by Megyn Ward
“Okay.” I nod, swallowing hard against the sudden lump in my throat. Breathing deep against the tightness in my chest. I recognize the feeling for what it is.
It’s fear.
Fear of the unknown. What comes next. Fear of failure and I finally accept that it’s fear that’s been keeping me still. Keeping me stuck in this place between who I was and who I could be if I’d just accept what happened to me and move the fuck on. I’ll never be an operator again. I’ll never be the guy who kicks down doors and saves the day—but I could be something else. I could be the guy who’s ready for Grace. The guy who makes her life better.
I could do that.
Be that, if I’m ready to quit wallowing in my own little pit of despair and start putting in the work.
“Okay what?” Con gives up on his hands and tosses the shop rag on the long, low bench next to the pair of coveralls he never bothered to put on.
“I need a ride of my own,” I say instead of answering him, unable to keep my gaze from drifting to the car behind him. “I need to start feeling normal again—like myself. I need my independence—as much as I can handle—but it can’t be a stick shift. My leg won’t—”
“I figured.” He gives me a shrug before stuffing his shop rag back into his back pocket. “You can have this one as soon as I’m finished converting it to an automatic transmission for you—okay to what?”
The car he’s offering me like it’s nothing more than a piece of shit Corolla is worth a hundred grand, easy. It’s also the car he’s been driving since I got here. “What’re you gonna drive?” I’m stalling and he knows it. Too chicken shit to just come out and say it.
“Your sister has a different car for every day of the week—driving some prissy import around for a few days might be the motivation I need to get off my ass and finish restoring my Cuda,” he says with an impatient wave of his hand. “Okay to what, Ry?” He crosses his tattooed arms over his thick chest and frowns at me. No more stalling. No more stupid questions. He wants an answer.
Now.
“Okay to tank therapy. Okay to physical therapy. Okay to therapy therapy. Whatever you say.” I give him a shrug, trying to act like I don’t know that this is the single most important decision I’ve made since they brought me home. “I’m in.”
Nineteen
Grace
“That one!” Molly crows from the red velvet settee she’s sitting on, before taking a dainty sip from the plastic champagne flute Anton filled with sparkling cider for her. It’s her third. Coupled with the three hot chocolates and the gallon of maple syrup she drowned her pancakes in at breakfast, she’s wired for sound, bouncing and clapping every time Cari comes out of the fitting room to show us another dress. I’m beginning to think that she’d proclaim that’s the one, even if Cari came out of the room to model a chicken suit.
“I can’t buy all of them, you nut.” Cari laughs at her enthusiasm.
“Yes, you can,” Molly tells her. “Uncle Patrick wouldn’t care if you bought a thousand dresses—he says he likes it when you wear ‘em.”
The birthmark on Cari’s chest, on full display because of the sweetheart neckline of the dress she’s wearing, practically bursts into flames, the heat of it rapidly spreading across her chest. “Did he now?”
Molly nods like she has the inside scoop. “After the game, he told me you only have two of them and you keep telling him no when he tells you to buy more, so it’s my job to make sure you get one today.” She jostles her flute a bit while maneuvering her hand into the pocket of her jeans. The site of apple cider sloshing over its rim and onto Anton’s red velvet settee gives my Mom heart palpitations. Finally she hooks onto whatever she’s looking for and yanks it out of her pocket with another fat slosh and waves what looks like a fifty-dollar bill in the air. “See, he even paid me.”
Chest still flaming, Cari presses a hand to the side of her face and gives a low whistle. “That’s a lot of money. You sure that wasn’t meant for your swear jar?” she asks, dropping her hand to indicate the plastic jar on the table between them.
“Of course not,” Molly says, frowning at her while stuffing the bill back in her pocket. “Uncle Patrick doesn’t swear.”
“Is that so?” Cari says, barely able to keep herself from laughing.
“It is.” Molly gives her a sage nod. “Ryan says it’s because he’s not a human, but anyway, I have to help you pick out a dress today because it my job and I like all of them.”
“Maybe it is,” Cari concedes, “And maybe you do, but your job is to help me decide on one, remember?”
Molly gives up on being dainty and drains her flute, like dealing with Cari’s indecisiveness is going to be the death of her. “Well, you can buy more than one and maybe share. Someone else might need it someday,” she says, setting her plastic cup on the table before aiming what feels like a pointed look at me, sitting on the other side of the settee. “Right, Mom?”
Holy shit.
Did I just get called out by my four-year-old?
I think I did.
No—I definitely just did.
I open my mouth to tell her… what, exactly? That she’s wrong. That I’ll probably die alone because even though that, thanks to her, I’ve shed my addiction to Jerkus Erectus, I seem to have merely replaced said predilection with a taste for screwed-up war vets who don’t have the capacity to do much more than give me bone-shattering orgasms and make me question everything I know about myself a person.
Which is why you broke things off, remember. Because you can’t save him—no one can. Not if he doesn’t want to be saved.
“I require your assistance, Miss.”
At the sound of Anton’s voice, Molly forfeits our staring contest and turns to look over the back of the couch where he’s waiting for her with a pair of pristine white gloves. Seeing them, Molly jumps up with a grin and follows Anton into the catacombs of his little dress shop, on the hunt for another round of dresses for Cari to try on.
As soon as she’s gone, I force myself to look at my sister. “I know you want to ask, so just get it over with.”
The tone of my voice, defensive and edged in accusation, pulls her dark blonde brows down over her sky blue eyes. “Would it do me any good to ask?” The birthmark on her chest going from bright red to burgundy in an instant. “I mean, you’re the Queen of Secrets—I could ask you until I’m blue in the face and it wouldn’t matter. If you—“
“I broke it off.”
That shuts her up.
But not for long.
“What?” The frown that mars her near-perfect face deepens into a scowl. “Why? Did something hap—”
“No—why do you keep asking me that?” My tone stops her cold and I flick a quick glance toward the open doorway Anton took Molly through. I can hear him fussing over her gloves, telling her she can’t touch any of the dresses until they’re on properly. “Nothing happened. He didn’t do anything, unless you count giving me the kind of orgasms that make me forget how to walk as something.”
Because that’s all that happened.
Because when I tried to touch him, he asked me to leave.
Shut me down.
Again.
“You and Ryan…” She looks confused. “You two—”
“No—we didn’t.” I shake my head, feeling a sudden rush of guilt because I’m dangerously close to spilling secrets I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want broadcasted to every member of the family. “There’s other ways to—” I give the doorway another glance, hoping to see Molly come through it so I can have an excuse shut up. When she doesn’t save me I sigh and look back at my sister. “It’s not all about dick you know.”
“Oh, believe me, I know…” she says with a laugh that makes me want to hide under a rock. When I don’t laugh with her, the sound of it slowly fades away until she’s quiet again, watching me carefully as the scowl on her face bleeding into something else. Something softer. Something that looks like empathy. It reminds me that she and P
atrick weren’t always perfect. That a year ago she moved home out of the blue. That she’d been fragile and out of sorts and whether she wanted to admit it or not, Patrick had been at the center of it.
“Gracie…” Picking up her skirts, she comes toward me to sit down in the spot Molly just vacated. Reaching for my hand, she settles it between her own to give it a gentle squeeze. “I know you like him, but…”
Like him?
Is that it? Is that all this is? Even though I’ve only known him for a few weeks, like doesn’t seem to be a strong enough word to describe how I feel about Ryan. I don’t like him—certainly not just like him. To be honest, I don’t think I ever just liked him.
“But what?” Whatever she’s about to say, I don’t want to hear it. I need to but I don’t want to.
“But maybe it’s for the best.” She sighs and gives me a crooked smile. She opens her mouth to say something else but whatever it is, she decides against it with another hand squeeze. “Besides, you’ve got bigger fish to fry than Ryan O’Connell,” she reminds me, using one of our mother’s favorite saying. “You and Molly are better off without him, right?”
Yes.
Right.
I have a daughter to raise.
An education to get.
A career to pursue.
I don’t have time for the kind of mess that letting Ryan into our lives brought to my doorstep.
So I give her hand a squeeze back and force myself to smile.
And then I lie.
“Right.”
Twenty
Ryan
Five months later
I’m on a strict schedule these days.
Up by 4AM.
In the gym by five.
In the tank for a session by seven.
Downstairs by nine, on most days, to help Henley open the center.
The hour between is for showering and what my therapist refers to self-exploration.
Which is a therapeutic code for jerking off.
Guess what time it is?
Eyes closed, jaw clenched, I lift a hand off the bed and settle it on my chest and press it against my pec, feeling my heart and it picks up the pace, starts to thump harder and louder under my hand until the rush of blood in my ears is all I can hear and the heavy push and pull of my breath in my lungs is the only thing I can feel.
The hand on my chest starts to move. Slides down the slats of my ribcage and over my abs, contracted in anticipation. A soft hiss of breath escapes my parted lips when the callused tips of my fingers reach my bellybutton, brushing against the engorged head of my cock before sliding down the thick, rigid length of it.
I’m hard today.
Sometimes I’m not.
Sometimes I just lay here for thirty minutes and feel like a failure.
Wrapping my hand around it, I give myself a testing stroke, slowly pumping my shaft from tip to base, and back again, gentling squeezing the head of it in my grip to gather the steady stream of pre-cum leaking from its tip. I keep stroking, my fist sliding up and down the length of my cock until I feel a familiar loosening in my chest, a shifting over from feeling weird and self-conscious about the fact that a mental health care professional actually prescribed me mandatory masturbation sessions to not giving a shit because this is the only time of day that I let myself think about her.
The only time I let myself remember what she felt like.
How she smelled.
What her pussy tasted like when I licked her arousal off my fingers.
“Grace.”
When I say her it out loud, my hips give an involuntary upward thrust, off the mattress and into the grip I have on my cock. I think about her. That night. The way she felt against me. Her stiff, swollen nipples pushed against my bare chest. Her warm, soft breath against the side of my neck. The way her tits bounced and brushed against me with every hard fuck I gave her with my fingers. The hot, wet slide of them, in and out of her pussy. The tight clench of it, how she screamed my name when she came.
Suddenly, I’m not fucking my hand. I’m fucking her. Grace is riding me, lifting and lowering herself along the shaft of my cock. Pumping and stroking me with her slick, hot pussy and I feel myself start to falter. Start to doubt myself. An annoying little itch at the base of my brain, trying to convince me that this would never happen. That even if Grace ever did decide to give me a second chance, let me touch her again, she’d take one look at me and nope herself right out the fucking door.
Old worries.
Distant doubts.
Ones I work hard every day to rid myself of.
With a vicious growl, I force myself back into the present. Try to do what my therapist told me to do. Concentrate on now. Open myself up. Let myself feel. Enjoy the ride.
Make me come, Ryan. Please make me come… I don’t care how.
“Grace…” Her name tears its from my throat on low groan and I feel it, let it come—the hard, tight bolt of heat that spirals like a rocket up the length of my cock, so fast and hot I have to tighten my grip while spasm after spasm wash over me, hot jets of semen lashing against my bare stomach and chest.
My ears are still ringing and I’m breathing in deep, ragged gulps when the egg timer on my nightstand lets out a spastic ring, letting me know my thirty minutes of self-exploration are over.
Reaching out with my free hand, I open the nightstand drawer without looking and knock the still ringing timer into its depths before slamming it shut and throwing an arm over my face. I feel the heaviness in my chest return. The pain in my leg. The static in my brain.
It’s better than it used to be.
A hell of a lot better.
So much better that there are times that I forget what happened to me. That I’m not the same and never will be, but better doesn’t mean gone. It doesn’t mean same.
I get that now and I live with it, even if there are times I don’t want to. Times that I want to give up. Let the pain and rage that I keep locked in a cage out to destroy all the hard work I’ve put in. Take me away from the people I’ve worked so hard for.
Because I’ll never be me again.
I’ll always be different.
But I can’t let knowing that stop me.
Because someday, Grace might need me. She might want me again and I want to be ready for her, even if it’s only a pipedream. Even if it’s only a maybe that will probably never happen.
So I put it away.
Push myself out of bed and lurch my way to the shower to start the next round.
Because it’s time to put in the work.
Twenty minutes later, I’m cutting through the lobby of the center, when I spot Con on the indoor basketball court through the thick panes of glass that enclose it, wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts and a whole lot of tattoo ink.
Because I know why he’s here, I take a detour and head for him, mentally prepping myself to endure his this is a big day, don’t fuck it up, pep talk because he can front all he wants but I know Con’s just as nervous about today as I am.
Letting myself onto the indoor court, I stand on the sidelines and watch as he gives the ball in his hand a few hard bounces, the muffled sound of his shoes squealing across the court as he moves into a fadeaway jumpshot that sends the ball flying in a perfect arc toward the basket.
Swish.
Racing across the court to retrieve the ball, he gives it another fast series of dribbles before executing a perfect jump shot.
Swish.
“Is there anything you’re not good at?”
Hearing me behind him, he flashes me a dimpled grin. “Nope—” he says, letting the ball roll bounce its way across the court. “don’t believe me, ask your sister.”
“Jesus,” I grumble at him. “Why do I bother trying to talk to you?”
“Because, unfortunately for you, I’m your best friend,” he says, laughing out loud while moving toward the towel and water bottle he has piled against the wall. “So, how’d it go?”
“How’d what go?”
“You know—” He stops scrubbing at the sweat on his chest long enough to give me an obscene hand gesture. “Your thirty minutes of self-exploration.”
“Seriously?” I reach up to scrub a rough hand across my jawline. A lot about me has changed—maybe even improved—over the last few months, but I still forget to shave so often that it’s just easier to grow it out and call it a beard. “You do realize that it’s weird of you to ask me that, right? Like, guys don’t generally ask other guys about their masturbation habits—it’s not normal. You know that, don’t you?”
“Most guys don’t have to have jerk-off sessions prescribed to them by their doctors,” he reminds me with a shrug. “And exactly when did you start operating under the assumption that I give a shit about weird or normal?”
Because he’s right and because it’s always easier to just answer his questions in the end, I give up. “It went fine,” I tell him because truthfully it’s not the first time he’s asked me that question and it more than likely won’t be the last. “Is that it?” I say, taking a quick look at the watch strapped to my wrist. I knew I was cutting it close this morning and if I don’t leave soon, I’m going to be late. “Is this fucked-up conversation over? Can I go?”
“Think about Grace?” He gives me another shit-eating grin when he says her name because he knows he just hit the backstop. The place where this conversation comes to a hard and historically violent end. He’s doing it on purpose, I know that. This is Con and he likes fucking with people almost as much as Declan does. But unlike his brother, Con usually has a purpose when he does it, beyond his own fucked-up satisfaction.
That’s how I know he’s testing me. Pushing at my walls to make sure they’ll hold. Preparing me for something.
Looking at my watch again, I drop my hand to my side with a heavy sigh. “You want to stop trying to get yourself killed there, Death Wish, and just tell me what the fuck is going on?”