Page 24 of Surviving the Break
I pushed at his chest. “This hurts too much. I can’t do it anymore.”
This wasn’t our first time. I started having sex with Hayden shortly after I admitted my feelings to him that fateful day. He’d been so painfully conflicted, and I agreed to be his “test subject.” I gave him my virginity, knowing it would lead me down a road to heartbreak, but what if we could be together? I had to know. Turned out, he wasn’t gay—according to him. But he loved my ass well enough to occasionally come back for more. And I always let him.
He stilled above me, searching my face for the truth of my words. He dropped his forehead to mine and whispered, “If this is it, let’s make it count.”
My pearl hung from my chain around his neck. It swung like a pendulum between us as we made love.
I woke up the next morning alone, my pearl on the pillow next to me. Our friendship was over. I threw the blanket back, dashing to the bathroom before dropping to my knees in front of the toilet.
I eventually crawled back into bed, looking out the window unblinkingly while tears ran unchecked into my pillow. I didn’t move for the rest of the day.
I’d let everyone go for the day and opted to stay back at the construction site to get a few things done. I enjoyed the moments I got to work alone. More productive not having to be in the role of owner, boss, and overseer. Not having to be the one that everyone turned to for the simplest of things. We were having unseasonably warm weather for that time of year, and I wanted to take advantage of it by getting the roofing finished as soon as possible. The foundation and framework had already been completed on the multilevel home, and the roof truss was up.
THE STORM PLASTICcovering the door and window frames swelled inward from the breeze blowing outside. Even so, I stripped off my upper layers, overheated from the exertion of manual labor.
My hair lay damp on my forehead, and removing my hardhat to brush the tendrils back made me think of Ash. Of the way he’d clutched at my hair in that bathroom and wrenched my head to the side like he didn’t care if he broke me.“Will he pull your hair like he means it?”
I winced, so caught up in that moment I hadn’t noticed my hand tighten. I pulled a few loose strands from between my fingers, cursing myself, again, for allowing my thoughts to drift back to him. I still remembered being so worked up, a live wire. It’d been impossible for me to wrap up my date properly. I’d rudely stormed out of the restaurant, ignoring the calling of my name.
I got home and went straight to bed. Half the night I’d stared at the glowing digital clock on the wall, running over all the ways I’d been an idiot that night. First, by actually being jealous of what was taking place at Ash’s table. Seething in my seat, imagining how their night would end. Second, by convincing myself that following him to the restroom was about shutting him down, when in truth, I’d wanted to punish him in the best way for making someone else experience having his all-consuming, undivided attention.
The flush of his date's cheek sent a corresponding flutter through my stomach. When that man’s mouth parted on a silent exhale from whatever mischief Ash had been causing under the table, my heart kicked things up a notch. And when Ash touched the interloper's mouth, a sheen of red dropped over my vision. I despised him for taking me there. What I hated most overall? Spending the other half of the night jerking off to the scene of Ash and me untamed and unforgiving in that restroom.Bothoccasions playing on a loop. After the second orgasm, in which I whispered his name, my body slipped into a deep sleep.
A type of terror I’d never encountered before came the following morning, when I showered, dressed, and pulled out of my driveway before remembering I hadn’t spent time with my pain. I hadn’t run my hands over my wooden box, and I hadn’t, with steady hands, peeled open my portrait that reflected a future that could never be because I’d never allow it. Ash had gotten to me.
Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” blared from the Bluetooth speaker in the corner, situated on top of a five-gallon bucket of paint. That jarred me back to the present. Lining up a piece of two-by-four on my sawhorse, I retrieved the pencil from behind my ear and drew a straight line down the center of the plank.
I grabbed the handsaw, and the glare from the retreating sun flashed across its metal teeth. I lowered my safety goggles from atop my hard hat and prepared to cut my first groove.
Three things happened at once: the music stopped,hisscent surrounded me, and the blade of the saw bucked, cutting into my forefinger. “Damn it!” The saw clattered to the floor as I curled in half, cradling my hand to my chest.
Urgent footsteps sounded behind me. “Shit, Max. Let me take a look.”
“I’m fine,” I gritted through the pain.
“No, you’re not.”
Ash brought me up by my shoulders before peeling my hand away from my body.
“There’s too much blood. I can’t see the extent of the damage.” His eyes ran down my bare chest, then to my work jeans that hung low on my waist due to the weight of the tool belt. “Um.” He got it together and peered around the tool-laden space, his gaze landing on my shirt thrown over my workbench. He used it to apply pressure to the wound. “Is there a first aid kit around?”
“Yeah,” I groaned, eyes closed. “In my work trailer out back.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
He placed his palm to the small of my back. An unconscious gesture. One meant to assist, but I shivered, praying he assumed the pain to be the cause.
“It’s actually not as bad as it looked,” Ash said, while holding my hand under the running cold water. “The joints and extremities contain a lot of blood vessels, which explains the heavy bleeding. Placing the wound under cold water helps to stanch it.”
“Then why does it hurt so much?” I lowered myself to sit on the toilet seat next to the sink.
“Well, our hands and fingers are overflowing with nerve fibers called nociceptors. Responsible for sensing temperature, pressure, and pain. There’s more of them per square inch in your hands and fingers than anywhere else on your body, so they send the most pain signals to your brain. Plus, the nerves around the cut are more prone to be exposed to air and other irritants, which can make pain more noticeable and longer lasting...”
He caught my eye briefly before ducking his head and digging through the kit. An adorable but unlike Ash response. Now that my injury had been assessed and deemed uneventful, we were both acutely aware of the strain enclosing around us. Aside from our brief encounter in The Center’s parking lot, we’d done our best to stay out of each other’s way after the auction. To be this close to one another and to have him touching me was more than slightly alarming. It triggered a dual reaction from me. I wanted to run to and run from. God, I wanted him...still. Maybe it was the blood loss, but in that moment, I lacked the energy it normally took to deny my feelings to myself. My shoulders curled in from the feeling of defeat, and he mistook it for annoyance.
“Sorry. I tend to get a little carried away when discussing anything medical related. Feel free to tell me to shut up if I go off on a tangent.”
“I don’t mind. It’s refreshing to hear you talk about something unrelated to—” I left the sentence unfinished. His held breath told me I’d said all I needed to. I exhaled, running my good hand through my hair. In truth, I enjoyed his brief moment of enthusiasm. It took my mind off my finger and gave me more insight into how much he loved his job. How much he loved helping people. Just another quality that left me equally sure and conflicted about him. Sure of his goodness, drawn to it, but afraid to have that goodness lavished on me. We began a tug-of-war with my hand. “Don’t you need to clean that with peroxide or something before applying the stitch?”
