Chapter Twenty-Three

One of Cameron’s bedrooms had been converted into a gym, and when he was wheeled into it along the hallway of the old house, he was impressed by what he saw. There was a rowing machine, a bike, and several different weight machines. There was a bar along one wall, and even a sink with water. “This is pretty cool,” Dax said. “Did you put this in yourself?”

“When I worked as a personal trainer for the navy, a lot of the time the rehabilitation element was highly confidential,” Cameron said. “A bit like now, really. Nobody ever stayed here, but we’re talking some of the highest ranking members of the force. Sometimes even after they’d recovered from their injuries they still came over for a training session and it seemed to work well.”

“Why did you leave it behind?” Dax asked, but Cameron was already setting up a machine and didn’t seem to hear him.

“We’ll do some light exercises today,” he said. “Nothing too strenuous. Do you think you can come over to the bench here and sit on it?”

Dax wheeled himself over and transferred his weight on to the bench, facing toward the heavy weights rather than having them at his back as he usually would in his gym at home. He looked down at the increasing numbers embossed on the iron slabs. Ten pounds, twenty, fifty, a hundred and even two hundred. I used to bench one twenty without breaking a sweat, he thought. Now, it’ll kill me.

“First, let’s warm up,” Cameron said, and as they always did before their workout, they worked through a series of short exercises. Dax lifted his hands above his head, holding first one wrist and then the other, stretching out his triceps. Then he worked his biceps a little, and rolled his shoulders along with Cameron. When it came to his legs, Cameron had to help him, crouching down in front of him and taking one leg and then the other on his knee, warming up his calves. Then, they were ready to begin.

“Okay, so take hold of the handles,” Cameron said. “I’ll start you off on ten pounds. It seems like nothing, but I just want to start at the very bottom and work our way up, okay?”

In the therapy room of the hospital, Dax had sat on a bench and lifted dumbbells, but it was the first time he’d been at a machine in months. Cameron slotted the pin in just after the very first weight. “Okay,” he said. “Give me ten reps and we’ll go from there.”

Dax found the ten pounds easy, and while he was careful not to go too quickly, he didn’t struggle at all. Years of fitness regimes with his own personal trainer meant that at the time of his accident, he’d been in the best shape of his life. While Marcus, who put him through his paces every day, advised him to stay off the beer as much as he could, he was still able to keep up with him. Cameron had mentioned several times that it was his peak physical condition before the accident that gave him the best chance of recovery afterwards.

“Ah, that’s far too easy,” Cameron said after the tenth rep. “You’re making me look like a fool. Okay, we’ll double it, and this time, I want just five reps to begin with. Nice and easy now, please.”

So Dax pushed the handles forward once again, bringing them back to his chest and pushing them out once more. This time the weights gave him more resistance, but still he found them easy, and so Cameron pulled the pin out again and this time he benched thirty pounds, then forty. The pain kicked in on the second rep of the forty weights, and he grimaced and paused. “Too much?” Cameron asked.

“It’s like my shoulders don’t want to budge,” Dax replied through gritted teeth.

“What about your spine?”

“No pain there,” Dax admitted.

“Then I think it’s safe to continue, he said. “Your shoulders are stiff. All it takes is a couple of days without working out and they can seize up, especially because you’re spending so much time on your back. Try again.”

This time, Dax concentrated on the feeling in his back, and once he knew there was no pain there, save for the dull ache that always seemed to be present, he carried on with the reps. Once he finished, he asked Cameron to take him up to fifty.

“I’m not sure,” Cameron said. “Maybe that’s pushing it a little.”

“It’s what I want,” Dax said. “Let me try.”

Cameron pulled the pin out and placed it under the fifty pound weight, and Dax gripped the handles and pushed with grim meaning. He made it to two before stopping, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Why the fuck can’t I do it?” he asked. “My arms aren’t the problem. The break’s healed. I used to bench double this.”

Seeing the frustration etched on his face, Cameron pulled the pin out and put it back to forty. Then he crouched beside Dax. “You’ve been here barely twelve hours,” he said. “We’ve got all the time in the world. I hate to say it, but why are you trying to run before you can walk?”

Dax took a deep breath and looked at Cameron’s green eyes. “All anybody’s ever told me is what I should be doing,” he said quietly. “You know, go here, go there. Sing this. Dance this. Lift these weights. Run faster. I’ve never had anyone tell me I can’t do something.”

“And who’s telling you that now?” Cameron asked. “Not me. It’s your body just asking you to have a little patience. Give it some time. That’s the one thing we’ve got here, right now, so take advantage of it. Right. Give me ten more.”

Dax steeled himself and pushed the handles away from him ten more times before Cameron was satisfied. He could feel the burning in his arms and shoulders, but his back was no longer warning him to stop. Instead, he felt warm, his heart was beating a little faster, and he was beginning to feel the familiar buzz that came from a good workout.

Next, Cameron had him stand up, and asked him to walk forward. Dax shook his head. “I don’t think I can,” he said.

“You climbed a full flight of stairs last night,” Cameron reminded him. “Surely you can manage a few paces on a flat surface.”

“I was desperate to get to bed,” Dax joked. “I’d have done anything to get off that old sofa.”

Cameron stepped back a little. “For that, you have to walk further,” he said.

“But last night you were holding me up on the stairs,” Dax protested. “Now I don’t have any support.”

“Do you really think I’ll let you fall?” Cameron asked, and he held out his hands. Dax grabbed his fingers and moved his left foot forward slowly. Then he moved his right, and his left again, and as he did so, Cameron moved back slightly, so that before he knew it, Dax was walking around the room. He made it to the chair before sinking into it with relief.

“See?” Cameron said. “Day one and you’re already a pro! What did I tell you?”

Dax nodded. He couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. He was sure he’d never walk again, but here he was, making steps all by himself, save for holding onto Cameron’s hands. “Must have been those magic eggs I ate,” he said.

“Aye, Ged’s magic eggs are famous,” Cameron replied. “They could make a penguin fly.”

Dax wanted to continue the workout, but Cameron was happy for them to stop for the day. “I was thinking we could have a drive out to the village,” he said. “It’s actually forecast to be sunny for the rest of the afternoon. What do you say?”

“I think I need a bath first,” Dax replied. “I can’t put it off forever, right?”

“Of course not,” said Cameron. “I think you’ve earned it, anyway.”

He walked ahead of Dax, deliberately leaving him behind so that the singer would have to wheel himself in the chair. Dax grabbed the rims of the large wheels and pushed them so that he slowly started to move across the floor of the gym and out into the hall. He went into the bedroom while Cameron began to run the bath. There was a large case standing on the floor and Dax grabbed it, and moved it across to the bed on its wheels while he pushed himself in the chair with one hand. It wasn’t easy, but eventually he managed to get both himself and the case to the foot of the bed.

Applying that logic that as he’d just benched fifty pounds and the case could weigh no more than forty, he reached for it. It was flawed logic, though, as the case proved to be nearer seventy pounds than forty, and Dax realized in just one attempt that he wasn’t going to manage it. The frustration at failing at the simplest of tasks once more hit him on top of the weariness of yesterday’s long journey and then the workout he’d just completed. With an angry grunt, he pushed the case and it flopped down onto its side.

Cameron heard the bang and came running. “What’s up?” he asked. “I thought you’d fallen off the bed.”

“I was trying to get that fucking thing up here,” Dax said, pointing to the case. “I can’t even do that.”

“Well of course you couldn’t,” Cameron said, walking over and righting the case. “Do you have any idea how heavy this thing is? I nearly gave myself an injury bringing it up last night. What the hell do you have in there, anyway? Is this your case of gold jewelry?”

Dax saw how Cameron needed to exert plenty of effort of his own to get the case on the bed, and he felt a little better to see it. He tugged at the zip and opened the case, lifting the lid to reveal piles of neatly-packed clothes and plenty of pairs of shoes. There were even bags of makeup and hats in there, and Dax shook his head. “I asked for a couple of things to be sent over about a month ago,” he said. “I haven’t even opened this up before now.”

“You’ve got a whole wardrobe in there,” said Cameron. “Jesus, do you own anything that doesn’t have a label on it?”

He picked up a pair of shoes that Dax had been gifted by his favorite designer. If he’d bought them, he’d have paid two thousand dollars. They were his favorite pair of sneakers, but here in the house, they seemed out of place.

In fact, most things in the case seemed gaudy and incongruent with antique furniture and stone walls. Dax was suddenly ashamed of his things, and he grabbed a shirt and some underwear and a pair of loose pants. Then he closed the lid of the case. “I think I need to go shopping for some more things,” he said. “I don’t suppose a lot of this would look right on me. And I don’t think I could even get into some of those pairs of jeans.”

“Fingers crossed we’re the same size,” Cameron said. “I think I spied some Reef stonewash in there.”

Dax grinned. “You may have,” he said. He shrugged. “Try them on. If they fit, you can have them.”

“Later,” Cameron said. “For now, you’re having a bath, Mister Monroe.”

He left Dax to undress down to his underwear, and then came back to get him. In the bathroom, he had Dax transfer from the chair to the edge of the bath, and then swing his legs into the water. It wasn’t too hot. As Cameron had explained, he needed to sit down first, and add hotter water, rather than trying to sit in scalding temperatures with no way of getting out.

“Look, if it makes you feel more comfortable, then by all means sit in the bath in your undies,” Cameron said. “But we’re all guys here, and you don’t have anything I don’t, so pretend it’s the high school locker room and live freely.”

It made sense. After all, Cameron was a professional therapist, and Dax was his patient, and over the last few weeks of catheter insertions and bed baths by nurses, he was used to being naked in front of strangers. So he pulled down his pants and tossed them into a wicker laundry basket. He felt a little self-conscious about being naked and wished that there was a thick pile of fluffy bubbles that he could descend into, but he got the impression that Cameron Wilson wasn’t really a bubble-bath kind of guy.

Cameron left him to it, and Dax leaned forward enough to turn on the faucet. He’d never understood why British faucets came in Scalding Hot or Freezing Cold mode. Why on earth couldn’t they have a central tap like everywhere else in the world, so they could mix the water as they went, getting the perfect temperature? Instead, he had to shift his body as he turned on the hot, as the steaming water poured just inches from his feet. He gripped the sides of the tub and tried to move around a little so that water could circulate, performing a strange kind of underwater dance until the temperature was just right.

Then he sank down as far as was comfortable, and the hot water eased his tired muscles and helped him relax. There was only a small bottle of generic shower gel, nothing like the array of assorted bath and shower products in his huge apartments back home, and it was only as this thought crossed his mind that he realized he didn’t miss it at all. He had peace and quiet for the first time in fifteen years, and he wanted to hold on to it for as long as he could.