by A. J. Thomas
A tall woman with Korean features handed over a plastic bag of take-out containers, exchanged a bit of polite conversation as Sean paid for dinner, then left with a wave.
“Ta-da,” Sean announced, gliding back into the room.
“They’re fast,” Nate said, genuinely surprised.
“They do this in big batches, so they just have to put it in the take-out box. Plus they’re less than fifty yards away,” Sean reminded him. He offered one of the containers to Nate and sat down with the other. “Eat.”
Food helped more than he imagined it could. Within ten minutes the pain from the fresh tattoo had dulled to an ache no more severe than a sunburn, and his head had stopped spinning. Soon he was listening to Sean make jokes about his own disastrous attempts at karaoke and making plans to take Sean to one of the gay bars over in Galveston so they could make fools out of themselves together.
The moment Sean tossed his take-out container into the trash, Nate sat up and studied the colorful lines that had been inked into his skin. “I feel so much better. Thank you for doing this, and for dinner.”
“I’m charging you for the tattoo,” Sean reminded him. “And I think it was my turn to pay for food. You bought everything at the art festival last week. You can pay next time. Or, I don’t know, maybe we could go get a drink or something?”
Nate cleared his throat and took a deep breath, trying to convince himself that was just a friendly invitation. If Sean were physically capable of it, he’d have already pulled Sean into his lap and started kissing him. But no amount of lust was going to change the fact that Sean had definite limitations he couldn’t ignore.
Sean deflated, his easy smile and the glint of laughter in his eyes fading. For a moment Nate thought he saw a flash of the same desolation he’d seen in Sean’s eyes the moment he saw Bruce waiting for him at that conference table. And then the misery was gone, and Sean was turning away from him. “That’s a ‘no,’ then? Stupid to have asked, I guess.”
“I didn’t say no,” Nate insisted, trying to meet Sean’s gaze.
“You didn’t say anything,” Sean pointed out. “That’s usually a clue.”
Nate leaned forward and nudged Sean’s chin up with his knuckles, leaning so close he could feel Sean’s breath and smell the lingering hints of soy sauce and ginger. He reached toward Sean’s shoulder and traced the lines of ink coiling around planes and valleys of muscle, over Sean’s collarbone, and around the back of his neck. Then he pulled Sean a bit closer, until his lips hovered just an inch away. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.
Sean closed the gap between them, brushing his mouth against Nate’s gently.
He wanted to savor his first taste of Sean’s lips, to burn the sensation into his memories and hold on to it forever. The taste and feeling of Sean’s tongue boldly tracing his bottom lip crushed his dwindling self-control. He buried his fingers in the thick strands of Sean’s hair and leaned into the kiss, letting Sean’s mouth move against his while Sean’s tongue danced between his lips. He felt Sean groan a low rumble that made his entire body shiver.
Sean ran his hands up and down Nate’s back before settling his hands low on his waist. Nate shifted forward on the chair, hovering close to Sean. He was more than willing to pull Sean down on top of him and spend the rest of the evening kissing him there in the studio, but he froze. Moving Sean like that would get complicated, and he had no clue if it would hurt. The last thing he wanted to do was push Sean into something he might not enjoy, or worse, to cause him pain without realizing it. The middle of a tattoo-studio workroom was not the ideal place for trial-and-error attempts at hashing out the logistics of sex.
Nate pulled away with a gasp and was struck by the sight of Sean’s lust-glazed golden eyes.
He had to get the hell away from those eyes. Away from this situation. He’d been an idiot to think he would be any more capable of controlling himself now than he had been for the last few weeks. Instead he’d dived right in, ignoring the ethical problems and Sean’s physical limitations like a complete asshole.
“This can’t happen,” he declared. “We can’t do this, not the way things are. You’re hurt, and I… I can’t.”
Sean eyes went wide, and he turned away quickly, his hands shaking. “Right. Can’t. Your tat’s still fresh, and the UV highlights Tonya added to mine are still healing, and I’m….”
Nate tried to ignore the sound of disappointment in Sean’s voice, but it was difficult. He was damn well going to find another attorney who was willing to work with him, because he hated that sound.
“I’m sorry.” Sean took apart all that was left of the tattoo machine with a quick, professional ease. “I was stupid to assume.”
“No, it’s not you,” Nate insisted. “The timing is bad, that’s all.”
Sean nodded, his expression settling into a blank mask. “You should go.”
Nate should have tried harder to find an attorney who was willing to work with him. He needed to address the conflict of interest he’d rushed right into, and he needed to do it before he lost any chance with Sean altogether.
Chapter 6
“ARE YOU kidding me?” Sean stared at the diagram illustrating how to roll the neoprene liner attached to the socket of the prosthetic up over the liner he wore against his skin. It was essentially a giant suction cup. “Nothing else holds it on?”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Wilkinson, putting the socket and liner on correctly creates a vacuum that’s stronger than you would believe,” the prosthetic nurse assured him.
“It’s a suction cup. Granted, it’s a big suction cup. Don’t suppose you know the inside area, so I don’t have to measure?”
“Why would you need to measure it?” The nurse looked up from where she was adjusting something in the foot.
“Because it’ll be easier to trust that it can hold my weight without falling off if I can calculate the holding force of the suction cup.”
“The whole prosthetic weighs less than eight pounds, Mr. Wilkinson,” his physical therapist cut in. “Unless you plan on dangling from it upside down, I think you’ll be fine.”
“The effective area is about fifteen square inches, so it can hold on to almost two hundred pounds,” the nurse promised.
Sean ran his hands over the smooth black liner, mentally bracing himself.
“The second layer of neoprene is going to be hot, but there’s no better material. It means the residual limb will become sweatier, and the extra moisture will make it more prone to infection, so replacing the inner liner with a clean one each day will be essential.”
Sean swallowed hard and nodded. “I already rotate between a couple.”
“Good. Make sure you hand wash each with an antimicrobial soap and let it air dry. Also, if you get any more tattoos on the skin the liner normally covers, you’ll want to avoid wearing the prosthetic at all until they’ve healed,” the nurse added.
His physical therapist, who had been involved in the design and construction of the prosthetic in addition to training him to use it, nudged him in the shoulder. “Ease down onto your right leg, then slowly let the left side take your weight.”
“Is it going to hurt?” he asked, scooting to the edge of the examination table.
The nurse hesitated and glanced at his therapist. “Yes,” the therapist answered. Sean and the nurse both glared at her. “You’re in my office three times a week. Trust me, it didn’t take long to get you figured out, Mr. Wilkinson. You’re a glutton for punishment if ever there was one.”
“Am not.”
“Yes, you are. If I tell you it’ll hurt less once you’re stronger, or that it’ll get easier, you’ll get depressed. If I tell you it’s going to be agonizing, or just impossible and the odds are dismal, you’ll work yourself to exhaustion to prove you can handle it.”
“I just prefer being realistic,” he insisted, dropping onto his right leg. He landed softly, the muscle flexing and holding his weight without a twinge. He felt pressur
e in his stump as the prosthetic’s curved foot touched the floor. The neoprene-and-plastic socket settled his weight solidly over the center pylon. He lifted his left leg experimentally and set it down again. “The weight is going to take some getting used to.”
“It is. You should wear the prosthetic throughout the day, even though you’ll need to increase the amount of time you can be on your feet gradually. Any warm spots, pressure? Does it feel loose enough to shift around at all?”
“No, it’s tight.”
“Too tight?” the nurse asked seriously.
“How would I tell?”
“It shouldn’t be any tighter on your leg or knee than the gel liners you normally wear. But it can be hard to tell if it’s fitted right, especially at first. There’s a big adjustment period, and sometimes spots where the socket is positioned just a bit wrong don’t become apparent until you’ve been on your feet for several hours. It shouldn’t be painful, but upward pressure and muscle fatigue are unavoidable.”
“The only way to tell if there’s something wrong is to use the prosthetic until the problem is so bad it’s easy to distinguish from the general discomfort,” his therapist added.
“So we should get started, then, shouldn’t we?” Sean asked, impatient.
The therapist offered him a metal walker, but Sean shook his head. “I feel like I’m okay,” he said, shifting his weight a little.
The women looked at each other and stepped back, obviously poised to catch him before he face-planted on the clinic floor. He lifted his leg and leaned forward, making sure the tread settled on the tile before he centered his weight on the prosthetic. Checking his balance, he leaned farther and brought his right leg up.
He almost shouted as he took another step, upright and moving with no walker, crutches, or accessibility bars. He took another step, and another, and then overcorrected. He felt his center of gravity shift too far, tried to push himself back with the muscles of his left thigh, and flailed. He snapped his right leg forward, trying to catch himself, but the therapist caught him first.
“It’s learning to walk all over again—it’ll take time. I’ve got the set of forearm crutches from your therapy sessions for you, but I think your balance is good enough to manage with a cane eventually.”
“I don’t want a cane,” he said automatically.
“You’ll need something, but you have options,” his therapist reminded him, holding out the crutches. “The point is to enable you to function as independently and as close to normally as possible.”
Sean considered the crutches and looked at the clock. It was already after noon. It had taken three hours to adjust and readjust the prosthetic itself. He had no idea how long learning to use it was going to take. He’d wanted to hurry, to try to make it to the hearing despite Nate’s reassurances. It was his future on the line, and in many ways, his life. If he didn’t show up, what kind of message would that send to the judge?
He didn’t particularly want to see Nate again, not after fucking things up so spectacularly on Friday night. Still, he was rational enough to realize how much a ruling in his favor could change everything, and he wasn’t going to let his own disappointment stop him from doing everything he could to win.
“How long can I walk around?”
“Adjusting is different for everyone. Start with an hour, since that’s how long your right leg can support you. But once we’re sure there are no hot spots from the socket rubbing or shifting too much, increasing the time you spend on your feet depends on how much you feel comfortable with physically. You’ll get better with practice, and you can practice more if you accept that you’ll need a cane or crutches.”
“But look on the bright side,” the nurse said with a smile. “If you’d begun the process as soon as the residual limb healed, it would have taken months just to fit you properly. There’s inevitably swelling for weeks after the skin grafts are healed, and you don’t seem to have trouble with it anymore. With any luck, it’ll only need minor adjustments over the next few weeks.”
“I guess it comes down to priorities,” he said, giving up on the idea of politely ducking out on the rest of the appointment. He had to be able to take care of himself, to rely on himself. If Nate failed, he’d have no choice but to earn a living, and being able to walk would make working each day so much easier. “I’ll try the crutches.”
TONYA PICKED him up outside the clinic, her smile fading as she saw his wheelchair. “How’d it go?”
“I hurt,” he muttered. It wasn’t like being exhausted after a physical therapy session was new, but the pressure on his stump had begun to radiate pain up through his knee and into his hip every time he tried to put weight on the prosthetic. He’d pushed through it for two hours, until each movement left him ready to scream, and then his therapist had forced him to stop. “Apparently the prosthetic is a good fit and shouldn’t need much adjustment, so the rest of it is just a matter of adapting.”
“So you’re still going to need the wheelchair, huh? I’m so sorry, Sean.”
“I think I’m going to need it for a while. They never said this was going to be easy, but fuck, I didn’t think it’d hurt like this….”
“It’s a good thing I’m here, then. Hawk said you’d need these if you were really planning on doing the court thing after this.” She held out a tiny amber pill bottle and a half-frozen bottle of Gatorade.
“Oh, tramadol.” He snatched the bottle and pried the lid off quickly. “Tonya, you’re my hero,” he said, taking two of the pills.
“So—courthouse or home?”
“Uh….” He bought himself a moment to think by chugging the Gatorade. “I don’t know. This will take the edge off the pain, but it’ll make me even more tired. I don’t think I’ll do much good if I show up just to fall asleep.”
“Back to the shop, then?” she asked, opening up the passenger door.
The forearm crutches hadn’t taken quite the toll they normally did. Having the prosthetic to support his weight really had made the entire session easier on his upper body, but his arms and shoulders were still screaming at him. He winced as he transferred himself out of the chair and into the Jeep, pleased by how much easier it was with the prosthetic, but still annoyed that it hurt.
She bent to fold the wheelchair and paused, removing the crutches clipped to the back of the chair. “Are these to go with the brace you were talking about?”
“Yeah. The brace is still on, but even with it, I’m… I’m done.”
“Definitely no courthouse,” she agreed, finally folding up the wheelchair and putting it in the back. “You know, I was thinking we should trade cars until you can afford to replace this one.”
“I don’t want to replace it.”
She snickered, closed the door on him, and hurried around to climb in the other side. “Do you really want to wait until you’re recovered enough to somehow work a clutch before you go anywhere on your own?” she asked, shifting into first gear with a painful grinding noise. “I know you want to be able to leave the wheelchair behind, but I think you’re going to need an automatic even if you get to the point where you can manage everything else.”
“I know. But your car isn’t running, and it’s… girly. I doubt you could find a single man anywhere in the state of Texas who actually drives a Volkswagen Beetle. I like my Jeep.”
“My car’s not running, but you’re going to fix it for me, right? I got the parts you said to order and everything.”
“I’m still going to fix it for you. I just don’t want to drive it.”
She sighed and pulled out into traffic, his poor Jeep shuddering as she shifted into first and then second gear. “So if your dipshit lawyer comes by later, what am I supposed to tell him? That you’re tired?”
Sean was almost comfortable enough to close his eyes, but hearing that jarred him awake. “I thought you liked him?”
“I liked him because you liked him. You spent the whole weekend buried in a sketchbook and pouting. He o
bviously acted like a dick, so now I am duty bound to treat him like one,” she insisted.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” he explained, even though he didn’t want to talk about it any more than he had over the weekend. “It’s not him, it’s me. And I know how lame that sounds, but it’s true.”
“You?”
“Yes. I’m….” He shut his eyes and let his head fall back against the headrest. “I’m tired. I’ve got so many problems that I can’t blame someone for not wanting me.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he kissed Nate, considering he squirmed at the thought of anybody looking at him. After thinking about it, he was almost glad Nate had turned him down, since it would have been humiliating to actually get Nate into bed and then screw the whole night up by melting down in a panic attack.
“The tattoo helps. It’s a relief to look at my legs and see all these perfect tentacles instead of the scars underneath, but I still know the scars are there. And no matter how good of a fake leg the clinic managed to make for me, I can’t wear it to bed and pretend I’m whole. And you’ve seen him. He’s perfect. He’s hot, he’s funny, he’s actually nice, and he’s a lawyer. He shouldn’t have to settle for someone like me.”
“Sean, I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s a shame, because he’s the only guy I’ve ever seen you with where you didn’t intentionally act stupid,” she added, pulling onto the highway and weaving her way across traffic with reckless ease.
“Excuse me?”
“You dumb things down when you’re talking to people. Unless you know them really well, or you know they’re going to be able to keep up with you. I figured whoever you were fooling around with at your CPG job would be smart enough to catch on, or at least to make you comfortable enough to be yourself, but it never seemed like it.”
“I don’t do that.”