Page 59 of Tied Over

“I can’t take—”

“Yes, I know, that’s why I’m coming with you.”

Once we were in my room, he gently took off the sling, then the mechanical brace, and finally the ACE bandage, along with the gauze underneath. It was barely oozing anymore, but the last layer was still bloody.

It looked terrible, all swollen, but it wasn’t black and blue like my chest where the bullets had slammed into the Kevlar.

“Christ,” he groaned.

“I’m fine,” I grumbled.

“I will never leave you again,” he murmured, turning me around to check my back. “You’re not playing cowboy on my time.”

“Playing?”

“You know what I fuckin’ meant, Josiah,” he scolded, walking around me to see my face. “Don’t push me right now when I can see all the damage.”

I smiled at him. “Fine.”

“Okay, so the doctor said we don’t have to cover the stitches, but just quick soap and make sure you stay turned away from the water.”

“Got it.”

“And today we have to start with the compresses if it’s sore.”

I nodded, unable to speak suddenly with his hands on my bare skin and his big beautiful eyes full of concern for me.

“I’m gonna go take a super-fast shower, and then I’ll be back to help you put everything back on.”

I cleared my throat. “I should learn to do it myself, don’t you think?”

“No. Why? I’ll pick you up in the morning when we get home, and I’ll take it off at night. Don’t be stupid.”

Why would I argue? Well, because I was me. “If I were Hayden, I wouldn’t like that.”

He scoffed. “You’re my partner, idiot. Everyone knows that comes first.”

It didn’t, though, but to push was stupid.

“I…forgot,” he began, pensive.

I met his bright-blue gaze.

“I forgot what it was like to be around you without all the extra crap.”

He meant all the tension, sexual and everything else.

Our third year, living together in Chicago, we’d both started being careful, watching what we said, how we said it, and definitely aware of the other person’s space. But before that, it had been just us with an easy comradery between us, a seamless flow of give and take. And I’d known he wanted me, and he’d known that went both ways, but there was also more because we were friends first. In the ensuing mess of moving in together, then parting ways, then the forced separation as partners, we’d lost the closeness, but also, amazingly, the hurt and pain. We’d wounded each other, a lot, and somehow the time apart had rendered that unimportant. I loved him, but I also wanted the best for him, and it didn’t ache like being stabbed in the heart with a knife anymore. I was still not the best choice for him. I was still broken in many ways, and him having to mend my damaged heart wasn’t fair. But I would hold this part of him, my friend.

“We fit again,” he told me, and I saw the indigo in his eyes that made me think of the lines in turquoise. “And I remember how good that is.”

“Same,” I agreed, and smiled at him.

“But really, are you eating at all?”

“What?”

“I mean, you look great, Jed, all the definition is amazing, you’re all carved and shit, but you’re what, twenty pounds underweight?”