* * *
“Your apartment smells a little stale,” Georgia said, wrinkling her nose.
“You don’t,” Lennon replied. She was pleased to see he was showered, but his eyes were dark, and his shoulders sagged as if he were deflating before her eyes. He needed a hug, but she wasn’t certain of where they stood. Until she did, she’d keep her distance.
One of the living room curtains was closed, the other open. Piles of clothes and towels lay on the floor in the hallway, and delivery cartons from just about every restaurant littered most surfaces. Lennon was existing, but he wasn’t living.
“Considering you’ve only been here four days, you’ve certainly made the place or own.” An empty bottle sat on the side table in the living room next to a bottle of pills with the lid off, tablets spilling out onto the surface. It was hard to swallow the part of her that wanted to rail against him for being so irresponsible. For not taking his recovery seriously. He’d had a major surgery. One with life-changing effects. And while she’d heard the occasional success stories about people who had such massive epiphanies as to the purposes of their lives after such an event that they found themselves quickly up and functioning as if nothing had happened, that wasn’t the norm.
Lennon came to a stop behind her. “I’m sorry I don’t look my best right now. If you’d called, I could have . . . Wait, no. I’d still be in bed sleeping off this hangover.”
Many people went through something like this. And there were so many programs, and medical options, and therapies. She turned to face him. “Shouldn’t you have seen your surgeon again by now?”
“Why are you here, Georgia?” He reached out and slipped his hand around the back of her neck, the move making her shiver.
“I was going to ask you if you wanted to come up to my place and talk. You know, hang out or something.”
The corner of Lennon’s mouth twitched. “Is that a euphemism?”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Fine,” Lennon said, raising his hand in surrender. “Do I look like the kind of guy who spends his weekends talking?”
Georgia looked down at the coffee table and the stacked-up cans of Red Bull. “No, but then you also didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would wallow.”
His hazel eyes went wide. “Wallow? Seriously, Georgia? Don’t overdo it on the bedside manner.”
“You want me to sugarcoat stuff for you? Because I’m a doctor and I can do a great sugarcoating if that’s what you want. But what you need is a dollop of truth. It has been three weeks today since your accident and four days since I gave you the keys to this place. No one is expecting you to be over this. It’s too big a thing to wake up one morning and be cool with. But you need to make a start. Being alone was a choice you made. You sent away the people who love you. So, seeing as I am the only person you have in New York, I’m going to lay it out straight. This,” she said, circling her finger in the air around the apartment, “this isn’t working through anything. This is avoiding it.”
Lennon huffed and sat down on the sofa. “I don’t need another lecture today, Gia. I got my ass kicked once already, and it’s still sore.”
“Well, it obviously wasn’t hard enough. Alcohol, and not treating your pain meds properly, doesn’t help. Losing yourself in this doesn’t help.” Georgia sat down on the other end of the sofa and watched as Lennon pinched his lower lip between two fingers. “I have faith in you, Lennon. In my career, I’ve seen a lot of patients. Young and old.”
Lennon looked at her. “I thought you worked with kids.”
Georgia nodded. “I do. That’s my specialty, but through my training I did many different rotations. Anyway . . . what I was going to say was you’ll get out of your recovery what you put into it. And two-day-old chow mein washed down with caffeine shots isn’t going to get you much. Staying in all day and watching crap TV won’t get you much. Shutting yourself away from friends who could help you won’t get you much.” She should try to get hold of the rest of the band. She wasn’t sure what kind of a face he was putting on for them, but they should know exactly where he was at. So what if he’d be pissed at her for interfering?
Lennon sighed and ran his hand through his hair.
“And it’s not just your food, your home, and your family, Lennon. There’s taking care of your residual limb. Desensitizing it. Seeing your CPO and getting your shrinker fitted.”
He looked at her like she was speaking a different language.
“Your certified prosthetist. . . . And the shrinker is a compression garment, kind of like what we’ve been doing with the bandages, that they put over your limb to manage swelling so it will fit your prosthetic properly.”
Lennon’s head dropped back onto the sofa. “Sounds fucking delightful.”
“Plus, you should have occupational therapy because you need to strengthen your sound arm. And mental health. . . . You can always talk to a therapist as well if you find you can’t—”
“I don’t need a therapist. I’ve got you.” Lennon opened one eye and looked across at her.
“Yes, you do. I’ll be here. But I’m no mental health specialist. I fix the mechanics of the brain, not what goes on inside it. I’ll help you clean up,” she said and gestured toward the kitchen. “Hell, you might continue to be the first and only guy I ever do laundry for. But you have to do the work, Lennon. You have to work at this harder than you ever played those drums of yours. You have to fight for this as much you fought for that.”
“You need a therapist more than I do. If I’m doing nothing, you’re doing the opposite. Don’t you think there’s something off about a woman who does nothing but work and meet family obligations? Who wakes up at three a.m. to speak to people in Japan and then hops a flight to Mexico for three days to work? You’re going to have a stress ulcer or a heart attack. What goals do you have outside of work? When did you last kick back and do nothing? Haven’t you ever wished for a rainy day and a good book? Have you ever checked into a hotel in a foreign city and just lay in bed listening to the sounds outside of your bedroom window?” His hand reached across and trailed a lazy line along her thigh. “Or stayed in bed and made love all day?”
Georgia placed her hand on top of his, savoring how strong it felt, before gripping it and tossing it back at him playfully. “I know how to relax.”
“No, you don’t. I bet there is a pile of work up in your office and you have plans to spend today plowing through it.”
She smiled. “Okay, so maybe I was. But I came here because I was thinking of playing hooky for a couple of hours.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it. And you’ll be leaving the condo for me to prove this, so clothes would be helpful. New Yorkers have seen most things, but you without clothes is something that even the most hardened New Yorker could live without.”
Lennon reached for his residual limb, and she wondered whether he realized he was squeezing his bicep, even as his smiled at her. “Fine,” he said. “It’s worth the struggle to get dressed to see this.” He sucked in a breath as he stood.
She watched his muscled shoulders walk away and when she heard the bedroom door close, she let out a whoosh of air. She had a feeling that if she ever did end up in bed with Lennon, it might just kill her. The urge to follow him was so great that she decided to make a start on tidying up the living room to keep from doing so. Quickly grabbing some garbage bags from under the sink, she began to clear up all the food and takeout containers. It took a little while to get it organized, and when she was done, he still hadn’t come out of his room.
She loaded and started the dishwasher. There was more than one load of dirty dishes, but Lennon would have to deal with that later. She was just about to wipe down the counters when Lennon walked into the kitchen.
“This better be worth it,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist and kissing the side of her neck tenderly. “Because it was a fucking ball-ache to pull jeans on.”
She placed one hand
over the arm around her waist. She lifted her other hand and placed it on his residual limb . . . on his arm. Residual limb was beginning to sound too impersonal for the man currently turning her world upside down. It felt important that he know it didn’t matter to her. Not when he looked at her like he wanted to eat her alive. Feeling bolder than she normally did, she said the first thing that came into her mind. “Play your cards right, and you’ll have help taking them off.” She found herself laughing. Full-on belly giggling.
“If you were trying to seduce me, you did a really crap job of it,” he said, turning her to face him. His smile was back, but it stopped a fraction away from his eyes.
“I know, but I’m not really good at the whole flirty thing. You need surgery, I’m all over it. You need something of a more—”
“Sexual?”
“Yeah, nature. I’m more of a get-down-to-it kinda gal.”
Lennon laughed. “You have no idea how down with that plan I could be.”
He brushed his lips along hers. A whisper of a kiss, one that was soft, and sweet and . . . minty. “You brushed your teeth,” she murmured against his lips.
“You’d be surprised what I’d do for you if you asked nicely,” he replied, and kissed her more deeply.
She shivered as his hand slid along her ribs, tickling slightly, until he brushed his thumb across her nipple, the lace of her bra unusually sensitive against her skin.
Georgia opened her mouth and stepped up onto her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him in a way she hoped showed him that she really was there for him. She could feel his length grow hard against her, and she had to hold back the urge to moan as his tongue met hers.
As quickly as the flames sparked, Lennon slowed the kiss. He studied her with hooded eyes. “Your eyes reveal so much about you,” he murmured. “There’s an . . . honesty about you I can’t stay away from.”
“So, don’t,” Georgia said as he placed his hand on her hip and stepped away.
He smiled, but this time it wasn’t a cheesy grin or a self-satisfied smirk. It was a genuine slow smile. “You want to show me why you made me put on jeans that are currently cutting my dick in half?”
With a smile that matched his, she took his hand and led him to the hallway where they put on their coats, at which point he took her hand and led them out of the apartment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A pair of eyes held Lennon’s as he stood near the exit of the first stage of Georgia’s mystery plan for the day: the grocery store.
And they weren’t Georgia’s.
As she paid for the groceries they’d picked out together—something that annoyed the crap out of him but couldn’t be helped, given that he hadn’t thought to grab his wallet from the counter—a little girl eyed him from the other side of a display barrel crammed full of papaya. Her eyes squinted as she studied him. He knew what she was trying to figure out. Where was his arm? It was a question he asked himself daily when he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
And he also questioned why he was looking straight at her. Eye contact hadn’t been his thing. It was all Georgia’s fault he was changing. Maybe it was because there was an honesty in her gaze, as if he was a puzzle she was trying to figure out rather than pity.
A woman he assumed was the young girl’s mom grabbed her by the arm and hurried out of the store, but until the door closed, her eyes never left his.
You have to work at this harder than you ever played those drums of yours. You have to fight for this as much you fought for that.
He replayed Georgia’s words. Because somehow what she’d said had gotten deep into his chest cavity, where the words bounced around like brilliantly colored words on fucking Sesame Street.
He remembered those early days when he’d realized learning the drums had two uses. First, they would give him somewhere to redirect his anger. Second, they would give him a family. But he knew the rest of the boys in Preload would walk away without looking back if he wasn’t talented enough quickly enough.
So, he’d fought. He’d fought his demons, those that told him he’d never be good enough.
“Okay,” Georgia said putting the handles of two bags into his hand. “Those too heavy for you?”
As much as he wanted them to be okay, Lennon had to bite back a wince. They weren’t heavy. Well, not overly. But it was enough to have his arm tense to take the weight, which pulled on his shoulder, which pulled across his chest and tugged uncomfortably down his stump. Motherfucker. Frustration raced through him. As a drummer, he should have thought about the interconnectivity of his upper body.
“Totally fine,” he said. The lie tripped easily off his tongue. He’d been telling people he was fine for years. Nobody ever doubted him.
But Georgia didn’t move. She eyed him cautiously, took in his body posture, looked down his arm to the bags, and took one of them from him. “Don’t lie to me, Lennon,” she warned, squinting at him as if it helped her see straight through him. She took in a breath, straightened her own shoulders, and set off to the exit.
Nobody ever saw through him.
Ever.
Yet she had. And the world hadn’t come crashing in around his head.
“Are you coming?” she asked. “Because we really need to get on with this day of doing nothing.”
Lennon barked out a laugh that made some of the other shoppers turn and stare. “How can a day of doing nothing need getting on with? The whole point of it is to do nothing. Therefore, you can’t just get on with it.”
Georgia rolled her eyes at him. “Fine. But these cookies aren’t going to bake themselves.”
He leaned forward, unable to resist her pout, and brushed his lips across hers. “We’re baking cookies?”
She shrugged. “It felt like a do-nothing kind of thing to do.”
“Do you know how to make cookies?”
“Nope. But Martha Stewart does, and we’re going to follow her instructions like our lives depend on it.”
Using his elbow, he opened the grocery store door for her. It pissed him off that he had the bag in his hand and couldn’t hold her hand, or more bags, as they walked the block back to their building. In fact, he had a list of things pissing him off. Opening cans, for one. Having to sit down in the shower so he could wash his armpit with his knee being another. He wondered if waterproof prosthetics were a thing.
The lobby of their building was elegant, brightly colored abstract oil paintings adorned the ivory-colored walls, but his eyes remained focused on Georgia as she greeted the doorman and petted a dog that quite frankly looked like a toupee on legs, then asked the concierge whether somebody named Mr. Beving was feeling better. She had an easy way about her. She genuinely liked people, and from what he could tell, they liked her.
Once inside the building, Georgia used a key card in the elevator that took them to her floor. The doors opened to what he realized was her private entrance. A large gold star that looked remarkably like a compass was inlaid in the white marble floor. “Holy shit, Gia. Is all this yours?” he said, turning in a circle at the opulence of the wood-paneled hallway.
Georgia grinned. “It was my grandparents’. My grandfather left it to me. The building is called the Anastacia Building after my great-a-few-times grandmother. My family built this.” She tapped the star on the floor with her foot. “The Starrs were one of the first major property developers in New York in the mid-eighteen hundreds.”
A large chest with more than a dozen drawers that looked older than Methuselah stood against the wall. On it was a large contemporary glass sculpture, all reds and oranges as if it were on fire. Lennon walked up to it, his fingers itching to touch it. He swore it would be hot.
“Brilliant, isn’t it? It’s by an Irish artist, Maggie Concannon. My grandfather loved her work and collected several pieces. I swear I see something different every time I look at it.” There was something wistful about the way Georgia spoke, like she didn’t spend enough time simply standing here studying
it.
“Yeah. It’s stunning,” he said, wondering where he could find more of the artist’s work for Georgia. As a thank you, he reminded himself. For looking out for him.
She let them into the apartment. A large internal staircase ran to the left, but to the right was a huge living room with floor-to-ceiling windows. A baby grand stood just inside the entrance, and two large sofas, each big enough for two people to comfortably sleep on, flanked a large fireplace. The entire wall facing out over the park was glass—windows and doors that led onto a balcony.
Everything was neutral except for the occasional splash of pale pink. A throw blanket here, a silk cushion there, an orchid on a side table.
“Home sweet home,” she said as she placed the bags on a cream-colored suede bench that sat in front of a silver mirror. “Give me your coat.”
Lennon shrugged out of the jacket, freeing his arm first, then his stump. He’d learned with hoodies that if he did it the other way around, the garment inevitably ended up on the floor. Then, partly because he was a gentleman, and partly because he wanted another chance to touch her again, he assisted her with removing her own.
His heart stuttered as he caught sight of the two of them in the mirror. Her dark hair against his blond, her curve against his muscle. Even as opposite as they were, they matched, and it squeezed his chest. Everything about her, including her home, was perfect.
He watched her as she hung their jackets in the closet. Even if she could see past his damaged exterior, past his—fuck, the word “disability” sat heavy on his tongue—she hadn’t come anywhere close to knowing who he really was.
Nobody had ever wanted him for who he was. Why would she when she had so many better options?
She turned in his arms and rose up onto her toes. “I like having you in my place,” she said quietly.
It was impossible to resist her sweet lips or perfect smile. He placed his hand on her cheek as he leaned in and kissed her. The moment their lips met, his heart raced. In the lyrics of The Killers, “it was only a kiss”—but hell, he couldn’t explain how it felt like a fucking tsunami. Her hands slipped around his waist and slipped into his back pocket as he tugged her closer.
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