Page 53 of Hold Me Down

He took a deep breath.

"You know I've always been… fiercely independent."

"Of course. That's one of the best things about you."

That sent a warmth through Dave's chest hereallyhad to ignore if he were to get through his plan.

"Well, sometimes it's one of the worst, too. Because it's not—"

He looked away, his gaze falling on the small pile of books that had been there on the side table from the day after his accident.

Why were the words somehow escaping him now?

"My injury isn't that bad, considering everything, and yet I've been struggling lately, and it pisses me off."

"I get it. I'd be climbing the walls—and falling on my ass while doing so." Travis snorted. "Seriously, it would have been a disaster."

"Yeah, well, this doesn't feel like a tremendous success, either." Dave waved at himself. "I suck at accepting help, and it's even worse than I thought," he admitted quietly. "I've never been good at it, but this whole thing, especially the last few days… I don't know. It's been driving me to the brink, and I guess I finally fell over."

"Hey." Travis clasped a hand on Dave's shoulder. "You had a bad day—"

"Or two."

"—or two. It happens." His hold tightened briefly. "You've been doing well with accepting not only my help, but also Ian's mission to feed you. You've done everything the doctors and Melody told you to do, and then some. Considering how deep that need for independence runs in you, the fact that you didn't go off earlier is quite an accomplishment, if you think about it."

Dave grinned at Travis's teasing tone, something unclenching in his chest and allowing him to breathe easier.

"Well, you were working hard at distracting me, so there's that."

"I was happy to provide such important assistance at this difficult time."

They both laughed, one setting the other off, and for a minute there, it felt easy again, and good. It would take no effort at all to lean in for a kiss, to pull Travis closer, to jump to the make-up sex and forget everything else.

But if Dave didn't say his part now, he might never get it out.

"There's no one in my life I trust more than you," he told Travis, voice serious again. "You know that, and a bunch of people know it, too. That's not a secret. But even though it's a no-brainer for me to put my life in your hands in the field, it's apparently much, much harder to say, 'hey, can you help me go upstairs, please'. But then," he added when Travis opened his mouth, "you offer, and I still can't easily say, 'sure, let's go'. I was trying, but there's only so much I can take."

"Like I said, you held out for two weeks. That's more than I would've."

"I hope we'll never find out."

Travis shrugged. "Either way, I know I haven't been making it easy on you, hovering and trying to guess your every move. I overdid it, and I'm sorry."

"I overreacted big time." Dave shook his head. "I shouldn't have snapped at you last night, and I definitely shouldn't have said what I said today, either."

"I was determined to give you more space today, but when I saw you on that bench, I—" Travis winced. "All I could think of were the multiple scenarios of what could have gone wrong."

Dave nodded, glancing down at his hands.

"I broke our rule. I fucked up, and I know that. It's like my mind was only focused on one thing—a proper challenge that would make me feel like I accomplished something,anything. Thinking about it now, I'm frankly embarrassed by this whole thing, but when I was in the moment… I don't know. My blood was pumping, I was figuring things out for myself, and it felt good."

"Yeah, I'm guessing that's exactly why Kalei wanted to bench us, because my thinking was similar all those times he got pissed at me before. And I know I sound like a hypocrite when I lecture you about safety, but—"

"No, you were right. I broke our rule," Dave repeated. "If you broke it, I'd be pissed, too."

"Looks like we both sometimes do stupid shit out of frustration, whether we're aware of it in the moment or not."

Tempted as he was to ask Travis more about his side of it—in the past, Travis had always denied there being something other than adrenaline pushing him to act out a little too much—Dave knew it would only pull them away from the main point.

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