Perfection #3
He helps me lift my head, a hand behind my neck, and holds the glass of water to my lips.
Then he pulls open the covers, rolling them carefully beneath my body and then over us.
He turns off the ceiling lights, only the bedside lamp casting a glow over us as he settles beside me.
I roll over onto him, cheek on his chest. And I sigh.
After kissing, after sex, this was a hard third on my list.
Even more incredible than I dreamt of.
His arms surround me, keep me close as he sighs as well, just like I did. Maybe this was on his list, too.
It’s so comfortable, it takes conscious effort not to fall asleep. But it’s so worth it. I keep drawing little circles along his sternum, he keeps brushing my arm with his fingertips. No words. No need.
Then his touch lingers on my wrist, thumb tracing over my C-shaped scar. Gently, he rotates my hand so he can see it better.
“This is what you were showing that kid,” he says quietly.
I nod, eyes set on it too. Looks smaller somehow. Maybe from the soft light.
Don’t even recall most of the accident, or what I messed up to make it happen, just that we jumped a triple bar, were up in the air, and then crashed against the left-side standard.
There was so much blood after—too much for such a tiny scar—but the wrist is prone to shit like that, as the doctor later explained; a deeper scratch and it’s a gore fest. So much so that Mom slept at the foot of my bed that night.
I remember not being scared, just angry for being forced to retire and not finishing the course.
To this day, it’s still the first thing I feel when thinking about it.
“Fell so hard,” I tell him. “Live on TV.”
“I watched the video.”
I lift my head to him. “Live?”
“No. When I was deciding if I’d take your case,” he clarifies.
I settle back against him. Yeah, that makes more sense. “Why did you? Take the case.” Don’t even know why I’m asking, why my voice came out mousy like that.
“Ruin needed it.”
Softly, I nod because it’s true, but then shake my head. “You didn’t need to go back almost fifteen years in my career to learn that.”
His chest halts for a moment under my cheek. Then it fills completely before one loud exhale. “Thought you were pretty. Like, ridiculously.”
What? Before I even came here ?
Wait, does that mean…
When I first laid eyes on him on that round pen and thought he was stupid gorgeous…? Was he trying to hide it too, like I was? Bastard—he gave nothing away!
Ridiculously pretty, huh? Can’t help but smile against his skin. No, hold on! He can’t just one-up me like that, hiding it so well when I was barely holding on to my dignity that day. So I fake a gasp. “I was twelve, you perv!”
His body tenses so hard I swear I hear his bones cracking. “What?! No!” he squeals. “Not on the video! I meant now, as an adult!”
Laughter bursts out of me, my body quaking while his melts back into relaxation. “Dickhead,” he chuckles out, slapping my ass half-heartedly.
I keep laughing, and soon he joins in, the sound rumbling through his ribcage and into me.
We end up talking about that round, what he saw in the footage, what I remember that may have caused it.
Inconclusive, but it doesn’t really matter.
Our voices eventually grow weaker, words forming more slowly. Sleep comes.
I wake to sunlight streaming through the extra window, body heavy as if I slept for years, not just hours.
The bed is too empty, Eli’s pillow cool to the touch, so he’s been gone for a while.
I stretch like a cat in the sun, muscles so sore they bring back all the memories of last night, all at once. My grin hurts my cheeks.
A full glass of water sits on the nightstand, next to the horse stuffie that Eli propped up as if to be the one delivering it to me. And saying what the note stuck to it says: “Drink me,” in neat handwriting.
How can a man who fucks like that be this cute? It should be illegal.
I reach for the stuffie. It’s so tiny, I could hide it between my palms—old too, the plush fabric thinned out from being handled long and lovingly. I cup it in my hands, nuzzling its nose with mine, intending to cuddle it for a bit before drinking the water as it orders.
But I stop. Breath held.
Eyes on my wrist, on the C-shaped scar I’ve hated all my life.
And on the heart drawn around it.
Slightly crooked and perfect. Same black ink as the note.
Did he…do this?
My head falls to the pillow, tears from my eyes. Gently, I trace its shape with the stuffie’s nose, let its softness tell me what it means.
That this man—this beautiful, ridiculously perfect man—looked at the most frustrating, literally scarring moment of my life and said it’s okay. That I’m allowed scars and also, at the same time, on the same space on my skin, a heart. One that holds it without covering, without hiding it.
And for a moment, framed in black ink, the C-shape… Doesn’t it look like a smile?
I show the stuffie. It agrees.
So it must be true.