“Are you close with your family?” I was breathing harder than I expected to and I could hardly see through the rivers of sweat running down my face. It was a different kind of workout then I was used to, but my muscles were definitely straining and pulling. He dropped into what looked like a stationary push-up and I went to follow but paused. “I don’t know if my shoulder is up to this.”
“You have to bend your elbows and balance your weight. It’s all about finding your center and letting your whole body bear the weight, not just the large muscle groups.” I stretched my legs out behind me and went to push up but stopped before I got off the floor when his hands were on the center of my back and curving over my biceps to get me in the correct position. It felt like flames were dancing along every part of my bare skin where he touched me. “I’m super tight with my family. They’ve always been very supportive of me. How about you?”
When I levered up and balanced on my toes I waited with bated breath for my leg to give out or for my shoulder to flat-out collapse under the strain, but with my elbows bent and his hands holding me where I was supposed to be I kept myself perfectly horizontal to the floor with minimal effort. I blew out a long breath and told him, “My family is just the girls and my mom. My dad was killed on duty when I was ten. My mom never remarried or got serious with anyone until us kids were older, so all we had was each other.” I wheezed a little as my arms finally started to shake so I let him push me back to the ground and followed the guide of his hands as he had me bow my torso back so that I was arched up looking at him upside down as he stood over me.
“You father was a police officer as well?”
“Yeah.”
“And even though you lost him you wanted to follow in his steps?” He sounded puzzled by my career choice and he wasn’t the only one. My mother cried for a week straight when I was accepted into the academy. Even though all I had ever wanted to do was follow in my dad’s footsteps.
“Being a cop was the only option for me. I never considered anything else. That’s part of the reason why I’m so anxious to get back to it. I don’t have a backup plan, Lando. This is it for me.” It came sounding a little more raw and desperate than I intended it to, but it was the truth. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself if I couldn’t go back on patrol and that was terrifying.
“Hmm …” He switched things around so that I was sitting upright and had a leg bent in front of me and my entire torso wrapped around it like a pretzel. I narrowed my eyes at him because he made it look effortless and I was breathing heavily and sweating buckets and not just from the temperature in the room. “Why was that it for you? You lost your father; you had to see how it hurt your mother and sisters and I bet they worry about you all the time. Why would you pick that as your only option?”
It was a good question. One I wasn’t sure I had an answer to. “I wanted to make my dad proud. I wanted to help people. I wanted a job where no one would question my authority or my …” I yelped as I bent too far and my thigh protested. I rolled over and ended up back on my back as I looked up at him. He was shiny with sweat from the heat in the room and his eyes were intently focused on me.
“Your masculinity or your sexuality? You wanted a job that was associated with being a man even if you just happened to be attracted to other men?”
I crossed my hands and rested them on my abs as my breath whooshed in and out. “Maybe that was part of it as I got older but as far back as I can remember I wanted to wear a uniform and to carry a badge. I wanted to make a difference.” I closed my eyes and drifted back in time. “I wanted to make sure no one else had to stand by their father’s grave holding their mother’s hand while she sobbed and sobbed.”
“She very easily could be standing next to your grave next, Dominic.” The words were so quiet it was almost like he breathed them instead of spoke them and there wasn’t anything I could say to argue that he was wrong because he wasn’t.