by Erin Rylie
The man she’d known for almost a year now was so vibrant, so full of life and energy, that it seemed wrong for him to be alone and silent in a dark room for days on end. He refused to go to his physical therapy appointments—had missed two now—and was showing no signs of improvement. When she’d agreed to help him get back on his feet, she’d expected to resist his advances and his natural charm. She’d prepared herself for endless flirting and innuendo. What she had never expected was for him to shut down completely, becoming a ghost of his former self.
The first week he’d been here, he had been fine. Sure, she could tell that his reliance on her grated on him, but he’d been handling it well enough until the fall in the bathroom. With James at Kyle’s house for the weekend, she knew she needed to do something drastic to get Carlos motivated, but she wasn’t sure what to try.
When Kyle had come by to pick their son up, he’d asked to meet Carlos, and Kelsey had put him off, saying that Carlos was too exhausted from physical therapy for company. She didn’t know how much longer she could push back their meeting, but she didn’t want Kyle to meet Carlos when he was in this state. He was in no shape to make a good impression, and she didn’t want Kyle to make a fuss about him being around James.
She’d put off calling Rafe for as long as possible, not wanting to disturb the new father, but Carlos needed him. Picking up her phone, she called the only person she knew could get Carlos out of that damn bed.
Upon hearing that his friend was having a hard time, Rafe had headed right over. Kelsey opened the door to let him in and almost laughed at the state he was in. Prior to Sophie and their baby, Rafe had always been well put together. Now, days’ worth of stubble graced his face, and there were bags under his eyes. His usually immaculate clothes were rumpled and smelled faintly of spit up.
“Ella giving you trouble?”
Rafe groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Nobody warned me that having a child would be so fucking exhausting. Everyone was all, ‘You’re going to be a great father’ and ‘Childbirth is such a magical thing to behold.’ What they failed to mention was how little that girl sleeps, or how much shit comes out of such a tiny body.”
Kelsey chuckled, “Yeah, newborns are definitely a handful.”
“I mean it, Kelsey. Where does all of the shit come from? She’s so damn tiny and I swear she poops more than me. If she’s not eating, she’s crying; if she’s not doing either of those things, she’s shitting.”
“Would it make you feel better if I told you I just brewed coffee?”
“If you have fresh coffee, it’s entirely possible I love you more than I love my own wife right now.” Kelsey held in her laughter as he shuffled slowly past her and into the house. Having practically lived here with Sophie before they moved into his apartment, Rafe was familiar with the layout of the house and made his way quickly to the kitchen.
He inhaled his first cup of coffee, groaning in satisfaction when he’d drained the cup. He quickly poured another and turned to face her.
“All right, what’s going on with Carlos? You said he was having problems.”
“Well, last week he fell in the bathroom. He didn’t wait for me to help him out of the tub and wasn’t able to get out on his own. He hasn’t left his room since. He just lays in there with the blinds drawn and the lights off. He’s taking more than the prescribed amount of painkillers, and I’m really starting to worry. He’s missed two of his physical therapy appointments.”
“Fuck,” Rafe muttered. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter Seven
A hard knock on his door woke Carlos from his nap. Glancing at the clock on his bedside table he took in the time and noted that it was too early for Kelsey to be bringing his dinner. He covered his head with the pillow and ignored the knock at the door. He’d taken another pain pill an hour ago and was still drowsy.
Another short rap on wood was followed by the creaking sound that indicated someone had opened the door. “Kelsey, I’m sleeping. Go away.”
“Woooow, fucker. Is that any way to greet your best friend?”
Without removing the pillow from his head, he responded, “Hi, Rafe, I’m sleeping. Get out.”
“You’re a charming bastard, have I ever told you that?”
Carlos merely grunted in response. He wasn’t in the mood for company. All he wanted to do was sleep until this entire mess of a situation had disappeared. He felt a dip in the mattress to indicate that Rafe had sat down on the bed, and finally removed the pillow from his head. He rolled over and glowered at his friend.
“Is ‘get out’ too complicated of a sentence for you to understand? Because I really don’t know how to dumb that one down.”
“Carlos, what the hell is going on? I’ve never seen you like this.”
Carlos pulled himself into a sitting position and shrugged. “What’s the point in getting out of bed? It’s not like I can go to work. Hell, I can’t even fucking bathe myself. May as well lay here and waste away, right?”
“How do you expect to be able to return to work ever if you don’t even go to physical therapy? Your leg isn’t going to miraculously heal itself. You need to work at your recovery, dude.”
Carlos closed his eyes briefly, the high-strength prescription drugs muddying his senses a little. “Have I ever told you why I became a cop?”
Rafe shook his head no.
“Yeah, I don’t tell many people. The truth is, I’m not good at much. I’m not good at anything, really. I’m not stupid, I just think that my brain works in ways different from most people. I never excelled at school; it was too hard to focus on one thing at a time. It was only when I was doing something physical that my mind sharpened. That’s why I played football in high school. Words on a textbook page never really held my interest, but ask me to read a play on a field? Ask me to predict what another player is going to do? Everything becomes crystal clear for me in those moments.”
He took a deep breath; he’d never explained this to anyone. He let everyone believe that he didn’t give a shit about anything. Being a cop was just a job for him—at least that’s what he let everyone think. Let them assume he didn’t have substance. He was better at being a source of entertainment than someone people took seriously.
“After high school I had no clue what to do with my life. I wasn’t a good enough ball player to go pro, and working in an office was something that I knew would stifle me. I was lost for months, working in fast food and resigning myself to a life of menial labor. One day, my high school football coach came in and told me I was wasting my potential. He was the one who suggested I join the force. He told me that I had a knack for reading people and situations, a natural intuition for that kind of thing. I took his suggestion and ran with it. My career with the Houston Police Department is everything to me. It’s the only thing besides football that I have ever been good at. And now, because of some dumb ass drunk driver, my entire career could be over. Just like that.”
“Carlos, that’s exactly why you have to get better. Go to physical therapy and work your ass off. This isn’t the end of your career unless you want it to be. Your prognosis was good—I know the doctor told you that with months of work you’d be able to walk again. Why are you shying away from that? I’ve never known you to shy away from anything.”
Carlos looked at his hands, pulling at a loose thread on the coverlet of the bed. “What if I can’t do it, man? What if the doctor was wrong and this is the end of my career? I can’t—” His voice broke and he cleared his throat to push the words out. “I can’t face that. I just can’t.”
“Your career is only over if you give up on it. Don’t throw away something that means so much to you over a little bit of fear. The Carlos I know has never backed down from a fight.”
Carlos nodded, refusing to look up and meet his friend’s gaze. He felt like the worst sort of coward, but he couldn’t deny the terror he felt at the thought of failing. At the thought of losing his career. “I’ll
think about it.”
Rafe stood from the bed and patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for sharing that with me, Carlos. If you need anything, you know I’m here for you.”
Carlos looked up to meet his friend’s gaze and saw movement in the doorway. Rafe hadn’t closed the door, and he could make out Kelsey’s retreating form in the hall. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her overhearing his past and his motivations for joining the force.
“Thanks, Rafe.”
“Now, I don’t know if I can see you for the next two to four weeks. When you open up to me like that, I feel things.”
Carlos laughed, “Oh yeah? Does my emotional turmoil turn you on?”
“Definitely, I’m at least half chub right now. Any more of this bonding shit and I’ll be tempted to leave Sophie for you.”
Carlos patted the bed beside him and winked. “Well, get on over here, big boy.”
Still laughing, Rafe shook his head and closed the bedroom door. Carlos didn’t know how long he stared at the doorknob, willing himself to get out of bed. He could use the cane to hobble around, tell Kelsey he was ready to go back to therapy. He looked over at the cane leaning against his bedside table and saw the painkillers next to it. He reached toward the cane, but changed his mind before grasping it. Changing the trajectory of his hand, he reached for the prescription bottle instead. He popped another pill, pulled the covers over his head, and went back to sleep.
Carlos was woken suddenly by the sound of his door slamming open. He sat up in surprise and saw Kelsey standing in the doorway, her features twisted in anger.
“Get the fuck up, Carlos.”
Glaring right back at her, he responded simply, “No.”
“I am sick of this bullshit. Get out of that bed, now. You aren’t this person. You don’t wallow and pout. Stop being a damn pussy and GET UP!”
Normally, angry Kelsey got him going, but she was really starting to piss him off. “You think it’s that easy? You think I can just get out of this bed and walk out of the room?”
“Yes, Carlos. It’s exactly that easy. You got up and walked out of this room every day of the first week you were here. You weren’t this pathetic lump of a human. You haven’t even showered in a week. You have one working leg, now use it.”
Okay, now he was livid. “Call me pathetic one more time, Kelsey,” he growled.
“You. Are. Pathetic,” she said, enunciating every word clearly.
Before he even gave a thought to what he was doing, he’d swung his legs over the side of the bed, grabbed his cane, and walked over to her. Only when he was towering over her did he notice the self-satisfied look in her eyes. He felt the anger drain from his body when he realized that she’d done what even Rafe had been unable to accomplish. She’d gotten him out of bed. He hadn’t even felt the twinge of pain in his leg. The only thing he’d been thinking about was kissing those awful words from her lips.
“You vixen,” he breathed. Her eyes widened and her breathing became shallow. The pain in his leg had returned, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the sudden lust surging through his body. He raised the hand not leaning on the cane to cup her cheek and leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled away. He tried to hide his flinch and removed his hand from her cheek quickly.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Carlos, I don’t want to hurt your feelings...but you fucking smell.”
Relief rushed through his body; she hadn’t rejected him because she didn’t want him. He just needed to shower. He laughed for the first time in days, the sound coming out raspy. “Noted. Feel like helping me shower?”
“Sure, I’ll go get the water running while you change into your swim trunks.”
Carlos groaned good-naturedly at the mention of those damn swim trunks and turned away from the door. When he saw Kelsey enter the bathroom, he grabbed his swimwear from his suitcase and sat down on the bed to get changed. Before he stood back up to meet her in the bathroom, he took another painkiller. He hardly noticed that his second bottle of medication, which was supposed to last him a full month, was almost empty.
Over the course of the next week, Carlos did his best to keep his shit together. He got up every morning, took a shower, went to his PT appointments, and did his best to act normal. In the back of his mind though, doubts were creeping in. Physical therapy seemed to be moving so damn slow, and every day he wasn’t at work was a day he felt his career slipping away from him. Deep down, he knew that his feelings weren’t entirely rational. He’d spoken to his captain and had been assured that his job was secure until he’d recovered fully. He just felt so...useless.
He still needed Kelsey’s help to shower, and could only hobble around the house for a few hours before needing a break. It was exhausting pretending every single moment of the day that he had it together, that he was okay, when in reality he was scared and so fucking angry. How could one drunk idiot change the entire trajectory of his life?
It was in those moments, the ones filled with his darkest thoughts, that he turned to his painkillers. He’d told his doctor that he spilled his previous prescription bottle as a way to explain needing a refill so soon. The slight high that he got from ingesting more than his prescribed dosage of medication was sometimes the only thing that got him through the day. As a cop, he knew he was sliding into dangerous territory with the pills, but he didn’t know what else to do, how else to cope. When he wasn’t sleeping or high he felt hopeless.
Pulling himself to a sitting position in bed, Carlos raked his fingers through his hair and down his face. He’d never been one for beards, but shaving seemed like too much effort. His hair was also longer than he usually allowed it to get and had begun flopping over his forehead. After stretching his upper body, he turned and placed his feet on the cool hardwood floor, shucking the covers and reaching for his cane.
Before standing, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and checked the time. It was well past noon. Fuck. He’d gone to bed last night around ten o’clock, taking two painkillers to ease him into sleep. Before the accident, he’d never slept past seven unless he was working the night shift. Then again, he’d always gotten up early to go to the gym, something he was unable to do now. Sure, he could work on his upper body strength, but what the fuck was the point?
Carlos shook off the negative thoughts and used his cane to pull himself to a stand. Pain immediately shot up his leg, the pain so excruciating that he fell back onto the bed.
“Fucking worthless piece of shit,” he said, speaking to his leg as well as to himself. He sighed and shook his head, his gaze landing on the orange pill bottle on his nightstand. The pain was too much—not just physically but emotionally. He knew it was unhealthy to seek the sweet numbness of the painkillers, but one more day wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?
Slowly, as though to give himself time to change his mind, Carlos reached for the pill bottle. He popped the top off with his thumb, shaking two pills into his palm. When his leg gave another uncomfortable throb, he allowed a third pill to slide into his hand. Without giving himself time to doubt his decision, he tossed the pills into his mouth and swallowed them dry. He was a big man—a larger dosage made sense, right? Leaving his feet touching the floor, Carlos reclined back on the bed and waited for the numbness to take over.
Chapter Eight
The first thing to hit Kelsey when she walked through the front door after picking James up from Kyle’s was the loud volume on the TV. She’d expected to return to a quiet home. For the last week, Carlos had made more of an effort, but still spent the majority of his time in his room. She felt as though he was putting on a brave front while refusing to acknowledge how he was really feeling. His conversation with Rafe and subsequent...discussion with Kelsey had seemed to help, but she knew it wasn’t enough.
“Carlos?” she called hesitantly. When she got no response, she helped James pull off his shoes and socks. After he tossed them into the shoe basket by the door, she told him to go to his room and put away his ba
ckpack. He headed down the hall, and she turned into the living room. Carlos was lying on the couch, a Marvel movie playing on the television screen. She was relieved to see that he was awake; she didn’t want to have to wake him up and help him move to his bedroom.
“Carlos,” she called again. This time, he appeared to have heard her and turned his head. His pupils were constricted, and when he spoke, his speech was slow and slurred.
“Hey, Kels! You’re home.”
“Yeah,” she replied cautiously. Is he high?
He blinked at her drowsily and a dopey grin pulled at the corners of his lips. “You’re so fucking gorgeous. Why won’t you date me?”
Kelsey sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re high as a fucking kite, Carlos.”
Instead of denying it, Carlos lifted his shoulder in a semblance of a shrug. “Just took my painkillers. My leg was hurting.”
She highly doubted he took the prescribed dosage. When Kelsey had first brought Carlos home she had seen the effect the pills had on him. They made him drowsy, maybe a little slower to react. This was something else though.
“How many did you take, Carlos?”
He lifted his shoulder again. “Dunno, a couple. My leg doesn’t hurt anymore though.”
“You’re high and my son is in the damn house! This is not in any way, shape, or form okay!”
A confused expression washed over Carlos’s features before he clenched his jaw in apparent anger. “Why are you being so uptight? I’m injured, Kelsey. I may never walk again. All I did was take medicine that my doctor gave me.”
