Wicked Plans

by C. Morgan

  When I’d told him I was about to put him through the ringer, I hadn’t been lying and now he knew it. He was also more incredibly frustrated with me, more than any patient had ever been before, but I supposed they’d never had reason to take their pain and frustration out on me.

  It was turning out that Brysen was a first for me professionally in so many ways. First with the accident and now with its aftermath.

  When we were almost done, he roared and chucked the rubber band he’d been working with down on the floor. “You’re a fucking masochist, do you know that? I never want you anywhere near any of my sessions ever again. You’re a fucking freshman. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  He could try, but I knew he wouldn’t be successful in trying to kick me off his case. A lot of patients with serious injuries did the exact same thing, and it never worked. Nor did the baiting or trying to turn everything into the therapist’s fault.

  Hey, would you look at that? I really have learned a lot since I’ve been here. Only a couple of weeks ago, I definitely would’ve picked up the gauntlet he’d just thrown down. Now, however, I planted my hands on my hips and spoke to him firmly but not angrily.

  “The only person responsible for your recovery is you,” I said, making sure to keep looking him in the eye regardless of how intimidating it was when he scowled at me the way he was right now. “If you’re content losing the function of your leg or eventually having a limb that’s weaker than it used to be, then that’s fine by me. I’d rather be doing anything else than helping your ungrateful, spoiled, disrespectful ass anyway. So go ahead. Leave. Give up.”

  A long, quiet minute passed before he did the last thing I was expecting him to do. He started laughing. Loud, genuine, booming belly laughs that took a while before they subsided. When they finally did, he tilted his head at me and smiled.

  Not smirked, smiled. The difference between the two was downright astonishing.

  “My father would like you,” he said softly. “You really don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about you, do you? It’s all about calling a spade, a spade to you.”

  As it happened, I did give a fuck. Many fucks, in fact. About many things and many people. I just didn’t like getting pushed around by the likes of him. “Yeah, well, your father seems like he’s a jerk too. I don’t really care what he would think about me, so I guess you’re right in that sense.”

  He looked surprised that I’d said it, but then he nodded his agreement. “He really is a jerk. There are a lot of things you can call him that are much less complimentary, and they’d also all be true.”

  It was my turn to be surprised when I saw what I swore was a flash of sadness in his eyes before he jerked them away from mine. Wait a second. Is it possible that I’ve judged the Brysen Burke too harshly? That I’m being too harsh on him now?

  Some patients—most in fact—thrived on tough love when it came to recovery. It was a long, often difficult road and people didn’t usually like feeling babied or pampered through it when they were working so hard and pushing through so much.

  There were, however, others. A select few people who needed a softer hand. Who did better with encouragement and understanding than they did with blunt truths and harsh realities. Is it possible that Brysen is one of those?

  I almost laughed out loud at the thought. Who am I kidding? He doesn’t need a soft hand.

  “Your father was probably just scared that night at the hospital,” I reasoned. “Try not to hold it against him. A lot of people lash out when they’re frightened.”

  He shook his head without even taking a moment to consider the possibility. “I’m sure there are people who lash out because they’re scared, but that’s not what happened.”

  “Oh, yeah? What do you think happened, then?”

  When I asked the question, I didn’t really think he was going to answer it. It surprised the heck out of me when he did.

  “I don’t think anything about what happened,” he said. “I know exactly what it was. Dear old Dad was pissed because he knew the accident was going to bring negative attention to the family if he couldn’t bury it. On a campus this size, there was no chance in hell he was going to be able to bury it and he knew it. The perks of being a rich bastard’s son, right?”

  The words shocked me to my core. All this time, I’d thought I had him pegged but obviously, there was more to him than just a shallow jerk. Unless I was way off track here, there was an actual person hiding underneath all that abrasive bravado.

  A person who might just see the world differently than I thought he did. A person who was in a really bad place right now. A person who needed my help.

  Chapter 16

  BRYSEN

  Exhaustion tugged at parts of me I hadn’t even known I had while frustration pulsed like a living beast in my stomach. Physical therapy was officially a fucking nightmare. It was hard as balls. There had to be something wrong with people who actually enjoyed it—like Ruby.

  On the other hand, she seemed convinced that it would help me in the long run. But still… When the docs had said the road to recovery would be difficult, I hadn’t been expecting this.

  With sweat pouring down my neck and back and feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, I was very over it by the time my appointment ended. Over it, and starving.

  Since I had no food back at my place, I was going to have to prioritize grabbing something to eat over going to bed and crashing until the morning. As I rolled myself down the hall in search of food once my session was over, I mentally cursed the wheelchair. It made everything so much more difficult, but now that I knew what it was going to take to get out of it eventually, I knew I was going to have to learn to cope.

  I blew out a breath and coaxed the last bit of energy I could muster into my aching muscles. Come on, Burke. Toughen the fuck up. You can do this.

  It wasn’t like I had much of an option, anyway. I had to do this. No one else was going to do it for me. I wonder if I can convince Emily to send one of the housekeepers over for a few weeks.

  As soon as the thought entered my mind, I shoved it right back out and gritted my teeth. I don’t need help. I can do this the way God intended for me to do everything—by myself.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Ruby asked, catching up to me while I was trying to remember the way to the exit.

  Glancing up at her, I was about to lie when I realized I just didn’t have the energy. Nor did I have the energy to be my usual, dick-ish self. Besides, talking to her during the session hadn’t been that bad.

  “If I can find my way out of this torture chamber, I’m going to get something to eat,” I said. “Want to join me? The least I can do to thank you for saving my ass after the crash is to buy you a burger.”

  Her brows lifted slightly in surprise, then she smiled and held her hands out toward the handles on the chair. “Thanks for the invitation, but you don’t owe me anything. Not even a burger. I just did what anyone would do. I can wheel you out of here, though. If you’ll let me.”

  My immediate instinct was to turn her down hard, but again, I just couldn’t even muster the energy to do that. So instead, I let out a breath and dipped my head in a slight nod. “I’d appreciate that. Thanks.”

  The smile she shot me this time before moving in behind the chair lit up her eyes. “I’m glad you’re starting to see that accepting help isn’t a sign of weakness. If anything, it’s a sign of strength. I was sure you were going to tear me a new one just for offering.”

  “I’m not that bad,” I protested as an unexpected burst of laughter came out of me.

  She leaned over to let me see it when she arched both her brows at me, and I laughed again. “Okay, maybe I usually am, but not today. I think you broke me.”

  “Oh, ha ha. I’m pretty sure you broke yourself. I had nothing to do with it. All I’m trying to do is to help you not to stay broken.”

  “Fair enough.” I shrugged.

  A strangely amicable silence settled between us as
she wheeled me down the corridors to the door. It was getting late, and it seemed most people had left for the day already. Since I assumed that meant her shift would be over by now as well, I twisted a little in my seat to be able to see her over my shoulder.

  “Come eat with me,” I said. “I promise to be on my best behavior. Don’t make me beg, Sprite. I’m not exactly at my best here. I’d have charmed you until you couldn’t resist, but you’re going to have to settle for honesty for now.”

  I couldn’t see her features very well from this vantage point, so all that was left for me to do was to wait it out and see if honesty really could be the best policy sometimes. As we approached the outer doors, I was just about coming to accept her silence as yet another refusal of my invitation when she finally spoke.

  “As long as we can find someplace quiet,” she said. “I’m beat and I’m sure you are too. I really don’t want to go anywhere that’s going to require actual effort just to be there.”

  “Amen to that,” I said. “I’m with you. There’s a sandwich place on the outskirts of campus that doesn’t get much traffic anymore. Want to go there?”

  “You got it.” Without asking or making a thing out of it, she kept pushing my chair even after we’d left the clinic.

  Since it felt really fucking good to just be able to sit back and relax, I didn’t fight her on it. Neither of us said much until we got to Holy Dough, and then we settled at the first available table that had space for the chair to get to it.

  Once she was seated too, she fidgeted with her hands in her lap and wouldn’t meet my eyes. Previously, I might’ve called her out on being nervous around me but whatever. Sitting back, I waited for her to look at me. It didn’t happen often, but I was in the mood to sit and listen. Especially after she’d learned so much about me recently.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I said. “It’s only fair. You obviously know who my family is, where I’m from, and what I’m all about, but I don’t know anything about you.”

  “Other than that I’m a masochist?” she teased. “You also know what I’m studying, who my roommate is, and that I’m not much of one for fighting.”

  “Sure, okay, but all those things seem superficial compared to what you know about me.” I’m using words like superficial now? Jesus.

  Something about what I’d said seemed to resonate with Ruby, though. After a waitress came by to take our orders, she brought her gaze back to mine and nodded slowly. “Surprisingly, I actually get where you’re coming from with this, so okay. You want me to open up? I can do that. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other so if you need this to feel comfortable with me, I don’t have anything to hide.”

  Her teeth sank into her upper lip as she thought, then she nodded again. “You have no way of knowing this, but we actually didn’t grow up that far away from each other. Probably about two hours tops.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. We’ve got something in common after all.” She sent me a small smile. “Massachusetts born and bred here, too. I think our experiences growing up here were vastly different, though.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, let’s see. My father is a dentist and my mom is a part-time bookkeeper. I’m an only child, so now that they’re officially empty nesters, they’re between traveling or getting a dog next year when my father retires. I’m sure my life would bore the heck out of you. It’s too simple.”

  “Which option are you supporting?” I asked. “Traveling or getting a dog?”

  “Traveling,” she said without any hesitation whatsoever. “They can get a dog once they finally see all the places they’ve been talking about seeing, but they can’t really travel as easily or for as long as they want to once they have a dog.”

  “For what it’s worth, I agree,” I said. “Also, don’t be so sure I’d find your life so boring. The simple life sounds idyllic to me most of the time. Your family tight?”

  “Very,” she said, and the corners of her eyes crinkled as some or other fond memory crossed her mind. “My parents are the best. They value family above anything else, and since they both come from huge families, that makes for very busy, loud gatherings very often.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad to me,” I said honestly. “It sure beats uptight gatherings with hundreds of people that you don’t know. Your family must be super fucking proud of you.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “They are, but I’m also the weird one. I’ve always preferred to be alone in my room, studying, while my mom, aunts, and cousins go out shopping or getting pampered.”

  “You prefer studying alone to that?”

  Her eyes went wide as she nodded. “Absolutely. Getting my hair or my nails done won’t get me the future I want. My parents gave me a happy and secure childhood, and I want to be able to get on my own feet as soon as I can so they can enjoy their retirement. I’d also like to be able to offer them some support if they ever need it.”

  “Those are your goals for the future?” I asked, realizing that I’d never even thought about any of that.

  Ruby, on the other hand, seemed completely confident. “Yep. Well, that and helping people. I’ve always felt like our lives so far have only been about getting us ready to go into the workforce. Once we get there, it’s all about security first and foremost, isn’t it? For us and our parents?”

  Once again, she’d somehow managed to impress me. “You’re actually looking forward to the responsibility of creating your own security?”

  “Yes, aren’t you? Our lives will finally be our own. If we fuck them up, then that’s on us, but at least we’ll know it’s on us.”

  “Trust me, I already know all about fucking up being on me,” I said, feeling a wry grin spreading on my lips. “It’s pretty much the only thing I’m good at. Fucking up is second nature to me, especially if you ask my father.”

  As it turned out, she was a good listener. It felt like she was really hearing me instead of just dismissing me. Usually, if I spoke about anything like this, people just told me to suck it up. To be grateful for the advantages of being a Burke.

  She didn’t do anything like that. Instead, she just sipped the water the waitress had brought her and listened without any judgment. It didn’t even feel like she was holding my history of all the shit I’d pulled against me while I talked.

  “You might be the weird one in your family, but I’m the disappointment in mine,” I said, too tired to even try to package the words up nicely. “Growing up as a Burke was all about appearances. We don’t do family gatherings. We do glamorous, hosted parties for the elite. Our family portraits that get done every year are more about maintaining the illusion that we’re a real family than they are about creating memories, and my parents donate a lot of money but they never give their time to any cause.”

  “Wow,” she said. “That sucks. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine appearances being that important to anyone.”

  “To my parents, they’re everything,” I said. “Even their marriage is like that. They come across as the perfect power couple, but they’re more like business partners than an actual couple. They both play their parts, but there hasn’t been any romance or genuine love between them in forever. If there ever even was any.”

  It didn’t come naturally to me to talk about any of this stuff, but she made it easy. Like it was part of the normal flow of conversation instead of an interrogation or an attempt to pry into the lives of the rich and infamous.

  Actually, as I thought about it, I realized that the only other person who’d ever really seen this side of me was Emily. So why am I showing it to Ruby right now, and why don’t I want to stop just yet?

  Chapter 17

  RUBY

  Brysen Burke was an ass. Everybody knew that, so why was it so easy to talk to him tonight? And why was he opening up to me like we were old friends? It was a conundrum I’d been wondering about since he’d first started talking to me like he was a real boy back at the clini
c, but the more time I spent with him, the more confused I was getting about him.

  Surely, this couldn’t be the real him. I suspected his sudden niceness was a side effect of the pain killers, and I told him as much.

  “Are you sure you want to be telling me any of this?” I asked lightly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m really enjoying talking to you, but if you’re loopy on pain meds, you might want to think about what you’re saying before you say anything you might regret.”

  “Josh actually made a comment about my family having a history with shit like that,” he said. “It would make sense if my mom is a pill popper. I’ve always thought she has to be on something to keep up her happy facade in public, but don’t worry. I’m not on anything right now.”

  I paused, trying to keep the shock over his latest revelation from showing on my face as I chewed it over. “Well, in that case, you have my deepest sympathies. I’d have hated it if my parents were that desperate to keep up appearances. It can’t have been easy growing up in the shadow of that.”

  “It wasn’t,” he said. “If it helps, I don’t get the desperation either. Why are people like that?”

  “Well, I think most people try to keep up appearances to some extent,” I said after thinking for a second. “We all do it. Just not necessarily to such a great degree, but we pretend to be okay when we’re not. We do stuff we don’t always want to do just to make other people happy. If you really think about it, we all tell some kind of lie on a daily basis just to give people the idea that we really are doing well.”

  “I don’t.” His jaw set and something caught fire behind his eyes. “If you ask me, it’s bullshit. I have no idea why people work so hard to hide who they really are or what really makes them happy.”

  Staring right into the flickering flames of the forest fire igniting in that gaze of his, I lifted one of my shoulders in a shrug. “People do it because not doing it means we have to be vulnerable and very few of us are good at allowing others to see us when we are.”