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CHAPTER
TEN
ARIS
The shufflingof Berlynn’s feet as she follows me down the hallway is nearly drowned out by Berkley’s singing. It’s like he read my mind. Since we were juniors in high school I’ve been trying to figure out a way to move us out of the friend zone. Yeah, I had a few lovers along the way, mostly because she never took an interest in me and it hurt. So I tried to drown my sorrows with easy pussy.
Those who didn’t want or require any sort of attachments to me.
A mistake? Yeah. But at the time, I never thought I’d get a chance to make her mine. She’s always held me back within an arm’s stretch, never giving me any indication that she’d like to pursue more with me outside of simple friendship.
And I settled.
Accepted that because it was better to have her there than not. Something I learned the hard way. Thanks, Marcus, you motherfucker.
Once I reach the portion of the hallway where her room is located, I open the door and it bounces against the wall with a thud. Did I open it too harshly? Maybe, but my hard dick is overriding my common sense right now. Even a slight indication that she’ll be in my bed sometime soon has me harder than steel.
“Here's where you'll be staying for the time being, Berlynn.” A quirk of a smile encompasses my face when she gasps as she sees her room for the first time. An entire wall is covered with a bookshelf that’s been filled with her favorite authors. And if that’s not an indication of how much I want her to be mine, I don’t know what is. What man, who still holds his card, knows what categories and the names of the authors his woman reads?
Nobody.
But I do because I trail her likes and dislikes on social media like the stalker I am. It’s the only way I could keep track of her and still be part of her daily life. Pathetically, I started buying the novels she mentioned and had them in storage until recently. The day I found out that her dad was going to go for the gills, I started planning. Even if we weren’t on speaking terms, I was going to make my house safe for her and Berk. No doubt about it, even if I had to drag her here kicking and screaming, she was going to end up here. And now that she is, she isn’t going anywhere. Ever.
It takes everything I have to walk out of that room and let her explore. What I want to do is grab her in my arms and kiss her until she can't breathe. I want her to admit that she's mine. I want her to give in to temptation. I want a lot of things that obviously I'm not going to get right now.
The best thing I can do for myself is give myself a big old distraction so I head toward my closet and yank out my workoutgear. Once my knitted shorts are up over my hips, I sit down and release a pent up sigh.
“I can't believe I finally worked up the nerve and found my balls, letting her know that we’re going to happen.”
Lacing up my jogging shoes, I grab my wife beater tank but decide against using it and toss it on my bed since my plan is to work up a good sweat. The only way I'm going to make it through the rest of the day without touching her is by running her out of my head. Grumbling, I head downstairs and go directly into my home gym. Once I flip the switch and illuminate the room, my music begins blaring through the sound system. Good ole’ AC/DC greets my ears.
“Angry workout it is.” I decide, grabbing my ankle and wrist weights, attaching them to my joints. When the lyric, “She’s dyno-mite,” sounds off through the speakers, I mutter, “she sure the fuck is.” But fuck, she can make me explode any damn time she wants.
“What’cha doing?” Is asked from directly behind me, causing me to squeal like a prepubescent girl.
“Fucking hell, Berk. Give a guy a heads up before sneaking up behind him,” I reprimand him, embarrassed that I screeched like a chick in a horror film but happy that my first instinct, which is usually to react violently by taking a swing, wasn’t the case this time.
“Are you gonna workout?” he asks me.
“That was the plan,” I respond.
“Can I use the weight bench, Aris?” I scrutinize the set, and seeing as it’s a free weight machine and there’s no way he can drop anything on himself, I acquiesce.
“Sure, bud. But make sure you check the weights on it. The last time I used it was during my arm day so it may be set higher than you’re expecting it,” I warn.
“That's okay, I'm made of strong stuff.” He lifts up his arms to show me his guns. Whereas he’s not as fit as he used to be, I can tell that he hasn’t slacked too much.
“Do you still have a workout routine?” I inquire, not wanting to catch hell from Berlynn if I allow him to overtax himself and cause some sort of injury. I know physically, his bottom half is what’s suffered from being dosed and suffering from a stroke that recently had him wheelchair bound—however, his upper half is pretty buff.
“I’ve relearned how to walk, Aris. You’re as bad as Berlynn. You worry too much,” he rebukes.
“You haven’t been out of your chair too long now, Berk. We’re allowed to worry considering you were paralyzed from the waist down.” Berkley recently, and I mean very recently, has gone through an experiment at the hospital.
Mr. Harrington, his boss, recommended him for the procedure. Basically, he has some magnetic probes, or something to that effect, that talks through a computer and allows him to walk. But when I say walk, I mean he wobbles more than anything. But it’s a feat nobody ever saw him accomplishing. We were prepared for the long haul of having him bound to that seat on wheels. But one day he went into work and a few days later, he wasin physical therapy learning how to communicate with a damn computer of all things.
Whereas we’re supposed to encourage him to use his legs more often than not, it’s still a thorn of contention. How much is too much? And if nobody’s around and he overdoes it, what will the repercussions be? We don’t want him to have any physical or psychological setbacks which is why I don’t fuss, but Iamadamant not to let him overdo it either.
This is the reason I had an elevator installed, even if it chapped his hide when I suggested we use it when it was time to show him to his room. Neither one of us wanted to be the bad guy and tell him he couldn’t use the stairs, so we compromised and took the damn stairs. Both of us stayed glued to him like we were conjoined at the hip.
