“Was it his fault?”
“Yes. No. Not really.”
“Then unless you’re going to fire him, you better make sure you have an awesome apology waiting for him tomorrow.”
Zack took another drink. “Yeah.”
“What aren’t you telling me? Because no matter how cute assistant boy is—and he’s quite the hot number—if he was even a little incompetent you wouldn’t hesitate to let him go. So the fact that you’re sitting here drinking a very nice Scotch without so much as tasting it means that this is more than you losing your temper.”
Max was the one person who knew Zack, almost better than he knew himself. There was no point in lying, because sooner or later he’d figure out the truth.
“I kissed him.”
“Idiot.” Max took another drink before topping up both their glasses. “Did he freak out?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”
“Typical, running away to avoid consequences.”
He didn’t need Max to call him a coward to know that was what he was.
Zack took another drink, closed his eyes, and groaned.
The sound of Max rummaging around had Zack open an eye. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to find a calendar. I wanted to mark today as the first time in history that Zack Anderson sulked.”
“Fuck you.”
He’d been so busy running his life, he hadn’t bothered to look for a partner for anything more than a one-night stand. Really hadn’t had any interest until he’d walked into the bathroom three weeks ago and seen Nolan. “I crossed a line and I don’t know why.”
“He’s not exactly your type.”
Zack glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Max snorted. “Please. I’ve seen you in here. The wilder and less likely to stick around the guy appears to be, the more likely I’ll find you buying him a drink.”
“I haven’t been on a date since . . . I prefer one-night stands. They’re easier.”
“Easier for who?” Max took a drink. “What’s your assistant’s name? Nolan, right?”
He nodded.
“Mind you I only saw him briefly, and not in the best circumstances, but he didn’t strike me as one of your wild boys.”
“I don’t like them wild.”
“I’ve never seen you go after a quiet one before. Never saw you look twice. So what is it about him that you’re drawn to?”
“I’m not drawn to him.”
“You kissed him.”
“It was . . . You weren’t there.”
Zack had been, and even he wasn’t sure why he’d kissed Nolan. No, that wasn’t exactly true. When the anger had flashed in Nolan’s eyes and his lips parted, Zack had been drawn to the fire he saw. Behind the obvious trauma Nolan was dealing with was a man who had more strength and presence of mind than Zack had seen. Nolan had the kind of certainty about himself that Zack had always longed for and never found. Zack had wanted to get closer to that feeling somehow . . . and he’d acted impulsively, which he tried to never do.
“Look.” Max leaned forward, cupping his glass between his hands. “I don’t pretend to know what’s going on with you at your day job. In the past you’ve always looked at your boyfriends as bed warmers and your assistants as unnecessary tools.”
“He’s not a tool.”
“Great. That means you’re becoming more human. So apologize to him, or else get into bed with him. Hell, do both if you want. Being with someone doesn’t have to be a distraction.” Max shook his head. “Really, I think you just need to get laid.”
“Piss off.”
“I’m serious. When was the last time you got any?”
He wasn’t going down this path. “None of your business.”
“I haven’t seen you pick anyone up here in months. You find out that your hot assistant is gay. You work closely with him and clearly like him.”
“I’m not going to have sex with my assistant.”
“Why not? You said he didn’t run screaming when you kissed him. He might be up for something more.”
God, he couldn’t believe he was even letting his mind go there. Nolan had enough issues to deal with without adding more to the pile.
And yet . . .
“Sex would be a horrible idea. You know, the whole boss-assistant thing. HR frowns on taking advantage of subordinates.” God, he didn’t even sound convincing to himself.
Max chuckled. “He seems like a decent guy, and someone different would be good for you. Just promise me you’ll be up front about what you want and what he can expect. He doesn’t deserve to be played with. It’s not fair to drag Nolan down that path if you’re only going to dump him when you chicken out. But hey, consensual, no-strings sex can be fun.”
Asshole. Max knew how much it pissed him off to be called out. There was no way he’d give Max the satisfaction of knowing it got to him. “You’re right about one thing: I need to apologize to him.”
“It’s early yet. Think he’s still at the office?”
“No. He was going home.”
“Too bad you don’t know where he lives.” Max hit the desk with his hand. “Oh wait. You drove him home. You do know where he lives.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s my office. I can do and say what I want. And what I want now is for you to take this bottle, go to Nolan’s place, and suck up. If he doesn’t call the cops on your ass, then I suggest you see if he might be interested in an office fling. At least for the next little while until we can get the gym going and you can quit.”
Zack got to his feet, taking the bottle with him. “I’m going home.”
“Then leave the Scotch.”
Zack tucked it under his arm. “I need to think.”
“You think too much. At least when it comes to relationships.”
“I’m not in a relationship.” Nolan was a good man; the last thing Zack wanted was to put him in a position where he’d feel obligated to respond to unwanted advances.
Max turned back to his computer. “There’s a reason you’re not. At some point in your life you need to figure out why.”
He stood there staring at his friend for a moment longer before leaving. “Thanks for the Scotch.”
Nolan had regretted calling Tina the moment he’d hung up the phone. Her worry had come through loud and clear, even without her saying it in so many words. It hadn’t helped that she’d been in the middle of a meeting about transitioning to her new position in Vancouver. When they’d finally gotten back to the apartment, he’d been ready for her declaration before she made it.
“I’m going to tell them to give the job to someone else.”
It was sad that part of him was happy to hear her say that: a small, selfish part he couldn’t afford to give in to. “No.”
“This isn’t up for discussion.” She dumped her purse on the coffee table and flopped onto the couch. “You can’t ask me to leave when you’re still struggling this much.”
He’d gone over the words in his head nearly the entire drive home. “You’re not turning down the job. You’re going to tell them that you will be ready to move to Vancouver anytime.” When she opened her mouth to interrupt, he held up his hand. “Let me speak.”
She slumped back against the cushions. “Fine.”
“I love you. You’ve been my best friend in the whole world since we were little. You’ve helped me, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. But now I need you to stop putting your life on hold.”
“I haven’t been.”
“Yes, you have been for two years now.” He sat down beside her, letting their knees touch. “I’ve been taking advantage of you, and it needs to stop. For both of our sakes.”
It was strange how his breakdown today made him see just how much he’d been using his sister as a crutch. When Zack left, Nolan had been hurt, angry, and more than a little aroused. Before the accident, he would have ch
ased after Zack, pushed him against the wall, and bitched him out before kissing him again. Today, instead of allowing himself to be the man he’d once been and handle his problems by taking action, he’d run to his sister and expected her to make the pain go away.
That wasn’t the man he wanted to be.
That wasn’t the person he wanted his sister to be.
Tina rolled her shoulders as if her back felt stiff, then let them drop and slumped against the couch back again. “I don’t feel like I’m being taken advantage of. It was my choice to help you. Even if I feel like I’m navigating without a map sometimes.”
He could practically feel the look she shot him, and they both knew the source of her frustration. It was true, Tina didn’t know everything about the accident, because Nolan had decided—early on, during the air-lift to the hospital with Roberta—that he would spare his family the details of the worst part. Not the crash itself, which was all most people seemed to care about, but the twenty minutes afterward when they’d been stuck in the car, hoping against hope that they might be rescued.
His parents—his mom especially—didn’t want to know much, simply happy that he was alive. His brothers teased, but had never asked too many questions. Only Tina had prodded, and even she didn’t ask more than the basics. None of them knew they were asking the wrong questions; only Nolan, his psychiatrist, and his therapist knew the crash had been the least traumatic part of that day for him.
Maybe that needed to change too. Maybe Nolan had to give Tina that map, if only to prove to her how far he’d come.
He took a deep breath, released it slowly, then started. “Okay. You know the panic attacks aren’t because of the injuries. And I’ve never told you what happened after the accident.”
Tina took his hand in hers, but said nothing.
That gentle contact helped, and Nolan went on. “Before it happened, everything had been so . . . normal. We were talking about the session we were heading to give. Xi was still learning the material, and Roberta had been prepping him on a unit he was going to run for the first time.” He could see everything perfectly. Simon sitting in the back with Roberta, teasing her about how he could time her parts of the presentation by listening for laughs at the jokes she always used. Xi in the front reviewing notes on his iPad. “Roberta took off her seat belt so she could slide forward and show Xi something on his tablet. Simon kept teasing her, said something funny and I remember laughing. It was such a typical day. The next thing . . .”
Tears welled in his eyes, and his throat tightened. Tina gave his hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to.”
“I do.” He huffed, the air leaving his lungs with a rush. He was stalling, rehashing what Tina already knew because he didn’t want to get to the scary part. “I don’t remember the car spinning out. Or the impact, at least not clearly. One moment I was driving, and then the car felt like it was flying, and the next thing I remember was staring through a broken windshield at that tree in the ditch.”
Tears streaked Tina’s face. “Baby.”
He gave her hand a squeeze, knowing if he stopped now there was no way he’d be able to start again. “From one second to the next, everything got so not normal. At first all I kept thinking was that I could see the bark on the tree so clearly, and I wasn’t sure why. It looked too close. Because it was, since the car was smashed and the windshield was broken. Then I felt something warm on my arm, and it kind of tickled, and I looked down. It . . . Roberta’s hair was brushing my hand, and the warm stuff was blood. Dripping, you know. Some of it was coming from Roberta and probably some was from my face. I didn’t realize that at the time. And Xi was screaming his head off at her to wake up. Like he thought if he screamed loud enough, she’d hear him. I told him to stop, and at first he couldn’t. Just couldn’t. He kept looking at me over her head, with his mouth wide open like a fish. ‘Waaake uuup.’ And it looked ridiculous. I actually laughed. I still can’t believe I did that.” Xi’s expression had turned to disbelief, then anger, and he’d finally snapped out of it and closed his mouth.
Tina patted his hand. “You had a severe concussion, hon. I don’t think you’re responsible for laughing inappropriately at a time like that.”
“Yeah.” Nolan shook his head. Xi had never mentioned it again, didn’t seem to remember. Nolan wished he were as lucky. “So Roberta was stuck between us. We couldn’t wake her up. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even take my seat belt off because of how the door was bent. When I tried, I realized my leg was stuck and that it hurt. Weirdly not that much, maybe because of the head injury. Then Simon started making sounds, like he was about to throw up. I hadn’t even checked on him in the backseat until then. He said something, got out of the car and hurled, and then jogged away. And it was just me and Xi and Roberta.” The official report stated it had been twenty minutes from the time of the crash to the arrival of the police and EMTs. In Nolan’s mind, it still stretched out to an eternity. “We couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. And everything started to freeze. The blood froze. And . . .” And then the worst of all.
“It’s okay. Keep going. You need to get this off your chest.”
God, she knew him so well. He shrugged. “I knew that was it. I knew that was the end, and I was going to die there. Freeze to death or bleed out. You know those grief stages?” Tina nodded, and he went on. “I think I did that whole thing in about a minute. ‘This can’t be happening to me. This is all a horrible dream. Damn it, it’s real and it isn’t fucking fair! If I make it out of this, I swear to God I’ll never do anything bad again. Shit. I’ve wasted my life. Okay, it is what it is. There are probably worse ways to go.’” He looked at her to see how the humor was playing.
She smiled, but it looked like she was doing it to appease him. “And then the cavalry came?”
He nearly let himself off the hook, then decided to get it all over with at once. “No. Then we waited. I kept passing out, but I think only for a few seconds each time. Xi would shake my arm to wake me up. He was sure Roberta was dead, and he didn’t want to be alone in the car with two corpses. And every time I woke up, for a split second I couldn’t remember where I was or what had happened, so it was like reliving the whole thing over and over. For what felt like forever. Waking up trapped in the car, the tree trunk with snow in the ridges of the bark, the cold, the pain, something on my arm . . . and then I’d see Roberta or hear Xi and remember I was going to die.”
Simon had called 911. The deathly quiet of the wooded area around the car had been broken by the sound of sirens, a crowd of first responders. Everybody yelling orders and poking at Nolan, then prying the car away from him. At some point he’d passed out again, and woke in the ambulance with the pain in his leg so bad he didn’t know how he could survive it.
Phantom pain was no myth. The moment he started to think about anything that happened that day, his leg would throb. Like it was at this moment. In his mind the pain was linked to the shouts, to the throng of people who’d worked to get him free, to the sudden prickling on his forearm when Roberta’s hair, sticky with half-frozen blood, had pulled away from his arm as he was taken out of the car. He hadn’t realized until he was at the hospital that his face had also been lacerated when the windshield shattered. The first time he’d looked into a mirror afterward, he hadn’t recognized himself.
Then had come surgery and recovery. Weeks after his final operation he’d started physio. His first attempt at talking to his therapist had started with him dissolving into a hyperventilating, frustrated, angry mess. It’d ended with him letting Tina and his other family members take charge.
Which had led him to the present time, trying to explain things to Tina that he still struggled to talk about in therapy. It hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared. Kind of a relief, in fact.
She put her other hand over his, cradling his fingers and looking down at them with a slight frown. “So the panic isn’t you remembering the crash, it’s all the stuff that came after? Being trapped, helpless, an
d losing hope?”
“Oh, I remember the crash too. You know it still freaks me out when I get into a car. Not as bad as I was at first, but still.” He chuckled. “I think I scared the shit out of Zack the other night about the seat belt. But it’s like you said. The worst thing was being in that car forever and feeling like I would die there and I couldn’t do anything about it.” The physical stuff reminded him of the mental stuff, and vice versa. None of that was likely to end anytime soon, though, and he couldn’t expect Tina to put her life on hold indefinitely.
“Nolan?”
He knew he had to say the words no matter how much they terrified him. “I shouldn’t have called you today. I should’ve dealt with the issue on my own.”
“I still don’t even know what happened.”
God, he wanted to tell her, but he didn’t know what to say. Not because he didn’t have the words, but because he didn’t want to pull her in further. “It was just a work thing.”
Tina jerked back, hurt showing on her face. “What do you mean a ‘work thing’? That’s never stopped you from telling me before.”
“I know. But like I said, I need to learn to get through these moments. You’re moving to Vancouver, and Mom and Dad don’t know how to react when I get like this.”
“Nolan, you know I’m—”
“Tina—”
“I might not have known all the details of what happened before now, the part of the accident that really stuck with you, but I’ve seen the aftermath. And the physical part alone would be enough to account for how you feel now. You still look away when you catch your reflection in a mirror, even though there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Tina—”
“You push yourself too far too fast. Just like when you tried to go back to your training job. That was a call I never want to get again. For a while I thought they were going to commit you.”
“I’m—”
“You didn’t get out of bed for three weeks after that.”
“Tina, stop. I don’t need you to do this. I’m okay on my own.”
She jerked her hands from him. “Fine.”
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