Together We Heal (13 page)

“You don’t have to put it on,” he said.

“No, I’ll put it on. I want to get the full experience.” My bathing suit, I cursed myself, was a bikini. I’d probably only worn it once. I wasn’t much of a beach bum, but I had one so I could go to the pool with my friends if I wanted to.

Max also had a suit, but it was in the form of a pair of board shorts. There was more material in his shorts than in my suit, that was for sure.

He turned around and waited while I changed. I still felt completely naked when I had the thing on.

“You can turn around now,” I said and he did so, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

“Fucking hell,” he said.

I looked down at myself. I was fine with my body. It wasn’t anything all that special. Well, except for the tattoos. Compared to the average person, I had a lot.

“I just want to stare at you for a while. Damn, this was the best date idea ever.” His eyes roamed up and down my body and I felt my face flame up. It was a wonder I wasn’t full-body blushing. My skin felt hot everywhere. Not an unpleasant feeling at all.

“Your body is fucking amazing. You should wear this all the time.”

“It would probably be a little cold,” I pointed out.

“Meh, it would be worth it.” I snorted.

“Yeah, for
you
.”

He stuck his index finger in the air and made a circle with it, asking me to do a little twirl. I wanted to roll my eyes at him, but I didn’t. I slowly pivoted on my feet and showed him the whole deal.

He’d stepped closer to me and I jumped when his fingers brushed the skin in the middle of my back where I had a huge piece done a year or so ago. Stryker had drawn it for me and Magnus had done the work. He’d done nearly all of my tattoos and most of my piercings as well. We had a good relationship and I trusted him not to fuck up my skin.

It was a giant multicolored tree with various birds in its branches. Some of the leaves were green, some were shaded toward autumnal colors. It was bright and totally beautiful. I’d fallen in love with it the second Stryker had shown me a drawing. Magnus had added his own flair and I’d taken the pain of several sessions to complete it. I was thinking about adding a few things to it, but that would be down the road. I didn’t want to cover my entire body with tattoos now. I thought of them as little road signs for my life, and I didn’t want them just for this time in my life.

“Wow,” he breathed and it tickled. I wiggled my shoulders and then turned my head a little. He was right there.

“My skin is so boring compared to yours,” he said. Normally I went for people who were tatted and pierced, but Max’s only modification was his hair. It was a departure for me, which just proved how much I liked him.

“I could take you to Magnus if you want to get something done,” I said. If that wouldn’t make me want to jump his bones, nothing would. Oh fuck, thinking about Max getting tattooed was so freaking hot. I shouldn’t have brought it up because now I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Maybe. I’d have to think about it.” I stepped away from him. Things were getting intense again.

“Okay, now that you’ve ogled me enough, get your suit on,” I said, shoving him a little.

“Fine, fine. But only as long as I get to stare at you some more. I could spend the rest of my life looking at your skin.” Now it was my turn to wait for him to put his suit on and when we faced each other again, he had the board shorts on. Max was a little on the skinny side, his hipbones just barely showing. I fucking loved that. So damn sexy. His chest was smattered with just a little bit of dark hair and there was a trail of it from his bellybutton downward.

Yeah, I had to stop looking downward. That was not what we needed right now.

I jacked my eyes back up to his face and now he was the shy one. Adorable.

“Well, should we get in the water?” he said, reaching out for my hand.

“I don’t know, is it safe?” I said, pointing to the inflatable shark.

“I’ll protect you, hun,” he said and we both sat down in the kiddie pool. There was barely enough room for two of us and the water was only a few inches deep. Still, it was goofy and fun and then he reached over into his mini fridge and pulled out two pre-made piña coladas with little umbrellas in them.

“I was going to try and get a sunlamp, but those things are expensive, so that was a no-go,” he said.

“Well, you went all out,” I said, sipping my drink.

“I try. I just want to make every day with you special.” I tried to stretch my legs out, but there wasn’t enough room.

“You don’t have to try. Just being with you makes it special.” He sighed and leaned back.

“I know, but I still like doing these things for you. Mostly because I like seeing how irritated you get when you don’t know what we’re doing, and then the surprise on your face when you figure it out.” He grinned at me and I splashed him.

“Be careful, I don’t want to get busted for having a pool in my room.” We both laughed.

“What are you going to do with this thing after tonight?” He definitely couldn’t keep it in the middle of the floor. There was hardly any room to maneuver around it.

“I think I’ll give it to Stryker and Katie. They can use it for the baby when it gets bigger.” To me, the baby was still a strange concept. I couldn’t picture it yet. It would be months until we’d find out if it was a boy or a girl and until then, it still felt like an unreal thing.

“Good plan,” I said and we sipped our drinks.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said, toweling his hand off and then grabbing the remote. He turned on the television and then played something from the DVD player.

“
Blue Crush
?” I asked as it started to play. I’d seen it before, but it didn’t seem like the obvious choice.

“I figured this had enough romantic content in it and it’s not too campy. I can’t stand any of those old beach blanket bingo movies.” He made a face and I totally agreed. Those movies belonged one place. In the past.

I moved closer to him and he put his arm around me. Within about twenty minutes, the water started to get cold, so we got out and toweled off.

“How are you going to drain it?” I asked about the pool. He just laughed and messed with his hair like he did when he didn’t know the answer to something.

“That’s a good question. I guess I didn’t really think about the cleanup. It took me forever to bring the water from the bathroom sink to fill it up.”

“Well, you could just bail it out the window.” It would be way too much work to walk all the way to the bathroom and dump it one bucket at a time.

“Ah, good point.” He opened the window and then handed me a bucket.

“Start tossing.”

We bailed the rest of the water out and then tipped the pool up against the wall so it was out of the way. Max stretched out on some of the towels and motioned for me to sit next to him.

“Um, can I put some clothes on first?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, getting up and pulling something from his closet. “I anticipated that you might want this.” It was a fuzzy robe and he had a matching one for himself. He just thought of everything, didn’t he? I’d picked a winner.

We snuggled into our robes and watched the movie. I ended up falling asleep and woke to Max nudging me gently.

“Hey, why don’t we go to bed? The floor isn’t all that comfortable,” he whispered. I was too tired to form actual words, so I just moaned my agreement and moved so he could get up and help me to bed. I still had my suit on and the robe, but I definitely didn’t have the wherewithal to care.

Max climbed in next to me and then we were both out.

I WAS SO
fucking hard from waking up next to Trish the next morning, knowing she was just wearing a few scraps of material under that robe. It had come undone as she slept and for the first time, I woke before her and got to enjoy the view. I wished I had some sort of talent with art, because I wanted to draw her or something. Or take artsy black and white photographs of her curves. Since I couldn’t really do either of those things, I just stared and told my brain to remember every single detail. I only got a few minutes before her alarm went off and her eyes flew open.

“Ugh,” she said. Trish was adorably grouchy in the morning.

“Good morning to you too,” I said, breaking the kiss rule and putting one on the tip of her nose.

She rubbed her eyes, smudging her mascara from last night.

“Were you staring at me?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said without shame.

“Stop it,” she said, grabbing the ends of the robe and trying to cover her face.

“No way.”

We had a quick breakfast in my room after I’d talked my boner down and then we were both rushing to get to work.

“I’ll see you tonight,” I said, giving her a kiss as she dropped me off.

“Bye, Max.”

WORK WAS AWFUL.
There was a towel crisis and three of the treadmills broke and then our card reader went on the fritz. I was about ready to tear my fucking hair out. All I wanted was to go home to Trish.

To make matters worse, my mom called again. I let it go to voicemail and didn’t listen to it until I was waiting to clock out.

She reiterated the offer of the car, and how much she missed me, but she added something new this time. She mentioned that my dad wasn’t going to live forever and then what would happen with the business? I was an only child, so it would be mine whether I wanted it or not and wouldn’t it be a shame if my father’s hard work to build up his business went down the tubes because of me? Or if he had to sell it to some stranger who might ruin it.

She was good. I had to give her that. She had a PhD in guilt trips. But I’d had enough. I couldn’t do it anymore. I resented her for trying to hold onto me so hard which only made me want to go further away. Go figure.

Finally, I was done for the day and I headed outside to see my girl. There she was and I wanted to run and throw myself at her.

“So I was thinking about stuff at work and I talked with Lottie,” she said.

“Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good,” I said, pretending to be concerned.

“Be nice. Lottie just happens to be my best friend.” I knew that.

“I know, I know. So, what did she have to say?” I hoped it was something in my favor.

“Well, we were just talking about relationships and trust and stuff. She knows a lot about that.” She certainly did.

“And?” I asked.

“And I don’t know. I think the problem is that I’ve been thinking too much. Does that make sense?” I nodded. Of course it did.

“So anyway, I’ve basically decided to stop thinking and let things happen and if they become too much, I’ll let you know.” My heart pretty much stopped.

“When you say ‘let things happen’, what kind of things are we talking about?” I was pretty sure I knew, but I wanted to be absolutely sure before I did anything.

“Sex,” she said with no trace of hesitation or embarrassment.

“Sex as in you and me sex?” I said. Just saying the word was making me think about it and that was making things happen below the waist. My night had gone from super shitty to awesome with just that one word.