by E M Lindsey
“We’re doing a bonfire by the lake after graduation,” Parker told him, and Ronan gave an involuntary flinch, because he hadn’t even been able to handle even a match strike since that night. Parker saw it, and he let out a sigh, but Ronan had no give. Ronan wasn’t sure he could forgive Parker for letting Fitz absolve him so easily, even if Fitz didn’t really know Parker was the reason.
“He’d like to have you there,” Parker went on. He had his arm off, tucked under his armpit, his graduation robes open, cap missing and god only knew where. Parker looked resigned, but maybe on the verge of angry.
Good. Let him be angry.
“Aren’t you tired of this?” Parker asked when Ronan continued to say nothing. “Aren’t you tired of fucking hiding? He knows I like to suck dick. He won’t care if it’s yours.”
“Everyone knows you like to suck dick, even when it’s not mine,” Ronan bit out. Jealousy, resentment—they all rolled into an ugly ball of something that felt like hatred, and he didn’t want it to be like that, but Parker had moved on easily. Readily. “It’s not like you’ve been waiting around for me.”
Parker closed his eyes and tipped his head up to the sky like he was saying a prayer—and hell, maybe he was. Ronan had lost touch with being able to read him the day he fled Fitz’s hospital room. He’d lost the connection, that fragile thing between them that was theirs and no one else’s. Ronan had no right to be like this when he was the one who severed it. But he couldn’t help himself.
“I could have loved the shit out of you, Ronan. You know that, right?”
Ronan couldn’t help his laugh, low and bitter. “You were fourteen. You could pop off from a stiff breeze. That’s not fucking love, Parker.”
At that, Parker let out a soft growl. His arm hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Ronan knew what was coming, but he didn’t stop it. Parker’s hand tightened around his throat and backed him up against the wall, just like that day in the band room, but this time he thought Parker might actually want to hit him. He’d welcome it. He was almost hoping for it. People might have been watching, but at that moment, the only thing in the world that existed was the fire in Parker’s eyes, and some piece of him needed to feel proof that he still existed to him—whether it was through pleasure or pain.
Parker’s fingers squeezed. Not enough to cut off his air, just enough to let Ronan know he wasn’t walking away without leaving his mark. “You know I’m out of here, right? I got into Duke. Fitz is probably leaving too, and you’re going to be all alone.”
Ronan swallowed, Parker’s fingers bobbing with the motion. “I know.”
“Just like you wanted it, yeah? Just like you deserve?”
Ronan’s throat burned, and his vision went foggy with tears. “Yes.”
“No,” Parker said and tightened his grip, then he leaned in and pressed their lips together in an angry, almost cruel kiss. “No, you fucking don’t. But I can’t sit here while you destroy yourself. I love you too fucking much to watch you burn yourself alive.” Ronan winced at the words he knew were deliberate. “But I also can’t save you.”
Then his hand was gone, and with it, the warmth of him. Parker kicked his arm a few feet ahead of him before reaching down to pick it up, and he walked away. As he disappeared around the corner and into the crowd of students and families, he didn’t look back.
Chapter Two
He was fourteen the day Parker Alling knew he was going to marry Ronan Hedrek. They were on the football field, the sun at noon-high, the late-May stirrings of summer giving them sunburn and ball sweat. Parker had shed his arm somewhere along the trek to the middle of the grass, and he had no damn idea where it was, but it didn’t matter. He could do more with one arm and two legs than most people could with four limbs, and with his friends, he was even more capable.
Ronan was stretched out on his back with his baseball hat resting over his face, but he had one arm up because he knew Parker was coming to lay all over him. He played a lot of sports, but his belly was always soft, and he always let Parker press his ear against it and listen to the rumble of his guts.
Fitz sat a few feet away with a bag of half-melted Reese’s Cups and two glass bottles of Clearly Canadian that were too warm to drink. They’d been debating the merits of shit to do when it was hot out, but so far nothing sounded good. “Camping at the lake,” Fitz suggested.
Ronan grunted and shook his head. “We have the Scout trip.”
Parker groaned. “I can’t believe you two are still doing that Boy Scout shit. We’re in high school.”
Fitz grinned, chocolate at the corners of his mouth as he licked the melted mess from the center of the black paper cup. “You’re just jealous because the girl’s camp is on the other side of the lake, and Ronan and I are going to finally score.”
“No one even says score anymore, you moron,” Ronan grumbled from under his hat. “Get money out of my bag and go get some lemonades from the vending machine. I can’t drink your gross bubble water.”
Fitz stretched, and Parker appreciated the way he filled out his baseball uniform with his round ass and big thighs. He was a good friend, always pliable, always loyal, so he rose and jogged off because Parker had asked. It was entirely selfish. He didn’t care about lemonade. He just wanted a moment to touch Ronan without wondering if someone noticed that it was different now.
He shifted and nuzzled, and he saw the hint of Ronan’s smile under his hat. “Do you think if they made robot arms, they’d let me on the baseball team?”
“They wouldn’t let you on the team because you kept trying to use your arm as the bat.”
“It’s got titanium in it,” Parker complained. He rubbed his hand over his sore, aching stump. He wore the stupid thing because his parents insisted, because they seemed to think a hunk of fiberglass and two metal hooks made him seem more normal. He wore it because they were old, and it made him feel good to see them smile.
“Are you really going to kiss girls next weekend?” Parker asked after a beat of silence.
Ronan lifted his arm and tipped his hat up just high enough so he could see Parker. He was so beautiful, and Parker knew he’d only get better looking. And he wondered if he’d always be allowed to look or touch him like this. Or was the way they held hands, and brushed knees, and sometimes stole kisses for practice in the empty band room just a phase?
His heart ached at the thought.
“Sneak down to the lake and meet me,” Ronan whispered. “I don’t want to kiss girls.”
Parker shook his head and turned on his side. “What if you can’t make it? I don’t want to be down there by the fucking docks all night by myself.”
Ronan moved his hat a bit more and glanced around, but they were the only idiots stupid enough to lay in the middle of the open field as the day crept toward a hundred degrees. His hand lifted then, his rough, baseball-calloused fingers brushing over Parker’s jaw, only for a brief moment.
The touch came and went, but the searing echo of it lasted.
“I’ll make it. If it’s you.”
Parker’s heart thrashed against his ribs. “If they let gays get married, I’m going to marry you.”
Ronan sighed, his body rising then falling with his breath under Parker’s head. Right when Parker thought that was it—or maybe it was too much, Ronan’s voice rumbled from beneath his little mini-cave, “Yeah. Okay.”
He didn’t know in that moment, under the warm sun when everything felt perfect, that everything was going to change. He didn’t think anything could stand in the way of his love for Ronan—that there was any chance at all a future for them was out of reach. He didn’t want Ronan kissing girls, and he didn’t want to either. He wanted to kiss this boy for the rest of their lives.
But then night fell that weekend, and the fire started. Three long years of trying to get Ronan to look at him like he existed—like everything between them hadn’t been worth giving up for one mistake passed. Fitz would forgive him like it was nothing, but Ronan co
uldn’t let go of his guilt. So, he pushed him into the bricks, and he knew that moment was it—at least for him. He wouldn’t be taking any more steps to get Ronan back. The decision rested solely on Ronan’s shoulders.
And Parker had long since run out of faith.
“God, I want Doritos.”
The man on his knees between Parker’s thighs looked up with a mouth full of dick and narrowed eyes. Parker couldn’t help his laugh, still harder than steel, and when the guy tried to pull back, he curled his legs around his lower back hard and held him fast.
“Fair’s fair. You came first.”
The guy—Parker didn’t even remember his name, just some douche from the swim team—redoubled his efforts to make Parker come so hard he couldn’t see straight. Or something. Parker was stoned and a little drunk, and he remembered the guy had said something appealing enough for Parker to take his pants off.
The blowjob was subpar, at best. There was too much teeth and not enough tongue, and yet somehow too wet. But he was six weeks away from turning twenty-two, and he wasn’t exactly picky about getting off. His balls tightened, and he let out a grunt, dropping his arm, which had a smoldering joint between his two hooks, to the floor. He had a vague, passing thought about how there was still at least a hit left, then he grabbed the guy by his light brown, wavy hair, and fucked into his mouth until he grunted and came.
The guy didn’t swallow—he spit between Parker’s feet, then backed up and swiped his hand across his mouth. “I didn’t say you could choke me with your dick.”
Parker shrugged and leaned past him to retrieve his prosthetic, grimacing when he saw the little cherry was now just a black smudge. He sighed, then tucked his dick back into his jeans and zipped up. “Do you think anyone here actually has Doritos?”
The guy stood up and dragged a hand through his hair, then over his face to clear up any mess Parker left behind. “So…”
“No.” Parker let out a small sigh and debated about getting up, but the couch beneath him—in spite of the weird old cheese smell—was more comfortable than anything else right then.
“What do you mean no? I didn’t say anything.”
Parker raised a brow, staring at the guy so long his vision doubled. He blinked, and it didn’t return to normal. “I mean, you want my number or something—you want to do this again. Like, this was nice, but dude, I don’t want a boyfriend.”
“Oh my god, I don’t want to date you, you fucking one-armed freak.”
Four years ago, when he was a baby freshman, Parker would have gotten angry and punched the guy in the face with the titanium end of his prosthetic because why was it that every dick-head’s default insult was to point out the fact that he had one arm. And it wasn’t the first time someone’s bi-panic set in or their ableist fears that maybe his amputation was catching, but he just couldn’t bring himself to give a shit right then what this weedy little frat-boy thought of him.
But at the tail end of his undergrads, he just didn’t care anymore.
“Good luck on your meet next week.” He didn’t know if there was a meet. He had never paid a single second of attention to sports—apart from knowing when the games were, because it was the best time to go literally anywhere on campus. He liked when it was a ghost town. He liked being apart from everyone because school was just so big, and his heart wasn’t in it.
He missed home. He missed Cherry Creek. He missed his complicated past and the lingering ache of the teen he had been when he packed his bags and left. He didn’t regret going, though. He wanted this life so badly he could taste it. He’d done well on his MCATs, and he had his acceptance letter to the medical program. He was a week away from graduation. He was going to become a doctor, and fuck anyone who thought he wouldn’t get it done just because he had what they considered a limitation. Parker had only possessed two arms for the first three weeks of his life, and he had never fallen behind in his goals.
Parker had spent a lot of his life making up outrageous freak accidents about what happened, but in reality, his amputation honestly was one—just not as exciting as being attacked by a shark or getting caught in whirling helicopter blades. His parents loved nature—one of the reasons his French father had been able to tolerate living in Norway although he hated everything else about it— and it hadn’t occurred to them that taking a three-week-old baby on a camping trip was a bad idea. He’d heard the story a lot, how he was in his little pram, and the dog sitting nearby was the most docile pet in the world, and how it probably thought he was a toy. The bite wasn’t even that serious, but the infection that set in after was. His dad had treated him with first aid, but he spiked a fever two days later, and by the time they made it back to Aarhus, it was too late. He only knew the bits and pieces of the story his parents were willing to tell. How they fought the doctor’s diagnosis but ultimately were forced to choose amputation in favor of his life.
Parker had never much cared about his missing arm apart from hating the feel of the prosthetic. He was more adept at doing things one handed than with the aid of the hooks, but his parents were persistent, so he obeyed—whenever they were watching. His dad fought against the idea of disabled and had rallied around the normalization of his son’s ‘limitations’, which was his favorite word. And then his father got sick, and it changed everything.
Parkinson’s, and Parker thought it was kind of ironic in a way—that something that sounded so much like his own name was taking away the things his father loved most. But his mom had a cousin in Cherry Creek who had a small accounting firm, and his father went into administration at the University in Colorado Springs so he could be near a specialist that was making waves in neurology.
They were comfortable, and Parker learned English even better on the playground than on TV or in his stuffy classroom back home. And he made friends.
One that he would eventually, desperately, love.
The night of graduation, Parker had only just managed to not look back after pressing Ronan to the wall and taking the last, lingering bit of him that the other teen would allow. Parker knew Ronan could do better—would do better. Maybe. Someday. But he couldn’t be there to hold his hand through it.
Parker had his own guilt over the fire. He was the one who convinced Ronan to meet him at the docks. And really, it was no one’s fault. They were barely teens. They were hormonal and reckless, and they didn’t truly understand consequences that stretched beyond being grounded for a month.
At least, not until Fitz. Not until Parker saw him lying in a hospital bed covered in bandages and crying with a pain so deep, he couldn’t find words to articulate what it was like. And he sometimes wondered if that was it—if Fitz was why he decided to pursue medical school.
He spent every waking hour he was allowed to in the room with Fitz while he recovered. He held his hand while he was stuck on the vent, he was there for Fitz’s first words when it was out. He was there for dressing changes and post-surgeries, and when they slapped compression sleeves on his arm and hand to try and prevent the worst of the scarring.
He was there for physical therapy—and he was there for the way Fitz sobbed into his pillow after and some nights wished Ronan had just let him die.
Mostly, he was there to watch Fitz pick himself back up and go back to the life he knew he deserved, and that’s what Parker wanted. His Psych 101 class Freshman year told him what it was. A textbook hero complex, though it didn’t tell him why. Maybe it was the guilt that he had never quite shaken, even as he allowed Fitz to forgive him.
Or maybe it was that Ronan had never let himself heal from it, and being that desperately in love—even at fourteen, Parker had just wanted to make things better. But Ronan wouldn’t let that happen either, and eventually, Parker had to accept it for what it was.
And move on.
Maybe not to some frat boy with terrible bj skills, but he didn’t think he was going to meet the love of his life at a party on a cheese-mold couch with come stains on the floor, either. There w
as a lot of world out there, and a lot of life he had to finish living. Someday—he was desperate to believe someday—someone would come along and make him forget about those dark, impossible eyes, and the mouth that, even after all these years, kissed like a dream.
Chapter Three
“What do you do?”
Parker glanced up from his coffee, his eyes crossing for a second. He blinked them straight and felt higher on sleep deprivation than anything he’d ever taken in his undergrads. He’d been warned once that medical school was no joke, and he hadn’t really thought it was, he just hadn’t anticipated it taking this much out of him.
He never thought he’d be begging to be back in the classroom, pouring over books and cutting into cadavers, but his shifts at the ER were proving him wrong. It was an hour after his shift ended in trauma, and he felt like his legs were ready to walk right off his body and fuck off somewhere in the universe with his missing infant arm. He wanted a shower and sleep and something to eat that didn’t come from a hospital cafeteria, but the only thing nearby that was open at three am was the coffee shop near campus, and the only thing in his fridge was some left over Chinese so old he could probably sell it to one of the labs.
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Parker looked to his right to find a man standing there. He had one elbow leaning on the tall window counter, his other hand curled around an extra-large paper cup.
“What do I…do?”
“I’ve seen that look before,” the guy said. “I was just curious what kept you up this late.”
“Oh.” Parker gave him a thorough up and down. He was attractive—broad chest and a tight sweater, hair a little mussed, but put together in a way that said he was out of place in a coffee shop at three in the morning. “I’m a stripper.”
The guy choked a little. “I…oh. That’s…”
“Not what you were expecting?” Parker asked. He sat back and winked at him, arching his back in a stretch. “I’m kind of famous around here. The one-armed stripper. You’ve never heard of me?”