Page 53 of Alphas Like Us
“I just dyed it,” Farrow explains, kicking the door shut and drowning out the downstairs commotion. “You’re breaking arule.”
“What rule?” I ask as he nearsme.
His brows ratchet up. “You’re not supposed to take your sling off for four to six weeks.” Off my confusion, he realizes, “You didn’t hear the post-opinstructions.”
I want to combat him, but I’m in too much pain. “A lot is hazy. I gotta get out of this shirt,” I tell my boyfriend, slowly rising to my feet. I’m unsteady—Farrow reaches me, his sturdy hand on mywaist.
We’re practically eyelevel.
“Let me,” he says, his tone like roughsex.
I watch him reach behind my back and detach the band. Gently, he slips the strap off my neck. My pulse thumps, and I’m a billion timeshotter.
I’m not even protesting and sayingI can do it myself.Right now, I needhim.
Farrow helps me take my arms out of my shirt and fills in the hazy pieces of my memory. “You can’t pull, lift, or stretch with your right arm for about eight weeks. Stretch rehab starts after that. In three months, you can add strengthexercises.”
Threemonths.
That seems like forever without full mobility and swimming. Butterfly stroke requires total range of motion onbothshoulders.
“Christ,” I mutter, and I try to pull my shirt over my head, my gray drawstring pants low on my hips. “What else did Imiss?”
He frees me of my soaked shirt. “You were groggy after you woke up from surgery, and your dad asked you how you were.” Farrow tosses my shirt aside and starts carefully reattaching the band around my bruisedabs.
I’m hanging on his every word, and he notices. He’s irritatingly drawing thisout.
“What the fuck did I say?” I have toask.
Farrow is close to laughter. “You told your dad you’re naming your sonBatman.”
My eyes pop out of my head. “No I didn’t.” He has to be fucking withme.
“Yeah, you did,” Farrow smiles wide. “Your dad asked you,what son?And you said the one in theBatmobile.”
I blink slowly. “I killed my dad. He’s dead, right? Death by Batman talk.”I’mdying right now because the one time Farrow and I have spoken about our future like marriage and kids—it was last night. When I was lying beside the wreckage. And we haven’t resurfaced what Farrow told me in therain.
Except my anesthesia-brain decided to talk about a fictionalkidnamed Batman. Of all damnthings.
I feel like I’m bathing in abroiler.
“Your dad is alive,” Farrow says easily, “but he said your son sounds like a littleprick.”
I nod stiffly. “That’s definitely something my dad would say about a kid namedBatman.”
“I think you meanyourkid,” hecorrects.
“No,” I shake my head. “I wouldn’t name my kid Batman. Can’t be mine.” I attempt to retie my drawstring pants with one hand. They slip way too low on my waist. I struggle to get the jobdone.
My pulse is beating out of my chest in hissilence.
Farrow takes the strings from me, stepping closer. “That’s good because that couldn’t have been mineeither.”
I lick my lips, a smile trying to pull my mouth. I nod stronger, and we’re looking at each other more deeply. His fingers are perilously close to my dick, and he knots thestrings.
Any other time, I’d ache for those fingers to go lower. But right now, I cringe at the sensation in my collarbone. Like a knife is staking me onrepeat.
“What’s your pain level?” Farrowasks.
