I wake with a start. My mind is scrambled from the dream that started out with Jett kissing me. Then, when he leaned back, it was no longer Jett but Grady whose lips were mesmerizing mine.
But now it’s no one’s. Now it’s only the muted light of the predawn and the chill of the morning air against my nakedness. Trying to snuggle back under the covers, I roll to my side and am met with Grady’s back.
My breath catches at the sight of it up close. Scars are layered one upon another in a plane of destruction. Some areas look tight to the touch, the scar tissue constricting the skin. Others look like a sea of lava slid its way down his back and left different grooves from spot to spot. There is red and pink and every shade in between, every texture from smooth to puckered, every indication of the hell he endured.
Add to that, there are tiny lacerations in various spots of his scars where his skin has cracked open some and bled.
The fight. The blood on his shirt. It wasn’t the other guy’s. It was Grady’s.
So many thoughts race through my mind. Are the small tears painful? And if so, will it ever get any better so he doesn’t hurt? Add to that, does it hurt when I touch him?
“We were in a three-alarm fire on the edge of town in an industrial park,” he begins in a whisper, but the pain is just as raw and real as the scars on his skin. He keeps his back to me but continues on, somehow knowing I’m awake and studying them. “Drew . . . God, Drew. He wouldn’t fucking listen. We were trying to knock down some debris in a room that was fueling the fire when he swore he heard someone calling for help. I couldn’t hear shit besides the crackle and pop of the flames. We’d been told the building was cleared, but he swore he kept hearing it.”
“Grady.” I don’t know what to say. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
“Well, it seems kind of pertinent since we are dating and all that.” I hear the smile in his voice, and for a brief second, I wonder if he’s being serious since we’re both in bed—naked. Then I realize he’s referring to the Jett situation.
I chuckle and give in to the urge to reach out and touch his arm in a show of silent support. He jerks when my fingers connect, but I keep them where they rest. Away from his myriad of scars but close enough for him to know they don’t disgust me.
After a few seconds, he exhales a shaky breath and relaxes.
Baby steps.
“It seemed like it happened so fast and took forever all at the same time. I knocked a window out, and when I turned around, he was heading into the next room when we should have been getting the hell out because the fire was too damn hot. But that was Drew . . . selfless. Wanting to take care of others before he took care of himself. We got separated when a ceiling beam fell. Then another. And another. I couldn’t get to him, and he was trapped somehow. Then I heard his PASS alarm. He’d stopped moving. I went crazy trying to get to him, but then the roof collapsed on me.”
“Jesus, Grady.”
“There was no Jesus there that day. If there had been, he wouldn’t have taken Drew.”
There’s an understandable anger in his voice. The silence settles around us as I try to imagine the horror he endured. The fear. The helplessness. And I know that no matter what I imagine, the reality was a hundred times worse.
“The other day at the farmers’ market,” he continues, “that was his widow and their son. Shelby and Brody. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you . . . I just—sometimes it’s hard for me to talk about it. I think about it twenty-four seven, and we were having a nice time. I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“It’s okay.”
“Drew’s last words to me were to take care of Brody since he knew his son was going to lose his father.” I squeeze my hand where it is, words failing me as my eyes well with tears. “Do you know how hard it was hearing him say that and knowing he knew?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Not more than I am.” I rub my thumb back and forth on his arm, accepting his comment for what it is—him and his guilt instead of a poor-me statement. “There are days I suit up and go to work . . . and, Christ, I don’t want to. But being a firefighter . . .”
“It’s not something you do, it’s something you are,” I murmur, knowing full well the commitment, the sacrifice, the selflessness, and selfishness that comes with the occupation.
“I was going to say something else, but that is definitely more accurate.” He sighs heavily. “The playroom? I couldn’t care less about the damn playroom, but I’m building it for Brody. So he has a place to go when he needs to remember his dad and hear stories about him from those who were his friends.”
My heart swells in my chest. And he calls Drew selfless? It sounds like he’s cut from the same cloth as his friend. There’s no use in pointing it out though, because he’ll just reject it anyway.
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it as he grows older. It will help keep Drew’s memory alive.”
“Yeah, well . . . it’s the least I can do for him.” He runs a hand through his hair, my hand on his bicep shifting with the movement. “Everything is just fucked up, Dylan. All of it. In every sense of the word. I should have been able to save him. I should have been able to get to him.”
“You did everything you could. I wasn’t there, but I know you did.”
“It doesn’t matter because it wasn’t good enough. I didn’t fulfill my promise to him. There was no two-in, two-out.”
More silence smothers the room, but I give him a moment because I sense he needs it right now. I leave my hand where it is and close my eyes, freeing a tear that I’m sure he would hate that I’ve shed.
“There are cuts . . .” I say and cringe.
“The skin in some parts is thin. Some of the grafts aren’t as thick as my natural skin is. Other parts are stretched so tight that when I do something that isn’t typical—”
“Like punching someone.”
“Like punching someone.” He chuckles. “The skin tears. I don’t always notice it. I don’t always feel it. But it happens like it did last night.”
“Do they hurt?” I ask while he’s talking.
“Some spots always hurt. Others have no feeling at all. Supposedly, there will come a time when the pigment will lighten or I’ll gain some elasticity . . . but there’s no determining what scar tissue will or won’t do, so only time will tell.”
“I mean this in the nicest of ways, but they are fascinating to look at.”
He laughs. “That’s a first.”
“No, I’m serious.” I shake my head while mentally kicking myself for speaking my thoughts aloud. “I mean, of course, they look painful, but they’re also a roadmap of where you’ve been and where you’re going.”
“Dylan—”
“No. Hear me out. We all have scars. Some are visible. Some aren’t. In the end, they represent the fact that you’re stronger now than whatever tried to hurt you. For you, it just means that you’re stronger than the fire.”
There’s a weight to his silence, making me feel as if maybe I’ve overstepped.
“You’re the first person I’ve met who isn’t repulsed by them.” His voice is solemn, and I wish he’d turn so I can see his eyes. So he can see mine.
“I find that hard to believe, Grady.”
“It’s true.”
“Are you telling me that your brothers and your parents are disgusted by them? Of you? What about Mallory?”
His laugh is unexpected and confusing. “Christ. Is it embarrassing to say I’ve always left a shirt on with her? Either that or made damn sure the room was dark.”
His insecurities hit a chord with me. One I know all too well but am not exactly sure how to give a voice to . . . so I remain quiet.
“You’re the first person I’ve been with since and not kept a shirt on. I was pent-up on adrenaline—”
“Alcohol,” I correct because that’s surely why he slept with me.
“No. I wasn’t drunk. You don’t get to hide behind the alcohol to explain why we’re here right now.”
“And you don’t get to hide behind your shirt and scars to ignore me at other times, either,” I counter, hating that he has seen straight through my thought process.
“Not wearing a shirt was an oversight I’ve never made with others,” he says, ignoring my comment. “One I didn’t realize until I woke up.”
“I’m not sure if I should be offended that you’re mentioning the many others you’ve been with or I should take it as a compliment that you feel comfortable enough with me that you forgot,” I say to try to ease the discord he feels.
“Or option C: the sex was so good that I fell into a coma afterward and didn’t think twice about it.”
“Option C could have been a definite possibility,” I murmur and acknowledge to myself his knack for falling back on humor when he’s uncomfortable.
“There haven’t been that many women since, you know.”
“Wild-child, Grady Malone? I highly doubt that.”
He chuckles, but then it fades and falls flat. “You’d be amazed by how much all of this has put people off.”
My heart hurts for him and the disgrace that taints every word he speaks. “I’m not scared, Grady. I’m not put off.” The words are barely audible, but by the slight nod of his head, I know he heard me. “You don’t have to wear a shirt around me. Hell, I have mermaid thighs and hips for days and one ab to your eight for God’s sake.”
“I don’t have a single complaint about any of those traits of yours. In fact, I seem to like your thighs and hips and—”
“Ha. You like what’s between them is what you’re saying.”
“This is true,” he muses.
“Let me tell you, those traits of mine are all much worse than the badge of honor you wear on your back.”
The muscle beneath my hand tenses as he physically rejects what I’m saying. “Christ, Dylan—”
“Don’t.” I stop him from arguing with me because it’s my turn to make him feel better about himself—even if it’s at my own expense. “I’m well aware I’m not svelte, so no need to try to stroke my ego.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“And so are you,” I whisper, leaning my head forward and pressing my lips ever so softly to the top of his shoulder in an effort to reinforce the words. His body flinches and his breath hitches as I make him uncomfortable but for all the right reasons.
“I’ll be the first to admit I’m a vain son of a bitch. If you knew how many hours I spent in the gym before the fire, you would probably laugh. I was obsessed with adding definition to this muscle group or that one, and then I’d walk around shirtless to show them off. To be admired. My ego didn’t need any stroking, that’s for sure.”
“You were proud of your body. That’s something I’ll never be, so I’m sure I’d be the same.”
“I felt like the fire was fate’s way of telling me it didn’t matter how damn perfect I was because there were other things that were way more important. It’s like I was marked for being self-centered.”
“I disagree with you.”
“Yeah, well, I used to work out because it was the way to feed my ego. Now I work out to save my soul.” His words strike me to the core. A fresh round of tears well, and I fight them back, trying not to think about him alone in the gym, struggling against some unforeseen beast in his mind. “Most nights I go late because there is no one there to watch me. I go late because when my skin tears like it did last night, it bleeds through my shirt . . . and that’s the last thing I need people to see, to gossip about, or pity me for.”
“Do you really think anyone cares what your back looks like? You’re a hero, Grady. You tried to save him.”
His chuckle isn’t convincing. “Tell that to my ex-girlfriend who broke up with me because she couldn’t handle this. The scars. The nightmares. My fucked-up head. I mean, I’m sure I wasn’t a peach after everything happened. But when I overheard her on the phone telling a friend how nasty my scars were and how there was no way she could look at them every day without cringing. How she couldn’t fake being okay with them . . . well, that tells me people do care.”
“She’s a shallow bitch.” The words are out, and I don’t care that they are because she is one. I can picture him—a man struggling to heal physically and mentally and what comments like those did to him and his psyche.
“Perhaps she is, but she isn’t the only one. This is a small town, Dylan. Everyone knows everyone, and they’re all curious about what happened to pretty-boy Malone. They all want to see how bad he looks. They all want to know if the scars are really that horrible, and then, of course, there are the assholes who question if I was selfish and tried to save myself instead of trying to save Drew.”
“No one thinks that.”
“I bet Shelby does. How could she not? Every time I look her in the eyes, I know I didn’t do enough. I know she looks at me and wonders how I couldn’t save him but I could sure as shit save myself.”
There are so many things I want to say to him. That he was trying to get to Drew to save him. That he wasn’t being selfish. So many truths I could tell him that would negate what he just said, but I know they’ll fall on deaf ears. He feels how he feels, and no one is going to change that. Least of all me.
“Will you turn around?” I ask him finally, hoping that we’re both lying here naked is enough for him not to feel like he’s the only vulnerable one.
He doesn’t respond.
There’s a momentary hesitation of indecision before he abruptly scoots to the edge of the bed. “I’ve gotta get to work on the playroom. I’m behind schedule.”
And with that, I’m left alone in Grady’s bed with the scent of him still on my skin, the desire for more of him still aching in my lower belly, and the sight of his bare ass walking to the bathroom door before he shuts it behind him.