“Sounds like you’re learning some useful stuff.”
“Eh, some of it. Half of it is still way too vague for me, but some of it helps me process shit, so there’s that. And she’s big on boundaries, my therapist, so I’m learning about that too.”
“Boundaries are good.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for not saying anything in front of the others.”
“You’re welcome. But if you wanna prevent Creek from picking up on something being off, you may wanna practice not choking when someone mentions words like ‘sexual services’ and ‘pleasure.’”
My cheeks heated. He’d paid even more attention than I’d realized. “Yeah, I know.”
A hearty slap on my shoulder. “You have fun with that, Top.”
I groaned as I headed back to my car, waving a last goodbye at Tameron.Funwas about the last word that came to mind about this whole situation.
Though come to think of it, I couldn’t deny last night had been fun. A lot of fun, in fact. Maybe I could offer my…sexual services again for some more fun tonight?
A man could hope, right?
CHAPTER TWELVE
FOREST
I was half-asleep on the couch when I heard the faint ding of the doorbell. Rousing me to full consciousness was harder these days. The chronic fatigue I had from everything was intense, and while I couldn’t start any of the therapies the neurologist had recommended, I’d had enough in savings to pick up the prescription of muscle relaxers, which were helping.
But they were strong and left me feeling a bit like I was walking in a cloud.
It had been a rough week, and since the night I’d spent with Nash, things were weird. Not because of him, of course. He’d been kind and attentive, though he was very obviously holding himself back.
The morning after our, well, night together, I’d woken up alone. I had no idea how long he’d actually stayed with me, but it had been long enough to lull me into a comfortable sleep. It was the first time I’d woken up feeling refreshed in… God, I didn’t even know how long.
The house was empty now, just like it had been that first morning, but all that told me was that Nash was at work. His schedule was steady, but the hours would have killed me. He wason a long stretch of shifts before he had several days off, and I knew I’d need to give him an answer once he was home.
I couldn’t let this hang over us for much longer.
And the reality was: there was no alternative.
I wasn’t going to miraculously get better. This was a chronic illness. It was forever. There weren’t even any real treatments, let alone a cure. My entire life was going to be altered—even if my life wouldn’t be shortened.
So many things I loved doing were going to be out of reach. And even if I went into remission—which was entirely possible—remission wasn’t forever either.
Slipping off the couch, I shook myself out of my thought spiral and opened the door just as the person on the other side began knocking very loudly. The sound pounded through my temples, so I wasn’t the most polite when I wrenched the door open and said, “What?”
And then promptly froze because my tone was entirely useless to the person on the other side.
Dax stared at me with raised brows and a raised fist, poised to start pounding again. After a beat, he offered a sheepish smile. ‘Hungover?’
I blinked at him, then rolled my eyes, fighting off a smile because it was nice to have someone assume I was hungover instead of dealing with the shit-show going on in my body. ‘No. Bad day,’ I signed. Then I frowned. ‘You-here-why?’
I appreciated that Deaf blunt meant I didn’t have to make polite conversation with him and could just ask the question on my mind.
He moved his shoulder forward, and I realized he had a canvas bag hanging off it. ‘Nash let me borrow a couple of things from his garage. Here to return them.’
I stepped aside and beckoned him in. My body was, at the moment, behaving. The muscle relaxers were helping with thestiffness and the tremors, so I’d take the additional medication-induced brain fog if it meant being able to walk, talk, and sign normally.
Dax breezed past me, glancing around like he’d never really seen the place, though I was pretty sure he had. I walked him through the kitchen and opened the door that led to the garage. He gave me a thumbs-up and walked past me. The garage was several steps down, which was not something I was interested in testing today, so I left the door hanging open and instead walked over to the counter and stared at the kettle.
Maybe I should offer him tea? I wasn’t used to hosting people. Back home, most of my friends had gotten the hell out, and I never knew which new people I met were safe to tell about who I was. It was easier when Creek was around to protect me, but once he enlisted and was sent away for basic—and eventually deployed—I had to figure it all out on my own.
Being a hermit was easier than learning to fight. But it was lonelier.
