Chapter 2
Noah leaned his head against the damp wall of the gym sauna and closed his eyes. One, two, three, four. If he counted slowly and focused only on the next number, he could forget he’d left the safety of his apartment. Five, six, seven, eight. If anyone happened to look in his direction, they wouldn’t know he was a certified nut case as long as he kept his focus on the numbers. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. He could pretend his life wasn’t a PowerPoint presentation of one mistake after another. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. If he focused on the numbers, he wouldn’t focus on the fact he suffered from a serious case of the lusts for his incredibly hot asshole neighbor. The neighbor who clearly thought he engaged in some sort of illegal activity and, if every past encounter they’d had was any indication, hated him.
He stopped counting, banged the back of his head against the wall, and tried to fantasize that he was a normal person instead of a walking, talking disaster. His mental shape that morning wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity of good; it never was after a work night. He hated himself for what he did to earn money—what he let them do to him for money—but his illness didn’t allow for a lot of job opportunities, so he sucked it up and did what had to be done. The following day always left a bad taste in his mouth and an ache in his heart, but this Saturday had been exceptionally bad. He’d made a fool of himself in front of his neighbor last night and ended up making the man dislike him even more.
For about the millionth time in the past four years, he asked himself what his life would’ve been like if only he’d minded his own business and kept his fucking mouth shut. Would he be normal?
He’d wanted to be a veterinarian since he was six years old, and if he’d kept on the path he’d planned, he would be close to opening his own clinic by now. Would his parents finally be proud of him? Would he know the kiss of the sun against his skin while he swam in the ocean or walked on a beach? Would he have a lover? Thanks to online classes, he possessed several degrees and could speak six languages. Thanks to his illness, he couldn’t use his degrees and didn’t have anybody to talk to, regardless of what language they spoke.
He opened his eyes and looked around the steamy room, assuring himself he remained alone. Most folks avoided him like the plague. It didn’t take long for people to realize he was…different.
Odd.
Strange.
Pathetic.
He made people just as uncomfortable as they made him, so when people saw him enter the sauna, they suddenly decided a prostate exam would be more enjoyable than a relaxing date with the steam room. Sure, he could be stretching the reality or just having himself a grand ole pity party, but facts were facts. He walked in; people walked out.
His ability to clear a room hadn’t really bothered him all that much until his new neighbor moved in. Zachary. Last night might have been a colossal fuck-up of epic proportions, but he’d at least finally learned his neighbor’s name. He liked it. Zachary. It fit. Zachary was hotter than fuck and managed to wake up a part of him he’d feared had deserted his body without planning on returning. His sex drive had been virtually dormant since the attack and his ensuing illness, and the meds he required to keep a weak grip on his sanity didn’t help. Zachary woke his defunct sex drive the fuck up. The lust was dormant no longer!
Okay, so his body whispered that sex might be back on the menu. Why, oh why, did he have to be attracted to someone who disliked him so damned much? An even better question was why the man found him so…repulsive. Yeah, that was the best word he could come up with to describe the look in Zachary’s eyes on the few occasions where they’d made eye contact. Sure, every other person in the apartment complex avoided him, but they didn’t have revulsion dancing around in their eyes. It usually resembled something closer to pity. They knew something was wrong with him, but they couldn’t quite figure out what it was, so maybe they just felt sorry for him. Oh, and avoided him.
He shook his head and tried to make his mind focus on some sort of plan for his future instead of worrying about all the shit that was wrong with him because of his past. Zachary. How could he make the man look past all the red flags surrounding him and see that beneath all of it, he was…
Shit. The word okay didn’t fit. Hell, he wasn’t even sure nice guy would work. There wasn’t anybody to practice his nice-guy skills on, so as far as he knew, he was a complete douche. He had Cameron—his one and only friend. Cameron took care of him and made sure he got what he needed to survive. Then again, Cameron worked for the district attorney’s office and FBI, so a heavy chance existed he wasn’t really Noah’s friend at all. They probably paid Cameron to keep their ex-star witness on a tight leash in case Donovan Moretti ever decided to show his face again.
Noah shook his head and frowned. No, Cameron was actually nice to him, appeared to worry about him, and made sure Noah found a way to make money without ever leaving his apartment building. Hell, the man bought his groceries. He loaded him down with delicious chocolates and all those naughty goodies that were bad for a body. Surely that was true friendship love, right?
Cameron didn’t like Zachary. No, he didn’t care for Noah’s obsession with Zachary. After Noah had spent a good thirty minutes trying to guess what his neighbor did for a living—anything from an MMA fighter to a porn star to a former Navy SEAL—Cameron sat him down and calmly explained why dwelling on the man who lived next door wouldn’t be healthy for someone with no future and a past he couldn’t forget.
Hell, Cameron was probably right to be worried. Noah possessed an unhealthy infatuation, and he suspected, with now one hundred percent certainty after their run-in last night, that the muscle-god who lived next door disliked him immensely. Where exactly could this boy-crush raging through him lead? No-the-fuck-where. Zachary, with all his bulging muscles and hot tattoos, wasn’t interested. End of story.
That might be the end of the story, but clearly not the end of his fantasizing. For ninety-four days, he’d thought of nothing except how fucking hot the guy looked every time he saw him. Every. Damn. Time. How did somebody look good all the time? Even when he left in the mornings to go to work, wherever he worked. Noah knew this because he watched him through the peephole in his door. He looked good when he came home from work, tired but fucking good. When he worked out in the gym? Holy motherfucking son of all that was holy. Intimidating didn’t cover it. Muscular. Dominant. Confident. Powerful. He was the opposite of everything Noah was…and Noah wanted to taste it.
Just once.
Maybe more than once.
Definitely more than once.
The first time he’d watched Zachary work out in their gym, Noah’s cock had shown some signs of life all by itself. No Viagra needed to wake that bad boy up when Zachary, hot neighbor, was around. Being twenty-two and getting a hard-on shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? Being twenty-two and on six antidepressants made getting an erection about as easy as winning the lottery.
But Zachary somehow overrode all those pharmaceutical impediments.
Mysterious vibe? Check.
Enough muscles and tattoos to make Noah’s mouth water? Check.
Gray eyes that smoldered when he looked at anybody except Noah? Check.
Sexy voice? Check.
He checked all the get-Noah-hot boxes, but then when you added the dog into the mix, Noah’s lust level soared off the charts. He loved animals—all animals. Though there were quite a few he’d rather not cuddle up to or watch take down prey in the wild, they all pulled at his heartstrings. He wanted to cuddle them, squeeze them, hug them, and pet them.
But he couldn’t want those things. Not when he was afraid of his own shadow and couldn’t leave the apartment building. He pushed the damp hair off his face as he considered what pet might be a good fit for him. He’d considered a cat. Since they used litterboxes, he wouldn’t have to take it outside to use the bathroom. But all animals needed sunshine, even if only from a window. He wouldn’t be able to share that with them thanks to the thick black curtains that covered every single damned window. And what about medical attention on a regular basis? Yeah, he couldn’t add an extra job onto Cameron’s already long list of babysitting duties. The extra burden wasn’t fair. So, he’d decided long ago he’d have no pets until he finally learned to put on his big boy britches and step back out into the big, bad world.
So…no pets for Noah. Period.
He’d gotten to pet Zachary’s German shepherd a grand total of four times. She had soft fur and friendly eyes. Her owner? Nothing soft about his hot body, and definitely no friendly eyes when he looked in Noah’s direction.
At least the dog was all right, not that Zachary or his friend had dropped by to let him know his worries had been for nothing. No, he’d been lucky enough to see Zachary taking her out for her evening bathroom break in between sessions last night. Through the peephole, of course. It would be a cold day in hell before he made the mistake of stepping out into the hallway when Zachary was out there. Contrary to what one would think when reviewing his history, he wasn’t really a glutton for punishment. He just made dumbass decisions that led to punishing experiences.
He needed to count instead of rehash shit that had been hashed over millions of times inside his head. Counting calmed him. Rehashing the hash produced the opposite result. He’d count his breaths—that was always a safe way to clear his mind. It was also an excellent way to remind him that he wasn’t normal and that he didn’t need to be dreaming girlie dreams about living a normal life. He tried to take a deep breath, but it ended in a strangled cough instead. Frowning, he opened his eyes and checked the clock on the wall.
Holy shit! He’d been in the sauna for over an hour. It was no wonder he couldn’t drag in a breath of air. What in the hell was he thinking? He quickly stood to make his escape, but grabbed the wall for support. Way too long. He tried to suck in a deep breath, but his lungs felt heavy. Not only had he stayed in too long, he’d forgotten to drink from his bottled water. He was dehydrated and already feeling sluggish. With slow but steady movements, he made his way to the door, paused, counted, gathered his courage, and then turned the door latch. He’d done this hundreds of times since the illness took over his life, but opening a door and forcing himself to step out, simply moving from one room into another, caused his heart to momentarily stop beating every single time. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he could remember a time when he’d not been afraid of anything. But that Noah didn’t exist anymore. Now everything scared him, including, but not limited to, walking through doorways.
Somebody started down the hall toward the sauna, saw him, and immediately remembered something they needed to do. They quickly turned and went back in the direction they’d been coming from. As he took a tentative step across the threshold, he shook his head; if it weren’t so sad, it would be funny.
No, there wasn’t one damned funny thing about his life.
On weak legs and with burning lungs, he walked down the short hall that led to the locker room. His eyes remained glued to the floor in front of him, and he counted each and every step—always exactly seventeen steps, but he counted anyway. With every step and with every number he ticked off in his head, he tried to stop himself from acknowledging how long he’d been away from the safety of his apartment. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
Almost five hours. Shit. That wasn’t good. Five hours. Bad. Very bad.
Finally reaching his locker, he forced his fingers to stop trembling long enough to unlatch the attached lock. A shower was out of the question. No time. Because of his nervous fumbling, it took much too long to slide into baggy sweats, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. He pushed his wallet into his pocket, slammed then locked his locker, and headed toward the door. He could do this. No biggie. Forty-seven steps to the lobby area. Seventy-six steps through the lobby to get to the elevator. Four steps to the corner of the elevator where he stood every time he rode it. Four steps off. Fourteen steps to his door.
There was no need to panic. He would not have a panic attack. They hurt. They scared him. He was stronger than that.
He made it to the elevator. Things were good. Four steps to his corner. The doors slid closed and he worked on counting his breaths as the floors whisked by. When the doors opened, he placed his right hand over his chest to assure himself his heart still beat at a regular pace. Fourteen steps later, he felt like he could conquer the world.
Five hours.
He’d been out of his apartment for five hours and the world hadn’t ended. His heart hadn’t exploded. No one had tried to kill him. Hell, no one had even noticed him as he’d moved through the busy lobby of his apartment complex.
Five hours.
He laughed out loud, feeling like a total badass. First, his dick got hard without Viagra and then he kicked life right in its fat ass. Five fucking hours. Cameron would shit when he heard about this record-setting success.
As he punched in the code to unlock his door, he knew the security guard responsible for monitoring the cameras would surely notice the dumbass smile on his face. He didn’t give a care. Badasses were allowed to smile at whatever they wanted to.
A strange noise caused his badass smile to vanish. A beep…declining his entry code.
His fingers trembled when he entered the numbers again. A declining beep.
The panic attack hit with lightning speed. One second, he could breathe; the next second, there wasn’t any oxygen available.
Dizziness.
Tunnel vision.
His heart seized, and in his mind, he could see it stop beating. Pain gripped every portion of his body. He needed air, but there wasn’t any. His finger found the panic button on the bracelet he always wore. A voice immediately asked if he needed assistance, but he couldn’t talk. He couldn’t breathe. His heart wouldn’t beat. Even though there was no escape, he tried to force his feet to move in the direction of the elevator. The urge to escape kept him moving, even when there was nowhere to run.
Before he could push the button to open the doors, a new pain, something he hadn’t experienced in any of his other panic attacks, exploded inside his head when he crashed to the floor.