Audrey genuinely thoughtTheo would simply carry her straight to the bedroom.
But no.
Instead, he plopped her down on the counter back in his huge bathroom with one more kiss before stooping to dig around in the cabinets beneath the sink.
“Theo, what are you—”
He straightened and held out a toothbrush wrapped in plastic from a dentist’s office.
“Oral hygiene’s really important.”
Of course it was.
She took it from him with a shake of her head. “You nerd.”
That earned her another crooked grin. “So I’ve been told—many, many times.” He also held up a roll of thick clear tape with blue backing and pointed bitterly at his scar. “And I have to put this shit back on if I ever want this thing to fade all the way. Which I very much do. I fucking hate it.”
“Yes, I’ve gathered.”
Given what they’d just discussed, brushing their teeth, doing skincare together, and taking turns in the bathroom felt so oddly domestic, Audrey couldn’t decide whether it put her more at ease or only made her feel all the more electric inside her own skin. WhenTheo opened the bathroom door again and she tried to hop off the counter to find his bedroom, he grabbed her and set her back up there before reaching for a pair of medical scissors.
“Are you just going to fling me around like this all the time now? Carry me everywhere?”
He leaned down—she still wasn’t quite eye to eye with him—and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “Yep.” He dropped the roll of scar tape in her hand. “You’re really light. It’s fun. Now hold that for a second.” And then he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye before crossing his arms and gripping the hem of his shirt.
With a sigh, he steeled himself and yanked it over his head.
She’d been wondering what the extent of his scar was, how far down it ran beneath his shirt. She’d had plenty of time to ponder that, given how broken he’d seemed for a while now.
But she hadn’t expected it to be this bad.
The scar ran deep, carved down his neck and through his chest like a river cutting through a canyon. It crossed his collarbone and tore into his right pec, jagged and vibrating, slicing even further down into his ribs and all the way across his arm, deep into the meat of his biceps, and again across his forearm. It was as if someone had tried to cleave him in two with a piece of torn scrap metal, so ragged and violent was the damage across his body.
It also wasn’t the only scar he had.
Additional scars, smaller and lighter and altogether shallower, crisscrossed his chest and his shoulders and arms, especially the right. But two more stood out on the left side of his body, both circular and puckered and deep red: one on his left shoulder and the other on the lower left side of his abdomen.
Theo watched her face while she took it all in, silent and anxious, his extraordinary dark hazel eyes wide with apprehension in the bright lights of his bathroom. Audrey pulled him closer, directing him to stand between her legs while she trailed her fingers alongthe length of his wound. It had healed well, as far as she could tell, though it didn’t make the way it tore across the broad, pale expanse of his chest any less devastating.
But the rest of him was beautiful. Just like his face and neck, his chest was dotted with a smattering of dark moles and freckles, each one of them unique and precious. Somehow, with his shirt off, he was even wider than she’d thought him before, and as she ran her hand gently along the scar, his hard, thick muscles twitched beneath her touch. Even if he hadn’t played since college, he was still in fantastic shape, still built like she imagined a lacrosse player might be—all dense, solid strength and explosive power, if the way he held her like she weighed nothing was any indication. A little trail of soft, dark hair disappeared beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, and she jerked her gaze back up, face aflame at the sight of it.
“It’s bad, right?” Theo’s throat bobbed, and he rolled his lips nervously as he swallowed.
“Frankly, I’m surprised you’re alive,” Audrey muttered, lifting her fingers again in wonder to the deepest parts of the scar on his face and his chest.
“Me too,” he murmured. “It’s a miracle I lived. I have titanium screws and a plate in my cheek holding my face together. The bone there was shattered, and my hip was even worse. I was in a coma for a few days. I should’ve died.”
“I’m really glad you didn’t.”
He opened his mouth, shut it, and then swallowed thickly again with a nod. “Me too,” he finally ventured.
She turned her attention back to the tape. “All right,” she said, rubbing her hands together matter-of-factly. “So do we just stick this on?”
She helped him cover the length of the scar in sections, cutting and placing the clear strips carefully onto his skin. She’d had noidea his wound was that extensive, and she could only imagine how hard it had been for him to show her.
It meant a lot that he had.
When they were through, she tried to hop off the counter again, but he blocked her with his left arm once more before she could.
