He just looks intimidating, broad-shouldered with thick arms and a strong chest. And he’s covered in so many tattoos that his already tanned skin looks darker, with golden hair covering his chest and stomach and arms that’s glinting in thelow light. His dark, reddish-blond hair is cut into something that’s like a cross between a mullet and a mohawk, a little longer on top and in the back, but shaved short on the sides. Which is redneck as hell, but he somehow manages to pull off. He looks like a hot NASCAR driver or something.
Except he’s trembling and constantly on the verge of total collapse.
He’s like the physical embodiment of traditional masculinity wrapped around the physical embodiment of a panic attack.
He stops moving, seeming lost for a second. I still don’t think he’s totally clocked my presence, so I use my free hand to take his face and tilt it down to face me. I’m not a tiny guy, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m average height and more lithe than muscular, but not really dainty enough or young enough to keep calling myself a twink for any reason other than denial. Yet I still have to physically pull his head down so his hazel eyes are pointed at mine.
“What’s wrong, Tadhg?”
“I need my keys. Where’s my shit?”
I give him awhat the fucklook. That wasn’t what I was expecting at all. If anything, I thought he would be panicking about getting to his dad and his stupid, brutal job.
My mind grasps for an answer. “Uh, someone left a gun and some other shit on the table that they said belonged to you. It’s over there. Just sit down and I’ll go get it.”
“No!” He lurches away from me, pulling his arm out of my grasp.
So, it’s going to be another one of those days, I see.
With a hand pressed against the wound on his hip, which is definitely bleeding again, he takes one staggering step after the other toward the table. He manages to make the walk across my living room look like the fucking Iditarod, but I know if I touch him again, he’ll only hurt himself worse.
Instead, I watch, and I wait.
Like a drunk toddler, he collapses against my shitty Ikea high-top, but he gets there. The pile of stuff barely has anything in it, but he manages to make rifling through it look unnecessarily dramatic until he comes up with his keys clutched in his hand.
He’s already looking a lot paler than a few minutes ago. When he turns to look at me, I give him the same calm, only slightly condescending raised eyebrows look that all nurses use when their patient is being a pain in the ass.
“Okay. Can I get you back to the couch now, please? Before you topple over?”
His eyes dart from side to side for a second, like a little kid about to get scolded. But then he relents. Without too much grumbling, he lets me take his elbow again, and this time he really leans his ridiculous, bulky body into me while we traverse the great living room passage one more time.
Tadhg falls back onto the threadbare, sweat-soaked cushions with a loud exhale, and gives me an inscrutable look, even while he’s still trying to catch his breath from the exertion.
“Could you get me some water?” His tone is suspiciously polite, and I don’t know what he’s going to do as soon as my back is turned to acquiesce.
I glare at him. “That depends. Are you going to exit the couch area while I do, or can we take a break from interpretive dance for the rest of the day? My back and knees aren’t what they used to be, asshole. I don’t need to be dragging you off the floor anymore if you collapse and tear your wound open. And I definitely don’t feel like doing surgery in my apartment to stuff your intestines back in when they fall out of the hole it’ll make. That sounds tedious AF. These hands were not intended to accordion fold your small intestine back into your abdominal cavity, brother.”
My tone is light, but I hold his gaze so he knows I’m not totally fucking around. I half expect him to piss and moan about it, or pull a big tough gangster act and try to intimidate me, even though it wouldn’t have a chance in hell of working.
He doesn’t do either, though. Instead, he does something that fucking floors me.
Tadhg smiles at me.
A real smile, too. Slightly unhinged, but what about either of us isn’t?
“Sure, Bambi.”
It’s all he says, but he keeps smiling, and his voice is soft, so I’ll call it a win.
Still suspicious, I slowly turn and head to the kitchen to grab him some water. I keep my ear trained on him behind me, and while I hear some rustling, there’s nothing disastrous. When I turn around with the cup in my hand, he’s still on the couch, his eyes trained on me like a loyal dog waiting for me to return.
I hand him the cup. Some bright-blue plastic promotional tumbler I got at a job fair after graduation because I don’t trust him with anything heavy right now. His hand still shakes as he takes it, but he’s more or less okay as he brings it to his face and takes a sip, only sputtering a little when he tilts his head back to swallow.
He hands it back to me and I put it on the coffee table within his reach. For some reason, the whole exchange feels surreal. Everything about him is designed to be as thuggish as possible. His body, his aggressive tattoos, his ridiculous fucking name. There’s a snake on his neck, for fuck’s sake. I think I can see a large knife outlined under the shaved part on the left side of his head.
But he’s looking up at me with big, round eyes and a grateful expression. When there’s no aggression or terror on his face, youcan notice his actual features, which are just as pretty as they used to be.
I think he always hated how he looked. His face is just as masculine as the rest of him, with a perfect jawline covered in something between stubble and a beard. But he also has thick, dark eyelashes that most people would murder for, a straight nose, full lips and the kind of symmetry that makes everything just work.
