up with him.
The sky kept getting darker. Then it went green, and the streetlights came on.
In hindsight, I should have remembered that Goliath had this issue. We didn’t know his history, but what we found out while we were doing behavior trials was that he hated loud noises. Like, he’d panic and try to get away.
What I didn’t know was that when he heard thunder, he exhibited a whole other level of panic. I had the leash wrapped around my wrist pretty tight because I didn’t want him getting away.
Apparently that was what put me in the hospital.
It could have been worse. He could have bolted, yanked me off my feet, dragged me for a whole city block over a concrete sidewalk, and gotten away. I was wearing a hoodie and jeans, so my skin got scraped instead of shredded.
I was lucky. When he heard the thunder, Goliath ran straight for the lab building.
Someone from the lab saw me, unwound Goliath’s leash from my wrist, and got him back into the building with the help of a couple other people.
Then, someone I didn’t know offered to drive me to the hospital, because I sure as hell wasn’t going back to work.
He was really nice. I got blood all over his car too, which I apologized for, but he said not to worry and that I reminded him of his grandson.
I didn’t know if his grandson bled all over his car on a regular basis or what.
He stayed with me in the ER until a doctor saw me.
The lights blinked out a couple of times because a huge storm was happening with rain sheeting down the waiting room windows.
I was probably in the worst pain I’d ever felt, and I’d had some pretty bad injuries from dancing. They gave me a CT scan and took x-rays, and while I was waiting for the results, Simon called, and I had to tell him what happened. He told me to apply for workers’ comp.
Turned out my ribs were cracked, and my wrist was sprained.
I was covered in scrapes, but I didn’t need stitches.
They sent me home, telling me to ice my ribs and take over-the-counter pain meds as needed.
I took an Uber home because it took me ten minutes to walk from the exam room to the exit doors.
I couldn’t walk to the subway. I could barely walk at all because everything hurt so much.
I didn’t realize how late it was till I was nearly home. Then I remembered him. I hadn’t thought about him once since it happened. Maybe it was good I’d had a break from thinking about him because thinking about him all day had been tiring me out.
It took me three tries to get the key in the lock. I went in and dropped my keys and my hoodie onto the couch. He was sitting there holding his phone.
“What the fuck, Craig?”
I hadn’t looked at myself since it happened. My T-shirt and jeans were shredded and covered in blood. I sat on the couch beside him. If my mom was there, she’d have screamed at me not to sit on the furniture till I got cleaned up. He didn’t yell at me.
I noticed a pizza box open on the coffee table. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“You ordered pizza.”
He got me a plate and a glass of milk and put them in front of me. I was so used to how my mother treated me when I was sick. She would have said, “Get your own milk.” So I couldn’t believe he’d do that for me.
He sat beside me. “What the fuck happened, Craig?” He didn’t sound angry, only concerned.
So I told him.
“Fuck,” he said.
I ate one slice of pizza slowly while he sat on the couch watching me. He didn’t seem angry, but the way he was looking at me was like he was...hurt? If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I’d have felt guilty.
“I’ve got to put my clothes in to soak,” I said.
“I can do that.”
“I’ll get changed. Stay here.” I didn’t want to get undressed in front of him. I took a minute to pull myself up, and every second hurt. He didn’t try to help, and that made me sad. I didn’t know why.
I got dressed for bed and dropped my ripped clothes into the bathtub. I bent over to put the plug in and realized that was a bad idea, so I went to the living room. “I put my stuff in the tub. Could you run some cold water on them to soak? I’d do it, but it kills to bend over.”
He went and did what I asked, then he came back to the living room. “You want to watch TV?”
“Sure. But nothing that’ll make me laugh, or it’ll hurt worse.”
He put in the DVD of Step Up 2. I was sweating by then.
“Did they give you anything for the pain?”
“No. I’m supposed to take over-the-counter stuff.”
He got me some ibuprofen from the bathroom and another glass of milk.
“Can I do anything else?” he said.
“Can you sit closer?”
I was worried he’d say no, but after a second, he moved over.
“Is it okay if I touch you?” I said.
“Sure.”
I put my arm around him slowly, because it hurt. He didn’t stop me, so I rested my head on his shoulder.
I felt miserable and pathetic and lonely.
“Hold me?” I said.
He didn’t do anything for a second, then he slowly eased his arm behind my back, and I made this pathetic little sound.
“Does that hurt?”
I realized he wanted to touch me, but he was afraid of hurting me.
“No. It’s nice.”
Then he stroked my side gently with his thumb, and I felt like I was coming apart.
If I hadn’t been hurting everywhere, we would have been doing what he’d wanted to do this morning.
But I wasn’t in any shape to, and because it was clear he understood, he didn’t scare me anymore.
Everything hurt, but he was with me inside my pain, and that made it easier.
“You sure you don’t want to lie down?” he said.
“I’ll go to bed after the movie.”
We watched the rest of the movie. I was focused on his shoulder, warm and hollow under my cheek, and his hand touching my waist, and I was very aware of how I was only wearing a T-shirt and boxers. And that I was freezing.
“You want a blanket?” he said, starting to get up.
I knew the pain would get worse if he left me.
“No,” I said. “I’m okay.”
He settled back beside me.
“I’m sorry I fucked up our plans.”
“I’m the one who fucked up,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I hadn’t suggested we fool around, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“This had nothing to do with that. It was an accident.”
“Was it?” he said.
“You think I took a dive on purpose?” I felt called out. I wanted to bring in witnesses to tell him that Goliath and the thunder had caused it, not me.
“I think part of you wasn’t looking forward to tonight,” he said, not frustrated, just resigned.
“I was looking forward to it, honestly, Eddie.” I wanted to prove it to him. But I couldn’t because I’d totally fucked myself up.
“I think you should go to bed,” he said.
“The movie’s not over.”
“Were you watching? Or were you just sitting here shivering?”
I sighed. He’d pissed me off now, but I didn’t want to argue with him, so I pulled myself up and went to the bedroom.
The doctor said I needed to sleep sitting upright.
That meant getting another pillow out, and the linen cupboard was in the hallway, and I was so tired from walking up the hallway I couldn’t do anything else.
“Eddie?”
I heard him from the living room. “Yeah?”
“Can you give me a hand?”
“Sure.”
He got me an extra pillow and blanket and helped me into bed and covered me with the blanket, like he’d done this before.
He went off to the bathroom, and I lay there shivering.
When he came out, I said, “Eddie, I know it’s not that late, but could you join me?”
“Sure,” he said, and he took off his jeans and socks and climbed into bed beside me carefully so he didn’t jostle me.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said.
“I’m freezing, Eddie. Keep me warm?”
I was sitting up, and he was lying down, so it was awkward, but he moved closer to me and put his arm around my waist. His arm was warm, and everything felt easier when he touched me, and I stopped shivering, and I felt tingling across my body where his arm was lying, and when it subsided, all the tension in my muscles had relaxed.
I hadn’t slept much the night before, and after everything, I was wiped out. Even though I was sitting up, I dozed off.