“Before the accident?”
“Uh-huh.” Ollie set the photo frame down. “I’d given up the binge drinking and sex parties by then. Shamefully, I was in danger of growing up.”
“Sex parties?”
Ollie’s faint grin turned sardonic. “I’m joking. Mostly. I was a horrible twenty-something.”
“How old are you now? Fuck, I can’t believe I don’t know.”
“I’m thirty-one.”
“I thought you were older… then I thought you were younger. You have one of those faces it’s hard to tell.”
“I’m gonna take that as a compliment and move on.”
“You should.”
Ollie snorted. “Whatever. You’re a nosy fuck, so do you want to see my parents?”
Of course Shay did. Ollie knew him far too well.
Ollie’s parents looked exactly as Shay had pictured them. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, and gorgeous.
“Your dad is so handsome.”
“Thanks, I think. Don’t tell him that, though. He’s a big enough tart as it is.”
Shay laughed. “What about your mum? What’s she like?”
“Complicated. I don’t speak to her much, but we’re close, if that makes sense?”
“It does; Ben’s like that with his folks. Only sees them at Christmas, and it’s like they’ve never been apart.”
Ollie hummed softly. “I should see them more—my grandparents too—but I got hooked on my own miserable company, and it’s a tough habit to quit.”
“Not impossible, though.” Shay turned around to face Ollie. Found him shirtless still and damp from the shower. His hands twitched again, and this time he couldn’t keep them to himself.
He laid his hand over Ollie’s heart, his palm covering smooth skin and his fingertips grazing the web of scars snaking down from Ollie’s shoulder. Blood thundered in Shay’s ears, but he couldn’t tell if it was his own pulse jumping or Ollie’s.
His other hand found its way to Ollie’s right hip, left bare by Ollie’s low-slung sweatpants. There was no scarring there, and Shay couldn’t help drawing Ollie closer and sliding his hand up Ollie’s back. “Does it still hurt?”
“My skin?”
“Yeah.”
“No. It was a mess for a long time, but what you see is what you get now.”
“It’s healed?”
“I guess. I’ve called it other words in the past.”
Shay didn’t want to know how else Ollie would describe it. He let his hand slip from Ollie’s chest and down his torso to his ribcage, where the scars were thickest.
Ollie flinched, and then he shivered, but he didn’t pull away.
Emboldened, Shay ghosted his fingertips up and down, not pressing too hard, but firm enough that it was real… for both of them. The scars were nothing like he’d ever felt before, but then, touching Ollie had always been like this. Heat crept through Shay as he tentatively explored every part of Ollie he could reach, breath caught as he braced himself for Ollie to stop him.
But Ollie didn’t stop him. He watched, apparently fascinated, as Shay’s hand roamed his body, and said nothing at all.
