Making Peace

by Sasha Goldie

  I saw his bare feet next to my own. He'd worn shorts up the mountain and already took his shoes off.

  "Come on," he said.

  Looking up at him, I saw he had a hand out. He intended to help me up onto the rock.

  The rock was exactly how I'd remembered it. It jutted out into the water, giving a long, smooth spot to sit down and remove my leg. It didn't angle down, either, so I could leave the prosthetic there without fear of it rolling into the water.

  I took his offered hand without a word, and sparks shot up my arm at our touch.

  "Sorry," he said. "Static electricity."

  "Shoot, I thought it was like a mating bond or something." The joke popped out of my mouth before I could stop it, my nerves totally removing my filter.

  "There is so much about that sentence I need to explore," he said with a huge, shit-eating grin on his face.

  "Oh, don't start." He loved to tease. Always had.

  "You still read romance novels, don't you?" he asked in delight.

  "Are you judging me?" I raised my eyebrows in challenge. Two could play at this game. "Because I remember a certain someone needing a whole box of tissues to get through Armageddon."

  "That movie was sad, we were kids, and he died. Who wouldn't cry?" He stepped up onto the rock, and I followed easily. "I really expected that to be harder," he said as he released my hand.

  "It was nice of you, really. I'm steady on this thing, as steady as anyone can be, but balance is my biggest issue, I guess. If I'd slipped on the rock, I would've gone down hard." I looked around at the water Droo had tracked all over the place. "Especially with it being wet."

  He walked away, leaving me to lower myself to the ground. "I guess I'll just stand here until you're done."

  Twirling around to face me, his face caused me to burst out laughing. He was totally panicked at the thought that he might've left me stranded without a way to sit down by myself.

  "I'm kidding! It's nice to see you're still gullible," I said as I easily lowered myself to the ground and began removing my leg. "Go change."

  "I'm going to dunk you for that," Carson said in a threatening voice. "You just wait."

  "Bring it."

  Once I had the leg off, I stretched out and placed it as far away from the water as it could go while still being on the rock. I didn't want Droo to accidentally knock it into the river. The current was slow here since it was such a deep spot, but if I couldn't get to it in time, it would submerge, and they'd warned me never to do that.

  Insurance wouldn't replace the leg, not for death by river.

  While Carson was distracted, I scooted myself toward the river and slid into the water, gasping as the frigid cold hit my balls. "Shit," I yelled.

  Carson burst out laughing. "You forgot how cold it is."

  "Hell, yes, I did." I treaded the water, glad I'd taken lessons during therapy to teach me how to swim with one leg. It was definitely a different skill set than the swimming I'd done the rest of my life.

  10

  Carson

  Max hadn't seen me watching him, thankfully. He'd taken his shirt off and I'd exercised every ounce of restraint in my body to stop myself from touching him. He'd said something on the way up about making more time to work out. Said he didn't want to lose his strength. I could understand why that would be so important to him, given his disability.

  From every angle I saw him, his body was absolute perfection. The leg didn't detract from it one bit. His ability to move seamlessly, even barefoot, even on this terrain just made him all that much hotter.

  As I slipped my shorts down, I watched Droo swim up to Max and lick him in the face. The old dog loved the river more than I did, if possible. He'd swim for a while, then he'd sack out on the rock and sleep until I was ready to go. Once we got home, he'd likely sleep the rest of the day, happily worn out.

  I hesitated before stepping out from behind the towel, looking down at my stomach. I wasn't really overweight, but the beer I loved to drink—in moderation, I just loved the taste of a good craft—was starting to show in my pooch. I was pretty sure I had what the kids were calling a 'dad bod.'

  Great. Once Mr. Body over there saw my belly, he wouldn't be attracted to me at all.

  "Are you coming?" Max called. He was halfway out to the middle of the river, in the deepest part. Grinning, he bobbed below the water and back up. "I'm already used to the cold."

  "Head over to that spring across there. It runs underground from the top of the mountain. It's the coldest running water I've ever felt, and I've been all over these mountains since I moved back.”

  "No, thanks," he said. "I remember, and if I'm not mistaken, isn't it really sandy over there?"

  I tried not to blush. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think of that," I said as I moved toward the water. I wasn't going to plunge in like he did. I'd tiptoe my way in a few feet down from the rock he'd left his leg on. He was nuts for plunging in.

  "When I was a kid," he said as he swam closer. Droo followed, swimming circles around his new friend. "My mom's cousin was blind. I loved that woman. Her son, who was a little bit older than me, had a kid. One weekend, I ran into her son at the grocery store and saw the baby for the first time. She was so cute. She did something or another funny while I was holding her. I don't remember now what it was." He shook his head. "My cousin called the house that night to chat with my mom. They were best friends and talked all the time."

  Stepping closer, I watched his face instead of where I was going, moving my feet carefully over the rocky bottom of the river as he continued.

  "I told her I'd seen her son and granddaughter at the store, then proceeded to tell her whatever cute thing it was the baby had done. When I was finished, I said, 'you should've seen it, it was so cute.'"

  I blanched, embarrassed for him. "Whoops," I said with a smile. "Was she mad?"

  "I apologized to her as soon as I said it, just like you did to me just now." I stepped closer to him. He was sitting on his butt on a rock. No way I could make myself sit down yet. I'd have to keep moving out to the deeper part. Or I could go a few feet to the left, where he'd plunged in, there was a sudden drop-off and it got deep quick.

  "She told me that she was glad I'd said it. She said that it was nice to know that I didn't think about her disability when I spoke to her. I just thought about her."

  I looked at him as he smiled up at me. "That's sweet," I said. "She sounds like a great lady."

  "She died not too many years after that. And she was a very great lady."

  Suddenly, without warning, Max reached up and grabbed my arm, yanking me toward the deeper part of the water. I plunged forward to the sound of Droo's excited barks, falling into the freezing water.

  My balls shriveled up, attempting to climb inside my body.

  When I surfaced, ready to murder Max, he was nowhere to be found. "You have to come up for air eventually," I called out over the water.

  Droo swam happily along toward the other shore. I would've bet all the money in my bank account that he was swimming right beside Max, so I headed toward them as fast as I could, but also as quietly as I could.

  By the time Max came up for air, which was several minutes, impressively, I was really close to him.

  "Ha," I shouted to his back. He jerked and splashed water all over the happily panting Droo as he whirled around to face me.

  Putting my hands on top of his head, I used him to launch my body out of the water, which also pushed him into it.

  He didn't roll over and take it from me. His hands clasped around my waist and the next thing I knew, I was underwater with Max pushing me down. Damn. He really was strong.

  Never one to miss an opportunity, I grabbed his obliques and pulled myself close to him then wrapped my legs around his waist.

  He pulled both of us above water, but I didn't let go. My arms found his shoulders and after I wiped my eyes, my gaze found his. His eyes were heated, and his breathing labored.

  His eyes flickered f
rom mine to my lips, but a small movement out of the corner of my eye pulled my gaze away from Max and toward the shore where Droo was lumbering out of the water. He'd apparently decided he'd had enough of our shenanigans.

  "I guess he got tired," I said, accidentally breaking the mood. I let my legs fall away from Max's waist and pulled back a few feet away from him. The mood had gotten really intense,

  We'd managed to get nearly to the other side of the wide expanse of water and were a couple of minutes’ swim away from our stuff—and Max's leg.

  Droo climbed up onto the rock and spotted the leg. He'd been too busy playing when Max took it off. "Oh, no," I breathed.

  Max turned toward the shore. "He wouldn't bother it, would he?" he asked me as Droo sniffed the prosthetic.

  "I don't know. He loves his toys, but he's never seen a prosthetic leg before."

  I gasped as Droo opened his jaw as if to take the ankle part of the leg into his mouth. "Droo!" I shouted across the water. He looked up at me and cocked his head. "No!"

  Instead of moving away, he shook his head, wiggling the shake down his body, slinging water off of his fur and onto our backpacks and Max's leg.

  "It's okay," he said. "As long as it's not submerged."

  As Droo turned his attention back to the leg, Max began swimming toward it. I followed as fast as I could, shouting my head off at the dog. If that darn dog caused Max's leg to be damaged, I'd... Well, I probably wouldn't do anything except try to replace the leg. "Droo, you better stop!"

  He ignored both of us. I changed tactics. "Go find your ball."

  At the mention of the B word, his head swung toward me. "That's right," I yelled. "Get your ball!" We kept going toward the shore, both of us hollering like maniacs about his ball.

  All in all, it only took us maybe two minutes to get to Droo, but in the moment it felt like two hours. Finally, Max used his impressive upper body strength to haul himself out of the water and onto the rock, scooting on his butt until he was beside the leg. Droo pranced around, waiting for one of us to throw his ball for him. I walked out of the water and grabbed our towels, throwing one to Max. "Are you through swimming?" I asked as I dug around in the backpack for Droo's ball. Once I found it, I threw it into the water as far as I could and watched him jump off the rock and swim to the ball.

  "Yeah," Max said as he dried his legs. "Could I ask a favor?" He looked embarrassed.

  "Of course."

  "Would you care to help me behind the towel? It'll be better to get out of the wet trunks before I try to put this thing back on."

  "Yup. I should've offered." I felt like an insensitive fool for not offering.

  "Don't worry about it," he said with a laugh as I helped him stand up. He held my hand as he reached over and picked his leg up.

  "What's the easiest way to do this?" I asked him.

  "You act like my crutch." He put his arm around me, and I slid my arm around his waist.

  "Christ," I said as we began to move. "You're heavier than you look."

  He snorted. "Thanks."

  "Shit, you're like one big muscle. What'd you expect?" I looked at him to make sure he wasn't really mad. He was grinning as we moved toward the tree.

  "I've never let anyone except the physical therapists do this for me," he said. That was a sobering thought.

  He trusted me enough to be vulnerable around me. "I'm flattered," I murmured as he let go of me and grabbed the tree trunk. Turning around, I walked back to Droo, who was waiting for me to throw the ball again. "I can't believe this guy isn't already passed out asleep. He normally sleeps while I swim around."

  "He probably would have if we hadn't gotten out of the water." A few minutes later, I heard movement and turned around. "It's all yours," he said, indicating the towel. I grabbed the towel I'd brought for myself and stepped behind our makeshift changing room, quickly changing and drying off.

  I'd even remembered a plastic bag for all the wet clothes. Snatching the towel off the branch, I called Droo. "Come on, let's go home and get you a treat."

  He bounded from the water and shook himself off again, luckily just far enough away that the water didn't reach us.

  I dried him off the best I could before shoving all our trunks and towels into the plastic bag. We each grabbed a granola bar and water, then headed down the mountain, munching as we walked.

  "You know," I said as I watched Max make his way down the mountain with relative ease. "I have to say again how impressive it is to watch you move with such apparent ease. I know you must've worked really hard to get to this point."

  He actually blushed. "I did, but it's nice to hear someone appreciate that." He glanced at me between watching where he was going. I was having a hard time keeping my own eyes on the trail and not on Max.

  Droo happily plodded along beside us.

  "You know," he said. "My last job?"

  "Yeah?" I asked. I was dying to know. He'd been so vague about it.

  "I was a model."

  I laughed at his joke. "Funny."

  He stopped walking. "I'm serious," he said seriously. "I posed nude. I did it for over a year."

  Turning back to where I'd left him a few feet back on the trail, I shook my head. "Ha-ha."

  "Carson, I'm dead serious," he said in an outraged voice. "Do you think I'm too ugly to pose?"

  "Of course not," I said. "You're gorgeous!" The words slipped out, but I didn't regret them. He was gorgeous.

  "Thanks," he said softly. "Then do you think I can't be a model because of the leg?"

  "Are you trying to pick a fight with me?" I looked at him. He'd caught up with me and matched my stride.

  "No," he said with a laugh. "But you don't believe me."

  "It's your personality." I rolled my eyes. "You're so shy.” No way he could’ve been that different such a short time ago.

  "I am, you're right. I do okay at the brewery because I have a sort-of script. We only generally talk about food or drinks with the customers.” He shrugged. "Behind the camera it's similar."

  "What do you mean?" I watched a squirrel run away as Droo pulled on the leash, eager to go after it. "Stop, Droo." He settled immediately.

  "It's like having a mask on. And it's freeing. I can show the world how strong I am even without one of my legs."

  "Can I find his work anywhere?" Now that I believed him and knew it existed, I had to see it.

  "Yeah, it's all over the internet, but my name isn't tied to it. I asked him to keep me anonymous. When we get to my apartment, I'll show you. I've got every single image saved on my laptop."

  "Well, let's walk faster then," I said, only half-joking.

  11

  Max

  I wanted to smack him. He didn't believe that I could model. I wasn't some shrinking violet, afraid of my own shadow. We’d argued about it all the way down the mountain and back to my apartment.

  "There's not much you can't do, is there?" Carson asked as he scrolled through the pictures on my laptop. My irritation at his doubt melted away. Modeling truly was out of my comfort zone, so it wasn't a stretch for him to think I’d never do it.

  "Not much," I agreed as I scratched Droo's head.

  He went to the end of the pictures, then started them over, to my surprise. I'd been eager to show him, but most straight men didn't want to look at pictures of naked or half-naked men. Although, there'd been a moment in the water that had me wondering if he might be questioning or curious.

  "You don't have to look at them," I said. He was probably showing interest to be polite. Droo settled down to take a nap beside us on my couch.

  His head swung to face me; surprise written all over his expression. "Max, I'm getting a fucking hard-on looking at them. You're the sexiest man I've ever known." In a quick motion, he set the laptop on the coffee table and grabbed my face, pulling us together for a passionate, fiery kiss.

  Not even Do-Yun had kissed me like this. Struggling to maintain control, I gripped Carson's shirt and deepened the kiss befor
e yanking myself back. "Wait," I gasped. "You're gay?" Flabbergasted, I stared at him with my jaw hanging open.

  "Duh," he said, then lowered his head to my jaw, licking and kissing his way back to my mouth. "I've been trying not to flirt with you," he said into my lips. "But then you showed me your fucking pictures."

  "I thought you were straight," I said before capturing his lips, teasing the seam of his mouth with my tongue before pulling back again. "I think we've effectively ruined our friendship."

  "Did you really not pick up on all my hints?" he asked. "I mean, I know I don't wear a shirt that screams, 'hey, I'm gay,' but even though I kept telling myself I shouldn't flirt with you because you work for me, I was trying hard to flirt with you."

  "I just thought you were being friendly. Although, I was starting to wonder if you were maybe curious."

  "I’m not sure who all knows." He shrugged and moved his lips along my jaw again. "It doesn’t really matter to me."

  We shifted, and suddenly I found myself underneath Carson, my back pressing into the firm cushion of the sofa. I tried to breathe and focus on the intimacy and pleasure of the moment, but all I could think about was the pressure of his body over mine. His skin was velvety soft under my hands as I trailed them under his shirt, letting my fingernails scrape against him. His hand traveled down between us, cupping me through my pants. "Fuck," he whisper-moaned. "I want you."

  His lips trailed up down my neck while his hands moved around my back, pulling me tighter against him. My breathing intensified, but not because of the passion between us. My anxiety was overriding my horniness and attraction to Carson.

  I just couldn't take it. Pushing upward, I wrapped my arms around him and flipped him over in one fast swoop. He laughed. "Eager?"

  Instead of answering and having to explain my nearly debilitating anxiety, I pulled at his jogging shorts. Surprise registered on his face, but he wasn't dumb. He lifted his hips and let me pull his shorts and underwear off.