Page 12 of You Can Make Me
“I talked to my buddy again, the physical therapist I told you about? I want you to consider letting me bring him out here to work with you, now that your pain is less and the dizziness is better. At the very least, let me get some exercises going for you. I think it would help your mobility a great deal.”
I refused to look at him. I rubbed at my now thick beard. The wound on my left cheek had made it nearly impossible to shave, and when the hair grew in thicker than I’d ever had itbefore, it made the scar less jarring. My top lip still moved funny when I talked—I could tell, though I hadn’t seen my face since the hospital—and my smile would never be the same, but at least with a beard, the scar wouldn’t be the first thing people noticed…that is, if I ever went out in public again.
“I can get around fine.” Besides, if I tried physical therapy and it didn’t work, I’d be even more frustrated.
“Fine. Okay.” Denny sat back against the dining room chair. I felt his gaze on me, and I knew he wanted to say more. He’d been so careful with me. I was waiting for him to get fed up. I’d been preparing for it. Cracks were showing. He was getting impatient. The thought terrified me, but I knew it would be better for him to leave.
I pushed back from the table and reached for my plate.
“I’ll clean up,” Denny said with a sigh.
“I can do it.”
I did manage to get my dish into the kitchen, but it tipped as I was setting it down and the leftover pieces of crust slid onto the counter. I was cursing under my breath as I attempted to clean the mess one-handed with a paper towel.
The floor creaked, letting me know he was right behind me.
“I think you’d be safe to finally try the hot spring out back. It will help with your pain and stiffness. The doctor said it was okay as long as you didn’t have any more open wounds, and all of yours have healed over. Want to?”
“Healed,” I muttered under my breath.Right. “No thanks.”
Denny moved past me and set about washing the dishes. I leaned heavily on the counter, grieving the loss of our physical intimacy with such force that I couldn’t inhale deeply. I longed to run my hands over his corded forearms and press up against his back. That thought nearly buckled my knees.
I’d never have him like that again. I mourned that loss more than my looks, more than my body, more than my mind.
“Suit yourself,” he finally said. “I’m going out there if you change your mind.”
He was so matter-of-fact about it.
“Thank you for dinner.” I wasn’t a total troll. I had a manner or two left.
I moved to leave the kitchen, and Denny cleared his throat. When I turned around, he leveled me with his expression. There was no pity there, which was part of the reason I’d wanted Denny when it was time to leave the hospital. But there was a smoldering anguish that he was so careful not to let boil over into anger.
Why was he being so good to me when I’d been so awful? I was afraid to ask. Maybe if I voiced my worry, I’d manifest it and he’d leave. While I wanted him to, I was terrified of what would happen to me without him.
“You’re welcome.”
His face softened around his eyes, and he lifted his lips not quite to a grin, but nearly.
He went into the hallway, where I heard him open a cabinet. A few moments later, the cabinet shut, and I heard the floorboards creak slightly as he walked toward the back door. He moved through the house so stealthily, unlike me, with my shuffling footsteps and the clunk of my cane hitting the wood floor. I’d been graceful once.
I hobbled over to my makeshift desk by the back window and looked outside. Denny lit a cigarette at the bottom step of the deck and stood looking out over the wooded area around the house and the river. A whoosh of air left my lungs, and I steadied myself on the table’s surface as memories assaulted me of the night I’d met the intriguing detective.
I’d been invited to go up to Bakersfield to celebrate Gene’s promotion, and thanks to SoCal traffic, I was late. I walked in and greeted the folks I knew. Once I found Gene, he introducedme to Dennis, his coworker. The man was all hard angles and intensity in a high-strung, muscular body. He hadn’t said much when we shook hands, but his confused gaze struck a chord with me.
He’d gone out back after we were introduced, and I’d spotted him standing on the back deck in exactly the same pose, only that time he’d had a beer bottle between his fingers, not a cigarette. That bad habit, apparently, had resumed right before we’d been reunited in the worst possible way.
Gene warned me that Dennis was as straight as they came, but I’d been arrogant.Whatever. My pushy nature got me a pizza at midnight with the clever detective. But at the end of that first night, he’d given me the most peculiar sendoff. He didn’t want me to drive him the rest of the way home. He didn’t want to invite me in. He was conflicted. And all of those confessions turned up the volume of my curiosity to eleven.
Now, instead of being curious about who he was, I was curious as to why he stayed.
The cherry on his cigarette glowed in the dusky light and then he put it out on the heel of his boot. A moment later, he stepped down to the path and followed it over to the private hot spring on the property, which was surrounded by large boulders and hedges on three sides, keeping it hidden from all except the residents of this cabin. He stopped in front of the hot spring, crouched down and set something on the ground, dipped his fingers in the water before standing back up.
I’d seen Denny naked before. Several times. The first was in Vegas after my award luncheon at the Paris, where we’d explored our off-the-charts chemistry, and he’d enjoyed it thoroughly. Next was in my apartment in Hollywood two months later, after he’d closed a particularly difficult case. He’d asked if he could come down for a weekend since our schedules had kept us apart, and we’d spent the whole time naked in mybed. He’d been such an attentive and eager lover, which for me was so flattering, such a turn-on.
Over the next year, there was the Padres vs. Angels in San Diego, where we enjoyed the game, got drunk while bar hopping in the Gaslamp District, and spent the rest of the night having clumsy but enthusiastic sex in the Hard Rock Hotel.
We met up in Palm Desert; I was there to give a keynote and he’d had a law enforcement conference. He surprised me in Austin, Texas, when I told him I was attending a premiere at SXSW for a documentary that I’d been a part of, and we stayed up all night dancing and talking before falling asleep in each other’s arms, whispering sweet nothings and sharing our hopes and dreams for the future.
