CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jay

Why was this so hard? I couldn’t recall having felt so frustrated.

I talked to myself, like usual. There wasn’t anyone to talk to. But that was on purpose—for the entire day, I’d been avoiding everyone in the house.

I looked down at my hands where they were poised on my keyboard. My mind kept on straying back to the night with Margo. I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to sit here and work on my article for the store’s blog, and forget.

So far, it wasn’t working out.

I turned away and let myself lean back in the chair, the evening sunshine bathing my face. It was five thirty, and the sun was starting to sink below the hills. I let the warmth soak into my tense shoulders and tried to forget.

Margo.

My mind was full of her. The harder I tried to erase memories of last night, the harder they resurfaced.

My mind was empty of everything but her.

I couldn’t focus on work, on what people said, on myself. I had meant to update my CV and finish this article today, but so far nothing was working out. It was, to put it mildly, frustrating.

“Jay?” a voice called from downstairs. I closed my eyes.

“Yes, Mom?”

“Can you come down and help me a moment?”

I sighed. “Okay.” So much for avoiding people all day.

I pushed aside my laptop and headed downstairs. It was slow, painstaking work getting down the stairs. Part of me appreciated the fact that Mom felt free to call me down as often as she liked. At least she didn’t pity me or think of me as in any way incapacitated. She seemed to forget about it, which was both heartening and frustrating.

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “Could you take out the trash?”

She was kidding, right? I can’t even go to the gym without getting depressed. “Sure.”

She chuckled. “Thank you, son.”

I made a long-suffering face. She laughed and then unlocked the door as I lifted the bag and hobbled out with it.

When I returned upstairs—going up was harder—I sat down heavily at the desk. I was breathing hard and I was mad at myself. I should work out more, but the thought of it made me cringe. What would people think of me?

It shouldn’t take so much out of me to climb two flights of stairs. I lifted the screen. I read through what I’d written and sighed. I would never get this work done at this rate. I’d promised the boss I’d send it off as soon as I could. So far, I had ten sentences. Great start.

I sighed and shook my head. I was twitchy, miserable and confused.

I was also determined.

I was not going to let temptation lead me to mess up someone’s life.

“Dammit, I left her because of this.”

I had vowed to myself when I lay in the hospital that I would not burden anyone with myself. Not my parents, not my buddies, not a girl. And, especially, not this one. Not her. Margo.

I closed my eyes, blotting out the memory of how her soft, scented body pressed against mine, the feeling of her breasts against me, the amazing way she seemed to melt as I held her tight against me, her body molded tight to mine.

I am absolutely not going to think about her. I am going to stop it now and pretend I never saw her right now. Before it’s far too late.

When I was finished with the rehab and able to walk on crutches, I’d chatted with the physio. It was her idea that I go to tech in Houghton and become a nutritionist. I’d never stop being grateful I’d done that. It had allowed me to break with my past. To step away from able, handsome Jay into lame, plain Jay.

And now I’d gone and screwed it up.

I had worked so hard, then, to walk away—but now I’d been stupid and let myself give into temptation and now I had to work extrahard to walk away again. I had to. I couldn’t do this to her. Margo was part of other Jay’s life, the one who I wanted to forget. The one when I was whole and handsome and deserving of a girl like her.

I had pretended not to notice some of the stares we got in the restaurant, but I had noticed them. Not while we were seated—the leg wasn’t apparent then—but when we left. Worse than that, I recalled how Margo had looked at me when she’d walked in and found me trying to get my underwear off the floor. I had felt humiliated. I wasn’t planning to feel like that again.

I closed my eyes, determined not to let this get to me. I focused on the outside, listened to the noises in the yard, in the street. The sounds drifting up through the floor from below me.

“I know! It’s incredible. Isn’t it, Sherril?”

“Mm. It is, Don.”

I smiled. My parents, chatting in the living room. The rise and fall of their voices was a pleasant background burr, the sound of my childhood. They had a strong bond.

I wish I could have a bond like that with someone, one day.

I snorted. I was thirty-one, for crying out loud! I still had so many years ahead of me. Why was I suddenly thinking about things like that? Four years ago, I would have laughed at myself.

That was before my leg changed everything.

I chuckled. For a thing that could do nothing at all, it sure caused a load of trouble.

I had a career, another life. I needed to forget it.

I should be happy. Could I be happy.

I would be happy, I told myself crossly, if I could just finish work on this damn article. I bent over and settled down.

I was a good page in when someone knocked on the door, making me jump.

“Jay?”

“Mom!” I whipped round, startled out of my tranquility. “Hell. Sorry. You made me jump.”

She chuckled. “Sorry, son. I just wanted to ask if you’re okay with fish tonight?”

I blinked. “Sure. Sounds awesome. I’m fine with anything you cook, Mom.”

She smiled softly at me. “Well, it’s good to have a son with an appetite.”

“Mom, you know you’re a good cook,” I mumbled. I turned back to my work. There was something about the fondness in her eyes that made me want to talk to her and that was at this point the last thing I thought was wise. She had probably noticed my absence last night.

I didn’t want to have to tell her what happened. And why I wasn’t following through.

“I guess I should let you get on with it,” she said evenly.

“Mm. Thanks. Sorry—I guess I should offer to help?”

She chuckled. “It’s okay. Everything pretty much comes ready. I just need to open some boxes and things.”

I smiled. “Good. I’ll be down at seven. Okay?”

“Okay, son,” she nodded tranquilly. “See you then.”

I set to work, trying to make myself interested in the writeup on creatine in bodybuilding.

“…and creatine supplementation appears to increase the number of myonuclei that cells will ‘donate’ to damaged muscle fibers, which increases the growth of those fibers….”

I was reading out of an article, simplifying it in my head as I went along. Basically, creatine made your muscles grow. I knew that better than anyone. I rolled my shoulders experimentally. I was glad they were still intact—in fact, one part of my body the crutches benefited was my shoulders.

In fact, if it wasn’t for this leg, I’d say I’m not bad looking.

I caught sight of myself in the window as I stood, the darkening sky beyond it making it a mirror. I still had a long, square-jawed face with those big blue eyes and an unbroken nose. I was handsome, I guessed. But I was also utterly unable to get stuff off the floor without having to be on my knees, and incapable of walking from here to the door without either using the crutches or doing a lurching, undignified hop.

In short, I wasn’t dating material.

I resisted the urge to take my phone downstairs in my pocket. If I had it with me, I would be tempted to reply to Margo’s text message.

I had read the thing about fifty times, poised to answer it. Then I’d put it away, leaving my phone in my jacket and my jacket on the windowsill, out of sight.

“Jay?” I heard my father calling up the stairs.

I sighed. “Coming, Dad.”

I slid my arms into the crutches and swung out through the door.

Stairs were hard. I was grateful the rest of the family were in the kitchen so no one had to see me go down crab-like—one hand on the banister, the other hand holding my crutches. I relied heavily on my shoulders and wondered what I would’ve done if they hadn’t already been pretty big.

I guess they would just have got stronger.

I reached the bottom, jaw tight with the effort, and headed in for dinner.

“It’s a pity you missed my stew last night,” Mom said wistfully, putting a piece of delicious-looking fish on my plate.

“Oh?” I frowned. My cheeks went pink. I willed her not to ask me where I’d been.

“It was great stew,” my father spoke up distantly. I could have hugged him. I didn’t know whether he’d deliberately diverted attention from me or if he’d done it naturally, but I was grateful.

“I remember Mom’s stew,” I said softly. “It’s always good. Was it the regular one?”

“No,” Mom said quickly. “This was one with tomatoes. I had to do something with the things after Auntie Lulu brought them over.”

I chuckled and the conversation headed down friendlier avenues—discussing people and places we all knew, references we shared to past events. No one mentioned my absence the previous night or asked where I’d been, for which I was grateful.

After dinner, I went upstairs, wanting to be alone again. I had escaped any questions so far and I didn’t want to elicit any more. I could feel my mom about to ask something at various points in the dinner and I felt the need to evade her. In the study, I managed to finish the article, for which I was grateful, and sent it off. I closed my eyes. Now that it was through, I had nothing else to divert my attention from Margo.

Left alone to myself at the end of the day, I was free to let my imagination run wild. I remembered the way it had felt to push my tongue between those soft, pillowy lips. I felt myself get hard as I thought of how good it felt to plunder her mouth with my tongue.

She had leaned against me, those soft breasts crushed against my chest, her body soft and scented of flowers, some expensive perfume I had never figured out what it was. I sighed, recalling how intoxicating it smelled on her skin, how pale she was, her skin glowing in the light of the streetlamps as she drove home.

My mind fed me an image of her naked—her high, firm breasts, narrow waist, soft hips. I allowed myself to fantasize about her, the way it felt to push inside her, the way she yelled and shivered as I entered her.

I was helplessly aroused just thinking about it and I knew I was going to find it hard to sleep tonight. I could feel my cock straining at the fastening of my jeans and I looked down with a wry smile. I couldn’t help how hopelessly Margo affected me.

“No.” I told myself sternly as I felt myself, almost involuntarily, reach for my phone. I was not—absolutely not—answering her.

I could fantasize as much as I wanted but I wasn’t budging on this. Margo was better without me.