Heart Untouched

by Andrew Grey

  Todd waited for him in the living room, along with his mother, who fussed over his clothes.

  “Are you ready to go?” Todd asked. Duncan was already wheeling himself to the door.

  “When will you be back?”

  “By eleven or so, Mom. I have an appointment in the morning, and I’m going to need my beauty sleep.”

  “What time?” she asked, and Duncan realized he’d forgotten to tell her about it.

  “It’s at ten. I’m meeting with Trevor to review the marketing proposal. I know you have a meeting at the church. Trevor is going to come here. He thought it would be easier. So don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” Things were looking up, finally. He pulled open the door and glided out and down the ramp to wait at the car for Todd.

  “You seem chipper,” Todd said as he opened the door. “Like some of the old Duncan is back.” Todd leaned down to hug him. “It’s good to see you smile again.”

  Duncan didn’t want to take too much for granted… yet. “Thanks.”

  Todd took his bag and put it in the back seat. “Are you hungry? We can get something light to eat before heading to the gym if you want.”

  “Sure….” Duncan got himself transferred into the car, and once Todd wrangled his chair, they were off. Everything seemed to take so much longer than it used to, but Duncan was getting accustomed to it. In fact, he found he minded it less and less and simply planned for it now.

  His excitement lasted until they rolled into the parking space at the Panera.

  “Is that…?”

  Duncan groaned. “Yeah. It’s Michael and Corrina.” They were just hurrying out of the restaurant, Corrina in black pants and a white shirt, like some sort of uniform, and Michael in street clothes. Duncan slid down in the seat and hoped they didn’t see him. “I don’t want to deal with them today.”

  Todd put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. “We’ll go somewhere else.” He pulled away, and Duncan relaxed. “Where would you like to go?”

  “I think we can just head to the gym. I’ll be fine.”

  Todd nodded and drove to the health club. After filling out forms, they headed to the locker room. Todd stood guard in a way while Duncan changed, trying to give him some privacy, and then he quickly got into his gym clothes and they headed to the floor.

  Their workout didn’t last too long since this was Duncan’s first time back, but he felt at ease and smiled as he worked his arms and shoulders.

  “Feel good?” Todd asked as he sat nearby.

  “Yeah. It feels normal.” Duncan finished his set and reached for heavier weights.

  “Take it easy. You don’t want to be too sore to move. This is your first time back. Getting moving is good, unable to lift your arms, probably not.” Todd put his weights away. “How about cleaning up and then we can go eat?” He grinned and patted his rumbling belly.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Duncan put the weights back and rolled into the locker room. Todd took a quick shower while Duncan cleaned up at a restroom sink. They had a handicapped shower, but Duncan passed on getting his chair wet. They dressed and headed out, stomachs growling in harmony.

  “Pasta?” Todd asked. “I thought we could go to Pasta Tree.”

  “We don’t need to go anywhere expensive,” Duncan said. He knew they both needed to watch their money. Duncan was just trying to figure a way out of his financial mess, and Todd was an impoverished athlete with enough debt to choke a horse. “There’s Baker’s Kitchen in Whitefish Bay. They have good food, and it’s affordable.”

  Todd took the exit, and Duncan handed him the handicapped parking card, so they were able to find a parking spot.

  Inside, the restaurant was packed, and Duncan was barely able to get through the door. He turned to Todd, wishing he had made a different choice.

  “May I help you?”

  “Two,” Duncan said, musing on how they were going to be able to accommodate him in the older, rather narrow space. “Maybe we should find somewhere else,” he said to Todd, and tried to turn around, even as more people started crowding into the confined space, which seemed smaller and smaller by the second.

  “Are you okay?” Todd asked, and Duncan shook his head.

  “Why don’t you come this way?” the hostess said and cleared a path for them. “I have a table for two right here.” She took away the chair so Duncan could roll right up, and Todd slipped around to sit on the banquette against the wall. Then she poured them two glasses of water, smiled, and went back to her station.

  Duncan tried to calm himself, wondering where that near panic had come from.

  “I’m all right.” Duncan drank most of a glass of water, pausing to take deep breaths. “The walls seemed to close in around me for a while.” He tried not to let his mind go back to the accident and how the ice and snow had encircled him when he’d been thrown from the track.

  “Do you want to go?” Todd asked, but Duncan shook his head. He didn’t want to be a problem for anyone.

  “No.” His vision was returning to normal and so was his breathing. The skin on the back of his neck had stopped tingling, and he was cooling down as well. It wasn’t the restaurant, just him not being able to see around the crowd. He had never given it any thought before, but now that he sat when everyone else stood, he easily lost sight of the rest of the world in a sea of people, and that left him jittery. “I’m okay now.” He leaned over the table. “All I could see were strangers. No faces—just legs, butts, and crotches.”

  Todd reached for his hand. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know that, but it doesn’t matter. My reaction wasn’t completely rational.” He took a deep breath. Memories of the accident pulled at him again, but he refused to let them take hold, though that took some effort.

  “Is this about the accident? You don’t have to talk about it if you aren’t ready.”

  Duncan shook his head. “The therapist at the hospital told me I might have unexpected reactions, especially at times when I wasn’t prepared. She said that it was okay to talk about it.” He played with his napkin for a moment, twisting it in his fingers. “When they found me, I was surrounded by ice and snow. I remember opening my eyes, not being able to move, and being surrounded by people. They think I might have started to panic before I was rescued. I don’t remember all of it, but the therapist told me that part of my mind might.” He shivered. It was frightening sometimes not to have all the answers regarding his own head.

  “I’m glad you told me.” Todd squeezed Duncan’s hand as a slightly frazzled-looking server hurried to their table.

  “I’m Mandy, and I’ll be taking care of you. Do you know what you want to drink?”

  “I’ll have a diet soda and the chicken potpie,” Duncan said. Todd ordered the same, and Mandy hurried away. “They are slammed.”

  “And shorthanded, by the look of it.” Todd glanced around a little more, and Duncan followed his gaze. Servers hurried between the tables as customers waiting at the door were seated. It was near pandemonium, and Duncan started to wonder when they were actually going to receive their orders.

  “Next time, you pick the restaurant,” Duncan told Todd, and instantly felt the blood rush from his face as Corrina came out of the kitchen, carrying a tray of food. She set the tray on a stand, spoke to the server, and went back to the kitchen. “Is it ever going to be possible not to run into her?” Duncan’s appetite flew out the window, and he would have asked to leave, but Corrina came back out of the kitchen and spotted him. There was nowhere he could go, so he braced himself for whatever came next.

  “Having dinner?” she asked, her smile slipping from her lips, especially as she turned her gaze to Todd. “Is this the person you replaced me with?”

  “Corrina….” Duncan had to try to make her understand, but that wasn’t going to happen now. This was not the place for an argument, and thankfully one of the servers patted Corrina on the shoulder and she had to hurry away.
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  “She didn’t remember me,” Todd said, surprised.

  “I think she’s living in her own little world right now, and reality has very little to do with it.” Duncan frowned. Corrina had been a good friend once, but she seemed so diminished, and the vibrant person he had known was a long way from the bitter, hurt person he saw now. “I wonder what happened to her? There had to be something. She’s so different.”

  Todd shook his head. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t remember hearing anything. But then, you know how it is. We train as much of the year as possible, and that takes every spare minute we have and some we don’t, so a lot of the time I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Duncan nodded as a dark wave of loss washed over him. God, he remembered those times so damned well. The exhaustion, the stress on credit cards to try to pay for the training, the coaching, travel, food—all of it. The excitement that came after a good run, dissecting them all to learn everything possible from each and every time down the track, then traveling to different tracks so he could get as much experience as possible. He really missed it all.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you feel bad.” Todd squeezed his hand, pulling Duncan out of his thoughts. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “No. You talk about whatever you want to. I’m never going to be able to do things like that again, and I’m the one who has to come to grips with it.”

  The server brought their drinks and hurried away. She was definitely hopping.

  “I can wish things were the way they used to be, but it’s over. Sometimes I think telling myself that is a way to make sure it actually happens. I swear, if you could put me on a sled today, I’d still have the muscle memory, even after everything.”

  “Of course you would. And I’m willing to bet that your brain would tell your feet to get into position and to keep your legs straight and to point your toes, even if you aren’t able to do it. Those pathways are still there—they don’t go away overnight. After all, it took long enough for us to make them.”

  “Yeah….”

  “So use them,” Todd said.

  Duncan blinked in confusion. “How am I supposed to…?”

  “In your commercial. Use those pathways. Those high-speed, rapid decision-making highways in your head—redirect them and use them for your work. I love your marketing idea for the shops, and I think Trevor will too. So keep going. Take all that energy and adrenaline and channel it into your new work. I have faith that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  Duncan chuckled. “It’s not my mind I’m worried about.”

  Their server brought their meals and asked if they needed anything else. Then she hurried away and returned almost immediately to refill their glasses. The restaurant was still packed, with people continuing to wait, though the faces were different.

  “I wonder what’s going on. I’ve seen this place busy, but rarely this busy, especially on a Wednesday.”

  “Don’t know. I sort of picked it because it’s a staple kind of place.” Duncan tasted his dish and tucked in, finding he was hungry, really hungry. He also wanted to change the subject. “When do you begin training again?”

  “I am in a way already. You know how it is—watching what we eat and hitting the gym on a regular basis. I’m supposed to fly to Norway in late August because they have a run that will be ready for use then. The whole team is going, and we’ll train there for a few weeks before returning to the States.”

  Duncan understood those trips. The athletes had to pay for most of the expenses involved with them, though some of it the teams managed to get the committee to help with.

  “Then when the snow flies here, I’ll go up to Lake Placid to train on the runs there… and Salt Lake City. I’ll work in between as best I can.” Todd set down his spoon. “I honestly don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. The Games are years away, and by that time, I’ll be drowning in debt and unable to dig my way out.”

  The dream—one they all had of standing on that podium while the flag lifted into the air and “The Star-Spangled Banner” played for the entire world to hear. Duncan had imagined himself on that pedestal so many times, and he knew Todd was doing the same thing. It was the dream… the “golden ring” moment that they all worked toward. But the realities of getting there were only partly due to athletic ability.

  “We have to help you with that.”

  “How? Trevor may want to use me in his commercials, but I can’t ask him to pay me a whole big bunch of money to do them. Sure, it will be fun, but I have so much credit card debt already. I managed to pay some of it down, but that’s only temporary.” Todd picked up his spoon again. “The fact is that if I’m lucky, I have one more year that I can do this…. Maybe I’ll make it to the Olympics if I decide to mortgage the rest of my financial life.”

  “I’m working on it,” Duncan said, and instantly regretted it because other than the marketing plan for the shop, he hadn’t thought about other opportunities, but now he had committed himself. “Give me a little time to try to come up with some ideas.” There had to be a way to help Todd realize his dream. And that would mean he would have a part in it, rather than just sitting on the outside.

  Chapter 4

  “YOU NEED to bring your sled and to dress in your best unitard because there can’t be any logos on it, other than the flag,” Duncan said as they sat in his room reviewing the slightly adjusted marketing plan that Trevor had approved. “Do you have one with a flag on it?”

  “Yes. I have a white one that I don’t use very often. It was a gift from my mom, and I haven’t wanted to get it dirty.” Todd turned away.

  “Can we go see her?” Duncan asked.

  Todd nodded, trying to hide his surprise. Most people didn’t know what to do when they saw her, so they tended to stay away. “Sure. When would you like to go?”

  Duncan checked his watch. “Now? I’ve been working on the final details all day, and I have the photo sessions set up to take the pictures for the websites. You know Trevor—when he makes up his mind about something, he really goes for it.” Trevor could be a force of nature when he wanted to be, and he seemed incredibly excited about doing this. “I could really use some time away, and I want to see your mom. It’s been a long time.”

  Todd nodded. He liked that Duncan cared, and he really needed to get out there to spend some time with her anyway. It was getting harder and harder with each visit. “I have to warn you. She isn’t the same person you remember.” The last year had seen a rather rapid decline into Alzheimer’s that Todd could do nothing to stop. He was a spectator in his mother’s descent into her own world.

  “It’s okay. I’m not the same person she saw last time either.” Duncan closed the file on his computer and turned out the desk light.

  “No, you aren’t.” Todd grinned. Sometimes Duncan really surprised him. In the last week, he seemed to have found a purpose, some of that internal fire that had driven him as an athlete, and, damn, that fire in Duncan’s eye was good to see—and enticing as hell. Todd’s body reacted, but he tamped it down, reminding himself that they were planning to visit his mother, not hitting a club. Still, the energy was sexy, and Todd felt himself drawn to it.

  Over that time, he had kissed Duncan a few times and held and touched him. Each time he did, Duncan tensed for just a second and then seemed to relax, even lean into the touch. It confused Todd sometimes, and he hoped there would be a time when that would change. Todd was determined to help Duncan understand that he was the same man, that nothing that truly mattered, at least to him, had changed.

  Todd leaned in, gently cradling Duncan’s cheeks in his hands. He waited for the hesitation or for him to tense, but Duncan simply looked at him, watching as Todd drew nearer. “Thank you for suggesting this.” He closed the distance between them, touching Duncan’s lips with his.

  There was the hesitation. It lasted only a second, and then Duncan returned the kiss, taking it deeper, pressing closer to h
im. Todd was slightly surprised, sliding his arms around Duncan’s back, holding him as best he could, intensifying the kiss that he felt to his very toes.

  “Wow,” Todd said after pulling back, blinking, breathless. “You’re one sexy kisser.”

  Duncan smiled, his eyes drifting lower. Todd followed his gaze but didn’t see anything noticeable. However, Duncan looked extra pleased.

  Todd slid his hand around the back of his neck and drew him in once again. “Are things waking up?”

  “I think so. Maybe.” Duncan colored, but he continued smiling. “Let’s go see your mom, and we can talk about this later. Okay?”

  Todd pulled away and nodded. He took a few seconds for his head to clear from the mind-blowing kiss and then stood. He reminded himself that he was going to visit his mother, and that wasn’t a good thing to do when he was as stiff as a board.

  He waited for Duncan to get ready and use the bathroom, and then they told Duncan’s mother where they were going and left the house. For most of the trip, Todd worried how Duncan would react to his mom, but as they walked down the drab hall to his mother’s room, some of the unease slipped away.

  “Duncan,” Todd’s mother said from her chair as soon as he rolled into the room.

  Todd raised his eyes skyward to give thanks. This was one of her good days. Granted, he didn’t know how long it would last, but he was pleased one coincided with Duncan’s visit.

  “How are you, Mrs. Hamilton?” Duncan rolled over to her and took her hands in his.

  “Losing my mind piece by piece,” she answered, then turned to Todd, seemingly having trouble remembering his name. That was part of the real cruelty of this disease. It took bits and pieces of his mom away and left others intact. “How are you?” she asked, returning her attention to Duncan.

  “I’m getting better.” Duncan continued holding her hand. “Todd tells me you’re doing good as well.”

  She shrugged. “Some days I can’t remember my own damn name.” She turned toward the door. “And I know the nurses keep moving my stuff,” she whispered. “I can never find a single thing in this place.” She looked toward Todd, then back at Duncan, the light in her eyes fading. “Is it time for lunch yet?”