Walking Wounded

by Lauren Gilley

  Tired, muzzy-headed, he admits, “Shitty, actually.”

  Her brows lift.

  “He’s giving me enough info for a book,” he explains. “But, like, a long-ass, rambling book. That I have no intention of writing.”

  “Would it be a good book, though?”

  The question hits him as a surprise, and so does the answer that comes to mind. “You know…I think it would. That whole best friends off to war together kind of story. Generic, yeah, but the right author could make it edgy and literary, I think.”

  “Hmm. The right author,” she muses. “Now where could I find one of those…”

  “Linda.”

  “I’m just saying.” She shrugs, expensive jacket hiking up around her ears. “You want to be an author, there’s a book that needs writing…” She makes a weighing gesture with both hands. “Huh?”

  Luke sighs. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Call me tomorrow.”

  He disconnects the stream. Around him, the apartment sits quiet, only the gentle hum of the fridge to keep him company. He thinks he hears the sound of pages turning in a book, somewhere beyond Hal’s bedroom door. Perhaps the murmur of a voice.

  He thinks.

  ~*~

  “Ugh,” Luke says into his pillow when Hal’s hand rouses him from a fitful sleep. What he thinks is yes, keep doing that, as Hal’s strong fingers work at the tension between his shoulder blades. It’s not a tap, or a shove, or anything like that; it’s a massage, and a pretty damn good one at that, pressing firmly on either side of his spine.

  Above him somewhere in the dark, Hal snorts a laugh. “Elegant.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Nope. Time to get up.” Hal pats him and his touch slides out to Luke’s shoulder, squeezing once, hard, before withdrawing.

  Luke groans and rolls over onto his side, squinting up through the shadows in search of Hal’s face. His profile is just visible in the glow from the kitchen light. “Does the guy seriously go running every morning?”

  “Four mornings a week,” Hal says. “But not this morning. Today it’s the gym for us.”

  That’s right. The gym. Fuck.

  A sharp spasm of apprehension flares in Luke’s belly, and he wonders if he might be sick. “Um, yeah, actually. About the gym.” His voice catches, rough from sleep and jagged from nerves. “I think I might just stay here and catch up on writing.”

  “Aw, man, no,” Hal says, pouting a little. “Come on. I want you to meet the guys.”

  “Yeah…” Luke’s heart thunders, that aching gallop that comes with waking up to bad news. “I’m pretty sure the guys won’t want to meet me.” He cringes, though Hal can’t see it.

  “What?” Hal sounds genuinely shocked. Affronted. “Of course they will. Why would – dude, you’re my best friend. They want to meet you. They were all excited when I told them you were coming.”

  “You told them about me?”

  “Well yeah.” Hal’s hand closes over Luke’s bicep, a firm squeeze. “Of course.”

  Luke groans. “I need coffee.”

  Hal stands. “Coming right up. You get dressed.”

  “How have you become my mother in all this?” Luke asks as he sits up and flips the covers back. He shouldn’t have had a drink with Will last night; his headache is already setting up, dull but persistent.

  Hal calls something from the kitchen he can’t hear.

  In the bathroom, Luke ops not to take a shower – what’s the point if he’s just going to get sweaty? – and brushes his teeth, washes his face, makes sure his glasses are clean. He doesn’t have real workout gear in his bag, but his favorite old tattered sweats and a plain t-shirt will have to do. Damn. This is going to suck.

  He pushes his hands through his hair, gives his reflection a hard stare, and tries to convince himself that Hal’s friends won’t hate him too much.

  ~*~

  Hal chatters happily, and mostly to himself, on the drive to the gym. He talks about his friends, the gym bros: they all work security out of the same firm, and in Hal’s words are “a good group of guys.” Luke hates that phrase; it’s what men say about other men when they can’t think of anything complimentary to say.

  By the time Hal parks the Jeep, Luke can feel his shirt clinging to his back, and his breath is coming in shallow little hiccups. He wants a smoke. He wants a shot of something. He wants very much not to walk into this glass-fronted gym and embarrass himself on some piece of overly complicated machinery.

  But Hal slaps lightly at his chest and pops his door open. “Let’s go,” he says, all good cheer and rippling muscles.

  Luke gulps down one last breath, grabs his bag, and follows.

  His sweat-damp shirt freezes in the four steps from the Jeep to the front door, and he steps inside shivering, hurrying a little too quick in Hal’s wake in a way that he knows looks nervous. Whatever. He is nervous. Let people think what they want.

  Eli’s Gym occupies four storefronts of an upscale stucco-and-stone shopping center, the kind with high-dollar landscaping, brass shop numbers, and brick sidewalks out front. The inside boasts row after row of machines: treadmills, elliptical trainers, weight machines, and stationary bikes, all overlooking the street beyond the tinted glass. Luke spots a long juice bar off to the right, and a sleek front counter manned by two fit, tan women in workout gear. Men and women make use of the equipment, scattered across the floor, all of them with white earbuds hooked to phones and iPods.

  Hal tosses a wave to the women, gets a “Heya, Hal” in return. “Here, we’re in the back,” he tells Luke, steering him with a steadying hand on his shoulder.

  Honest to God, if all this touching keeps up, Luke is going to lose it.

  They move down a short hall and into a smaller area in back, ceiling fans twirling above, free weights and barbells set up along one wall, three treadmills facing them. Early sunlight pours in through the windows, catching the sweat sheen on the huge arms of the three intimidating men lifting weights.

  The white guy notices them first, racking a set of dumbbells and turning around with a shouted, “Hallelujah!”

  Hal snorts. “That doesn’t get any less lame the more you say it.”

  “Dude,” the guy protests, and steps forward to slap palms with Hal. “Do you know how hard it is to come up with a cool nickname for ‘Hal’?”

  “You’re just sore about your nickname,” the Latino guy says, rolling his eyes.

  “Hey.” The first guy turns and aims a warning finger at his friend. “Coming for you next, man.”

  “You can’t improve upon perfection.”

  “Stop scaring the new guy with all your stupid,” says the very tall, very built, very terrifying black guy, face splitting in a dazzling, not-terrifying smile that makes Luke feel fractionally better. “Hey, you Luke?”

  “Yeah,” Luke says, and resists the urge to knuckle his glasses further up his nose. He sticks out his hand. “Good to meet you.”

  “Lee Carter,” the big man says, and presses his hand in a way that feels like he’s practiced being gentle with people smaller than him.

  “Guys.” Hal slings his arm across Luke’s shoulders. “This is Luke. Luke, these idiots are Mitch, Diego, and Lee actually has some manners.”

  Luke shakes their hands, murmurs hellos, is grateful for the warm, strong presence of Hal’s arm around him. Notices the way the guys all notice the gesture, wonders if they’re finding it weird, if they’re judging him, or Hal, or both of them. Or…

  He has to stop analyzing.

  “You lift?” Diego asks him, friendly enough, when the introductions are over.

  “Uh…yeah. Not really.” Luke winces.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mitch assures. “You just gotta start slow.”

  Hal goes to the bench along the wall and sets down his bag, his water bottle, tugs off his hoodie and starts to stretch. “You don’t have to lift,” he tells Luke over his shoulder. “You can jog, if you want.” He gestures to
the treadmills, and then lowers his voice a notch, as the others return to their weights. “Or you can just sit, or…” A troubled look crosses his face. “The juice bar’s good, if you don’t feel like working out.” He flicks a look up at Luke that can only be called sweet. “Sorry, I’m not trying to–”

  “Jogging’s fine,” Luke says, and is rewarded with a smile. “I’ll just–” He hooks a thumb toward the treadmills.

  His heart thuds against his ribs, a steady doubtful rhythm as he selects a treadmill, fiddles with the controls, and pops in his earbuds. In his adult life, he’s worked out off and on, but he’s never been a paragon of fitness. He doubts he can go a full thirty minutes, and his palms are already clammy in anticipation of defeat.

  Once he’s moving – and oh man, he’s so not up for this – and Jack White is filling his ears, he lets his eyes wander. A critical weakness for him when it comes to his best friend.

  Hal has a dumbbell in each hand, doing bicep curls that highlight his arms in a way that should be illegal, the muscle swelling as it contracts, veins popping. His t-shirt clings to him, and beneath his track pants, his calves, and thighs, and ass tighten as he anchors himself against the reps. Reps that seem an extension of his hands, effortless, graceful in a way that something like weightlifting shouldn’t be.

  Hal…Hal is beautiful. Always has been, and always will be. And the worst part is that Luke notices, because being beautiful isn’t at all the reason he loves Hal, and it feels cheap to notice the swells and planes of hard muscle, the gorgeous ocean green of his eyes, the strong column of his throat, when it’s something as important and all-encompassing as love burning in Luke’s chest.

  But Luke is sad, and weak, and he’ll look his fill whenever he gets the chance. Even though it hurts. Even though it stokes the fantasies he isn’t allowed to have.

  Hal racks his weights and moves on to bench presses, his legs split over the bench, feet braced squarely on the floor. Lee spots him, but Hal does all the work, as he lifts the heavy barbell up from its rack and lowers it, raises it, lowers it, arms swollen and face flushed from the effort. His shirt clings to his pecs, his abs, his shoulders, patched now with sweat. He grits his teeth and pushes through another rep, and another; Lee’s mouth moves as he offers encouragement, but Luke can’t hear the words above his music.

  Luke’s mind fills with old, painful memories: Hal’s warm weight against his side, the heavy satin of his skin under Luke’s hands, the way the kiss had tasted of tomato soup, and sweetness, and every good thing Luke had ever dared to want. The quiet, shattered sound of Hal’s breathing, the shock of discovery. And then the withdrawal. The “what are we doing.” And it hurts, it hurts so badly, like a fresh wound, stitches popped and hot blood seeping deep inside him, the knife-strike of rejection. Cutting him up.

  Luke remembers the heat of his tears, the way the jagged sobs had scraped his throat raw, and he feels a suspicious prickling in his eyes now.

  No. No, no, no.

  The edge of his sneaker clips the treadmill’s side rail, and his feet go out from under him. He falls as if in slow motion, and no amount of scrabbling can grant him purchase. Tumbling, tumbling, tumbling, and then his back hits the treadmill and it slings him off the end, straight into the wall. He’s too shocked to register the impact; lays staring up at the ceiling, unable to catch his breath. “The wind knocked out of him” – that’s how his mother would describe it. It’s accurate.

  Hal’s face appears above his own, sweaty, pink, cracked wide open with the kind of fear Luke thinks should be reserved for war zones. A bead of sweat lands on Luke’s nose, a soft warm plunk.

  “Luke? Shit, Luke, talk to me. Are you okay?”

  The panic in Hal’s voice breaks through the haze of shock and the situation finally registers.

  He’s fallen off the treadmill.

  Fallen off the treadmill. In front of everyone. It threw him against the wall. He…

  He can’t breathe.

  Air rushes into his lungs in a painful gasp that leaves his head reeling. He thinks he might throw up. And he knows he has to get the hell out of here before he spontaneously combusts from embarrassment.

  He lurches upright in a clumsy tangle of limbs, knocking into Hal and then ducking around him. The others all ask if he’s okay; they start to move toward him and he just can’t. Earbuds dangling around his neck, chest heaving against the awful pain of breathlessness, he staggers out of the weight room. Finds a door marked Men’s Locker Room and pushes his way in.

  Three rows of lockers and benches, showers, toilet stalls: standard locker room fare, but clean and sparkling, and the rows allow a smidge of privacy. Luke finds an empty bench out of view of the three guys changing, and leans back against the cool locker faces, trying to catch his breath properly, no easy task as his eyes burn with unshed tears.

  He’s no stranger to shame, and he knows it’ll pass, but right now, he wants the floor to swallow him. He wants to hitchhike to the airport and run back home, bury himself in his meaningless daily work and hide in his craptastic apartment.

  He doesn’t want the outer door to swing open and for Hal to call “Luke?” But his life sucks, so that’s exactly what happens.

  “Luke?” Sound of sneaker soles on the tile floor. Hal’s rapid, worried breathing. “You in here, man?”

  He doesn’t respond; pitches forward at the waist and rests his elbows on his thighs, stares down at his sneakers. He’s got a big black streak along the sole of the left one, where the treadmill scuffed it.

  “Luke? Hey.” Hal comes around the corner and spots him, reaches him in just a few long strides, close enough for Luke to see the toes of his Nikes butting up against his own. “You okay? You hurt? That was a bad fall.”

  “It was a fucking stupid fall,” Luke mutters.

  “Are you okay?” Hal repeats, tone serious. His hand, warm and heavy, lands on the back of Luke’s neck. A move which strikes Luke as intimate and frightened all at once, the little ripple of tension that runs through Hal’s palm, the way he’s covering Luke’s exposed, vulnerable pulse points with the tips of his fingers. That note of stress in his voice, when he ought to be laughing at Luke’s stupidity. “Luke.”

  He can’t bear to look at his friend, terrified of what he’ll find in his gaze. “I’m fine.”

  Hal sits down beside him, close enough their elbows knock together, close enough their thighs touch. “Here, lemme see. Did you hit your head?”

  With great effort, Luke lifts his head, sighing out through his mouth. He feels the wetness on his face the same moment Hal hisses.

  “Ah, shit, you did.”

  “I’m fine.” He probes his right eyebrow with a fingertip and feels the burn of torn skin, the wetness of blood.

  But Hal isn’t taking “fine” as an answer. He gets down on his knees at Luke’s feet, hands hovering above Luke’s face, expression deeply concerned. “Damn, you’re probably gonna have a shiner.” With a thumb, he presses oh so gently at Luke’s brow, hmming worriedly to himself. “You seeing okay? You’re not nauseas, are you?”

  “I don’t have a concussion.”

  Hal makes a face and meets his gaze head-on, the picture of loving worry. It’s an expression Luke’s seen so many times on his mother, but never on Hal…not that he remembers. “How many fingers am I holding up?” He holds up three.

  “How many am I?” Luke flips him the bird.

  Hal cracks a thin, crooked smile. “Asshole.”

  “Hmph.”

  “There’s a kit at the desk. Lemme get it.” He starts to stand.

  Luke snags the end of his shirt between thumb and forefinger, only a gentle tug, but it roots Hal to the spot. The fabric is tacky with sweat, and Luke can’t help but worry at a loose thread with his thumbnail, stupid and silent a moment. “No,” he finally protests. “Don’t bother.”

  “You’re bleeding. Do you know what kinda germs they’ve got on a gym floor?” He shudders for dramatic effect and the shirt sli
ps from Luke’s fingers. “I’ll be right back, okay? Just gonna grab some alcohol and a Band-Aid.”

  “Hal…” Luke sighs, but Hal is already walking away.

  “Right back!” The door hinges squeak as he leaves the locker room.

  “Oh my God.” Luke buries his face in his hands, which sort of smell like a gym, which is…ew. But mortification trumps ew at the moment. A sick, masochistic part of him wishes Hal would just laugh at him, clap him on the back, and crack a tasteless joke. Because the part of him that’s pathetic cares way too much about the…the…tenderness Hal is showing him. If he allows himself to fall into those worried looks and gentle touches, it’ll only hurt worse when the eventual rejection comes again.

  A dark thought occurs. What if Hal’s just screwing with him? Playing up pretend sensitivity just to drop Luke on his ass later with a hearty ha-ha.

  No. No, that’s not Hal. He might be oblivious, or awkward, but he’s never intentionally cruel. Always the kid who stood up to the bully on the playground, and never the bully himself.

  He’s still breathing through the gaps in his fingers when he hears Hal return, unsure just how pathetic it is that he knows the sound of Hal’s particular footfalls; that he recognizes the sound of his walk.

  “Alright,” Hal says, sitting down beside him with a rustle of fabric and a crackle of bandage packaging.

  It takes a supreme effort to straighten his spine, sit up and face Hal. Unrequited love is heavy like that.

  Hal has two damp cotton balls in one hand, no less than five Band-Aids in the other.

  Luke snorts. “Overkill, don’t you think?”

  “Hey, I’m…I’m worried.” He catches his lower lip between his teeth, and his cheeks go a lovely shade of pale pink. He doesn’t make eye contact as he twists sideways on the bench and says, “Hold still,” begins to dab at Luke’s split eyebrow with the alcohol swabs.

  “Shit,” Luke hisses. “Stings.”

  “That’s how you know it’s working.”

  A surprised laugh catches in Luke’s throat. “That’s what your mom always used to say. When we skinned our knees and she put that…what was it?”