It didn’t take long for his whole body to tighten behind me or for mine to quake in response. When he came, he whispered my name. When I came, I shouted his so loudly that I was pretty sure the neighbors could hear it.
We stayed like that for a long minute. Breathing hard and trying to figure out who won the fight … fear or love. As soon as he pulled out of me and there was distance both physical and emotional between us, it kind of felt like a toss-up.
“Sorry, I ruined dinner.” He sounded sheepish and unsure.
I snorted and surveyed the mess we had made of dinner and of each other. “You made up for it in spades but don’t tell my mom what we ended up using her tablecloth for. I’m gonna tell her I stained it and tossed it in the trash.”
He laughed and our eyes met. Love was there, bright and clear, but that dirty bastard fear was still hanging on for dear life in the background. It looked like the battle had been won, but the war continued to rage on.
Chapter 12
Lando
It was already a tough day before I even met with my first client. Today Dom was going in for his last physical test to get his badge back and even though he never asked, I could see it in his eyes when he left my apartment that morning that he wanted me there. It was a victory we had worked towards together, but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t bring myself to celebrate with him and it hurt me to hurt him. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even wish him good luck as I kissed him good-bye.
Not only was I disappointing Dom, which sucked, but I was also feeling slightly heartbroken for another, unrelated reason. My client for the morning was a little girl who was going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life because her younger brother had found their father’s gun and accidentally discharged it right at her within close range. It was a heartbreaking case because she was so young, but also because every day she came to see me her mother came and brought the little brother.
They were obviously a family in crisis. The little girl tried so hard every day to go through the exercises I gave her so she could keep her upper body strength and her core strength intact, but the mother, instead of being encouraging and helpful, instead of praising her daughter’s courage and strength, spent the session fighting back tears and casting hateful looks at the little boy, who couldn’t be any more than five or six. He never spoke, never uttered a word, but he also never left his sister’s side. It was obvious the mother blamed him for the accident and her daughter’s condition. I wanted to ask her why she didn’t put that anger and blame on the grown-ups in the house who were responsible for gun safety, but I didn’t want to cause any more of a rift, and taking care of the girl was my priority.
But, like always, I couldn’t stand to see anyone in pain and hurting, so the following week during their session I asked the little boy to help me with some of the exercises. At first he balked because his mother told him to stay away from his sister, but when I cut her a look that indicated I was a hot second away from kicking her out of the room altogether, she changed her tune. I moved the little boy in front of the girl where she was sitting on the floor with her immobile legs in front of her and handed him a heavy length of rope.