by Harlow Cole
Tangled emotions and those cement feet held me in place. I was stuck again, hiding out from dealing with heavy decisions I didn’t want to make. I’d spent so many months—so many years really—with no choices at all, with little control over the path I had to take.
Now, there were suddenly too many.
His fingers curled slightly, like his body sensed my hesitation and knew to silently coax me forward. His hand held there, steady against the dark night, just waiting for me to clasp ahold of it.
Would the strings attached, take me in and shelter me, or suck me into the undertow and leave me drowning all over again?
I’d been asking the same question ever since he arrived.
Why are you here?
Maybe I finally had an answer.
“Ash?”
“Did you bring him here for Nathan?” The words rushed out as I stepped closer to him, beginning to walk up the metal plank with determined fists clenched by my sides. I hadn’t even provided a name, but Brayden’s eyes softened with acknowledgment as they studied me. His hand hovered in the air, still offered freely, but also prepared to grab hold without permission if I fell.
Protection—even when I hadn’t asked or wanted it.
“Yes.”
We took three steps toward one another with the slow motion of a magnetic pull.
My lips parted in surprise. “That’s why you want to see him. You want to talk Nathan into working with Matt.”
“I’ve already had a work crew gut Ginger’s boathouse. I’m turning it into a new space. Part of my deal with Matt. The boathouse and the guesthouse are both going to be remodeled. He’s gonna use them as a retreat for patients who need a place to hit reset. I’m just the guinea pig. I’m gonna use it till my arm is back to full strength.”
His fingers curled again, instinctively reacting to me moving closer still.
“I intend for your brother to be his first real patient.”
My hand reached out without further thought. Fingers interlaced with his, doubling my strength, as Brayden pulled me all the way toward him. His arm wrapped around my shoulders as he guided me the last steps onto the massive deck.
A bird cried overhead.
That same morning song rang in my ears.
A lullaby about paper wings.
“Welcome aboard.”
12
Hercules
Brayden
She came back the next night.
And some of the nights that followed.
I started planning my day around the sinking sun. Every evening, she made a final sweep, checking to ensure every boat was tucked in and tied down and that overnighters had what they needed. I made sure not to miss it. I would stand at the rail of Toward Happiness, trying to look casual, holding a can of PBR that washed down with the taste of adolescence and old friendships.
I finally coaxed her aboard a second time with some lame excuse cast on the end of a hook. After that, we settled into a pattern.
We had dinner one night. Bad Chinese out of cardboard cartons. The noodles stuck to our chins and the ends of flimsy wooden chopsticks. She accepted a chilled glass of chenin blanc after a day that wore heavy across her face and shoulders. I desperately wanted to ask, to bear some of the load, but I didn’t push.
I needed to learn her all over again.
The new her.
She kept coming to me. Meeting me halfway. I had to keep playing things just right. Had to call upon the skills in my arsenal.
People generally thought of my arm as my greatest weapon—the reason for my success. But that was a crock of shit, supplied by amateurs who’d never stood alone on a mound of dirt. My success hinged upon one thing—my ability to study opponents, to crawl inside their heads, learn their greatest weakness, and then use it against them.
I studied batters. Every single one. Their stride to the plate. Their spit trajectory. The way they tapped the bat against the bottom of their shoe.
I saw my catcher’s fingers splayed between his thighs, flexing impatiently, waiting for my nod. His sign came from the encyclopedia he kept tucked inside his head. Catch knew if the batter swung flat or could take a curve for a ride. He knew if a guy craved heat or always took the first ball. In the back of my mind, I knew the same things.
We watched the same tape.
So did the coaches who would stand on the periphery, tugging on ears and swiping hands across aged bellies. They all thought they knew better.
But the secret between throwing a ball or a strike lay behind the one thing none of them could ever see. The one thing I always had.
A batter’s eyes.
Eyes tattletale. They give up the covert story, the whole library of human emotion. From sixty feet out, I could predict batting averages based solely on cockiness or fear. Then, I used that knowledge to craft my approach.
I had to do the same thing with Ashley now.
My favorite green eyes were still filled with the same defiance and pride as the independent little cuss who’d once made me stand on the side of the road and watch her struggle to change a flat. That same girl, who’d ridden away from me with too many books in her basket, still didn’t want to accept my help.
She didn’t want to need it.
I understood why. It was a bitch of a thing to need the help of someone whose missteps had wrecked your life. I’d worn those same shoes when I woke up that first morning after.
Day one on my countdown.
After the accident, that first morning home from the hospital, I woke up to find my father sitting at the kitchen table. He was disheveled from a lack of sleep and aged by worry. A blank legal pad sat in front of him along with two business cards and an orange sticky note covered in girlie handwriting I knew too well.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Wondering where the hell we go from here,” he answered.
I was still working off that page. That lined paper we sat and filled with a new plan. My father’s bottom line inevitably ended with the same dream—getting me to that anointed mound of dirt with a pin-striped jersey on my back. His mistakes had warped my whole life, but I agreed to accept his help and keep following his dreams.
I just never told him about the things I added later.
Things I copied from a different sheet of lined paper.
My own penciled-out dreams were still far from realized, but now, every time Ashley climbed aboard, I knew I was finally getting closer to happiness.
The fucking boat was aptly named.
I’d come this far. Gotten this close. I could feel her skin, smell her hair, taste her on my lips again. But Ashley’s eyes told me not to push. They held me back with a force she didn’t know she had. By sheer size, I could easily overpower her. But there she stood, still pint-size, still holding my nuts and my heart in a vise.
This girl could crush me. She had before.
Whether she knew it or not.
Those first few weeks after the accident, my father wouldn’t leave me alone with my shoelaces. That was when the need for a magic pill had burned so deep beneath my skin, I finally knew I had a problem. I pined for her. Grieved for her. Begged for her.
Wanted to die without her.
Since I was little, people who watched me play always said I had superhuman strength. But adapting to a life without Ashley taught me just how much I’d always leaned.
Blowing out my arm, losing the only other thing that mattered, was the final piece falling into place. A stark reminder that I couldn’t do life without them both. The weakness of injury finally prodded me toward the strength I always needed.
Her.
She thought she didn’t want my help. I knew I had to have hers. Her mother’s strength lived deep inside her. I wondered if she even knew she had it.
When she came aboard each night, I didn’t make her talk. It felt like progress, just coexisting in the same space.
Most nights, she left with a suddenness that broke me. One minute, everything felt perfect, and the
next, she was bolting for the dock and mumbling goodbyes behind eyes riddled with guilt.
I moved around her in orbit. In my mind, I kept my arms held out wide, caging her from bolting like a newborn colt with faculties not yet in sync. I stayed loose. Didn’t pressure, or push, or force myself on her again.
I sensed her need for extra time, and so long as she kept coming back, I didn’t mind giving in to it for a while.
Slow and steady wasn’t half bad when you weren’t going it all alone.
* * *
“This thing probably has five staterooms and fifteen couches. Why are we lying on the deck?”
I adjusted the pillow behind my neck. I’d scattered a half-dozen of them, plucked from the nearby loungers, to make a soft bed on top of the glossy teak floor.
“This is the best spot to see them.” I lifted my hand, drawing my index finger across the dark sky.
“What are you doing?”
“Tracing Hercules.”
“The constellation? Is he what you used to look at through that fancy telescope Grams gave you?”
“Yeah. He’s one of my favorites.”
“Where is he?”
My palm wrapped around the back of her smaller hand, loosely extending her arm beneath my own. Overlapping fingertips pointed into the night. She let me guide her, etching a path across the stars, connecting the dots to form a man.
“Why do you like him?”
“We have a lot in common,” I replied softly.
“Overly muscle-bound? Wielding a big bat?” She giggled.
I wanted to bottle the sound.
“Chauvinist much?” she added.
“He’s not what people think,” I answered quietly.
My fingers slid down her arm, leaving a lazy path of goose bumps. I turned my head on the pillow, drawing her hand down to my chest, as I stared into her eyes.
“He was a bastard. Zeus screwed around on his wife with a mortal chick. Made him. Hercules wasn’t even his real name. He was cursed, went a little nuts, did some real bad shit. Was sent away for years. Had to complete twelve tasks to atone for his sins. People think of him as a hero now, his name is synonymous with strength. But he had sort of a shady underlayer. A genesis and past mistakes he wanted to leave behind him.”
She curled onto her side, inching closer to me on the makeshift bed of pillows. Letting me lean as she soaked in my words.
“I missed this in New York.”
“Missed what?” she whispered back.
My fingertips stroked the back of her hand, forcing her palm to loosen. I pressed it flat against the thumping inside my chest. Our eyes collided as unspoken words passed between us. A gentleness settled over me that felt like old times. Back before everything. Before the really good times. Before the really bad ones, too.
Back when things had been simple.
I swallowed against the ache in my throat and the sting in my eyes. Being with her like this turned me into a fucking basket case. If she walked away from me again, these were the moments I knew would haunt me.
“The stars,” I finally answered. “You can’t see them very well in the city. Too many tall buildings, too many lights soaking up the dark. I always knew I missed seeing them, but I’d forgotten just how bright they were here. The memory was half as beautiful as the real thing.”
My eyes never left hers.
I made sure they told my tale, openly revealing I wasn’t talking about the damn night sky.
“Brayden,” she said my name like a whisper, barely cloaked by need.
She felt it, too. All of it. That same frustration. I wanted to give in to it. I wanted to devour every inch of her. With my eyes first and then with my hands. I could feel my lids droop under the heaviness of lust. My dick begged for denied attention.
She inched closer to me again.
Millimeters sprouted into measured giants.
“I missed you, Soot. So much.”
Her hand startled, pulling away from my chest. I clutched on to it, unable and unwilling to let her go.
“Don’t. Don’t run. I’m trying real damn hard not to scare you away.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and her hand fell limp beneath my own. “If I run, you’ll just chase me down, won’t you? You’ll use that freaky tractor-beam thing to suck me right back in.”
Half of my mouth twisted into a smirk. “You finally get that, huh?”
She nodded in response.
I bent toward her, resting my forehead against hers. “Don’t make me run after you tonight. Stay. Just a little longer. Let me hold you. When was the last time you let yourself lean on anyone? For just a little while, let’s stare up at these damn stars and forget about everything before this night.”
“Like this is our first date?” Her breath fanned across my cheek, lips so close to my own. “Like we just met?”
“Fuck yeah.” My lips rested against the edge of her hairline, brushing lightly back and forth, as my arms circled her. I drew her into my chest and held my breath, waiting to see how she would respond to tenderness.
Slowly, an arm gently encircled my waist.
I tried to hide my sigh of relief.
“I’m Ashley,” she said softly. “But most people are lazy and just call me Ash.”
Her words echoed in my head. She’d spoken them with the voice of a grown woman, but they conjured images of the girl with freckles and pigtails, boldly sitting in my seat as she made the same introduction.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she added.
“I’m Brayden,” I replied, playing along.
Her smile tickled my neck. “I know. Everyone knows who you are. You’re a big superstar. I’ve seen your picture in all the magazines. With fancy models and movie actresses.”
“Nope. You’re wrong. People say I look like him, but I’m no one special. Just a guy. I saw you walking along the dock earlier and had to know who you were. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her little fist lightly punched me in the side. “You always lay it on this thick on the first date?”
“Nah. But I’ve never wanted to have a second date this badly.”
She nestled in closer, her hand fisting the back of my shirt. We lay there in amiable silence, listening to night sounds and each other’s breath. Dampness against my skin and the uneven rise and fall of her back beneath my hands alerted me to the sudden change.
“Ash?” I pulled back, smoothing her hair away from wet cheeks. “I’m pretty sure Joey has hard and fast rules about crying on a first date,” I added quietly.
A sad little smile made the tears well up and spill faster down her skin. I swept them with the pads of my thumbs.
“I just . . .” She huffed out a breath and pulled farther back from me. “It’s just so much. All at once. I feel . . . so overwhelmed.” The back of her hand swiped angrily at her cheek. “God, I’m just being stupid. I haven’t let myself . . . I don’t usually cry like this anymore.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. Let me be the shoulder for a while.”
“I have to stand on my own, Brayden. Life’s made that abundantly clear too many times.”
“You’ve been doing this alone for too long. Leaning doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re strong enough to ask for help.”
Her brows furrowed as she looked at me, sarcastically bemused. “Where’d you learn all that fancy crap?”
I laughed and used the lightness of the moment to pull her back to me. “Rehab. Followed by hours upon hours of therapy.”
My laugh rumbled in my chest. A shaky breath and sigh combined as she settled back against me.
She let me hold her. She let herself cry. Let that release valve open just enough to share some of the bottled up pain.
I stared up at Hercules and tried cutting that bastard a deal. I begged him to send me some strength for the feats I still had left to conquer.
I would do whatever it took. I’d hurdle anything and everything that stood between me
and a million more nights like this.
* * *
Ashley
The only way to survive grief is to block things out.
That’s the gift given by time. You don’t ever forget; you just shove the memories that hurt the most into back corners and onto the top shelves of your mind. You learn to cram them in, using your back and all remaining strength to shut them inside. Then, you spend each day praying they don’t tumble out when something random accidentally cracks the closet door back open.
I hadn’t forgotten how good it felt to lay, protected, in Brayden’s arms. I’d just squelched down the memory of the way those big arms could wrap all the way around me, the way my tears could easily fall and dry, absorbed by his skin and the rough cotton of his shirt.
I cried for those losses.
And for all the nights like this one that we never had.
Eventually, my eyes ran dry. The tiny hiccups in my chest subsided, and I let one more recollection out of the dark cupboard. It wouldn’t be allowed to stay for long, but maybe, for a while, I could let myself remember what it felt like to love him. To rely on him.
My fingers found the hem of his shirt. They lightly scraped beneath it, against chiseled skin and the tiny patch of coarse hair. His breathing changed. A deep inhale, followed by a chest that expanded and then held unnaturally still.
After the rough sex on my desk, he’d backed way off. The crude suggestions, the open wickedness, and teasing caresses had given way to something softer and gentler. Part of me despised it. Not just because I hated to admit I liked that side of him, but also because I knew him too well. Knew why he was doing it.
He wanted to lure me in. Again.
I still didn’t want to give in to him, but maybe I could give in to myself for a little while. I’d learned to pack away my feelings once. I could do it again when I had to.
“What are the rules about hooking up on the first date?” My fingers climbed up farther beneath his shirt, spreading across warm, tight skin.
He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. “There are exceptions to every rule.”
I skimmed up over hard pecs. Across a galloping heart.
“Are you seeing anyone else?” I played along, role-playing my way through the question I didn’t want to ask. I hadn’t forgotten the girl on his phone at two in the morning. I’d just tucked her image in a box, double-sealed with packing tape, shoved high up behind winter boots and mismatched mittens.
