Laurie, of course, ignored him and wrote anyway. It was starting to piss Ed off. He ate, but he watched Laurie like a hawk while he did so. How the fuck would Laurie know what his goals should be? But he didn't want to be cranky, since that got everybody's underwear in a wad, apparently, so he didn't argue, just sat there, ate, drank his beer, and waited.
Eventually Laurie spoke again. “Pain management. Is that as self-explanatory as it seems?”
“It's supposed to be what kind of pain I want to be feeling in a month and in a year. How I want it to affect me, how I want it to have diminished. But I can't predict it, so—Damn it, Laurie, quit writing! What the fuck is this?”
Laurie didn't look up. “I'm almost done.”
“Laurie!” Ed slammed his beer bottle down. “What—”
But then Laurie set his pen aside, and his notebook too, and he leaned on his knees and looked hard at Ed.
“I know why you don't want to fill it out. I understand. But it doesn't help.”
“What do you understand?” Unable to hold himself back anymore, Ed snapped off the words, but he felt edgy and shaky, like someone was about to pull the blanket off his head and show him the monster.
“I understand,” Laurie said quietly, “that you don't want to fill this out because it means that your injury is real. That it really isn't going to get better. That you really do have to live with it.”
Ed opened his mouth to contradict him, but something caught in his throat, and he couldn't speak. Startled and a little concerned, he swallowed hard and tried to sink back into the couch.
Laurie leaned closer and caught his hand. “Ed, the way out isn't by denial. The way out is figuring out a new set of goals. Like this says.”
Laurie had pulled the blanket off, yes. So why did Ed feel like he was suffocating?
“I can't play football,” he whispered.
Laurie squeezed his hand. “I know. But there are other things you can do. Other things you can enjoy.” He faltered, just a little, as he reached for the notebook and passed it over. “I wrote a few things down. Just ideas. Obviously you don't have to keep any of them, but I thought—” He cut himself off, let go of Ed's hand, sat back, and waited.
Ed turned over the notebook and looked down at what Laurie had written.
Physical goal, one month: Dance the basic steps of the Argentine tango with evenness and precision. (Alternate goal: Learn the entirety of a rumba routine.)
Physical goal, one year: Master at least four basic ballroom dances. (Alternate: Learn the advanced steps of the Argentine tango.)
Social goal, one month: Attend game or practice or event where football is happening. (Not necessary to feel okay with it. Just need to be there.)
Social goal, one year: Attend game of former team and cheer them on, knowing you are participating still and that they still value you as a team member.
Active daily life goal, one month: Regularly take breaks at work as Tim has said you should and do the stretches for your neck like you're supposed to.
Active daily life goal, one year: Find job better suited to both your injury and your talent.
Pain goal, one month: Be good about exercise and therapy so that in one month the pain is back in remission.
Pain goal, one year: Learn to listen to your injury so that when flare-ups happen, you know how to take care of them. Learn what exercise helps and hurts, and be honest about it. Learn to find the way to do the activities you want to do but in a way that respects your injury.
Ed hadn't realized he was still staring at the paper, not even seeing it, not until Laurie put his hand on his leg again. “Ed?”
But Ed couldn't talk. He felt overwhelmed—moved, sad, angry, terrified, grateful. He felt like he was dying and being reborn all at once. Nothing about football at all on there. Nothing. Just the hanging out with the team, which was hell.
So much dancing. All of it with Laurie.
For weeks he'd been pushing Laurie away, trying to make this easier on himself. On Laurie too. As he sat there now, staring down at his pain-goal sheet, filled out at last, filled out by Laurie—Laurie, who hadn't left him, no matter what kind of asshat he'd been—for a second, Ed didn't know how to respond. At last, though, he picked up the pen and held it, hand shaking, over the paper. On the line beneath the pain goals Laurie had written, he added a goal of his own.
Goal, four hours: Make love to Laurie.
He loved the way Laurie laughed—quiet, soft but open. He also liked the way Laurie's hand slid over his thigh.
“Are you cleared?” Laurie asked, his hand brushing against Ed's groin.
Ed swallowed hard, hating how nervous he was. “He said I should play it by ear.”
“And?”
Ed hesitated. “It's coming that's the trouble. You tighten up like all fuck before you come, and you get full of adrenaline and think you're Superman. And then later you pay the piper. I'm probably okay.” He grimaced. “But I really don't want to find out I'm not.”
Laurie took his hand, lacing his fingers through it. He leaned in close, brushing a kiss against Ed's cheek. Ed closed his eyes.
“We could take it slow. Easy,” Laurie whispered.
“I don't want easy,” Ed replied, but his voice was rough. Laurie's breath on his ear was doing really interesting things to his dick.
Laurie nipped gently at Ed's ear. “I want you,” he whispered.
Ed turned carefully and kissed him. Then he kissed him a little deeper.
Laurie's stomach growled loudly.
Ed laughed, and Laurie blushed. “Sorry,” Laurie said, rising. “I guess it's been too long since lunch.”
“Eat, then,” Ed said, sitting back so Laurie could get up. But he watched Laurie's ass as he strode to the kitchen, and he thought of all the things he wanted to do to it.
Maybe I can. Maybe it's okay.
Ed cleared his throat. “What did you do, anyway? I thought you'd be by earlier.”
He worried that sounded pathetic, but if it did, Laurie ignored it. In fact, he grinned at Ed as he served salad onto his own plate in a generous heap. “In point of fact, I was negotiating for dancing space in Saint Paul.” When Ed's eyebrows went up, Laurie laughed, a soft, pretty sound that did strange things to Ed's insides.
“I didn't know you were looking for dancing space in Saint Paul,” he said.
“Neither did I.” Laurie settled down beside Ed on the couch and paused to eat a bite of salad before speaking. “Oliver started the idea in my head and hooked me up with one of his contacts. It's a nice space. I'd just meant to look, but honestly? I think I might do it. It will need all kinds of work, but...yes.”
Ed still didn't know what to say. Laurie was opening a studio in Saint Paul? Would he still work in Eden Prairie?
Did this have anything to do with Ed?
Who was Oliver?
He didn't say anything, though, just watched Laurie eat in silence for a while. But thoughts kept rolling around in his head, and eventually one of them fell out of his mouth.
“So you're going to be busy, huh, with two studios?” The lump in Ed's chest got a little bigger. “Probably not a lot of time for teaching a big goofy football player ballroom dancing.”
Laurie put down his fork, caught Ed's chin and held it. Ed was surprised by the intensity and softness he saw in Laurie's face.
“I will always have time to dance with you,” he said.
The confession should have eased Ed, but there was just too much doubt inside him, and it spilled out. “Me and all my pain bullshit will just get in your way.”
Laurie's expression turned fierce. “You're not in my way, Ed. You will never be in my way.” He stroked Ed's skin. “Please, don't shut me out anymore.” He bit his lip, then added, “Unless that's your way of telling me you'd rather do this alone.”
Ed turned his head carefully and kissed Laurie's palm. “No.”
Laurie's hand lingered, and Ed kissed his palm again, and then his wrist. He started
to make his way up Laurie's forearm, but then he saw the plate of salad about to fall off his lap and remembered himself. He sat up, picked up the plate, and gathered another bite before holding it up to Laurie's mouth. Laurie tried to protest, but Ed shoved the food inside.
“Eat,” he ordered, “so I can take you to bed.” Just the declaration made him nervous, though, so he gathered another bite and fed it to Laurie. “So what are you gonna teach in St. Paul? Same stuff?”
“Yes, but hopefully to a different mix of clientele.” He took the next bite Ed gave him and chewed quickly so he could keep talking, then gave up and spoke around the food. “I want to have kids from the center come too. For no charge.”
Ed raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
Laurie nodded. “This was Oliver's idea, to make it nonprofit. It changes what funds we can use and our tax system, and if it works out, I can align myself with the center. But that's still up in the air.”
Ed fed Laurie another bite and watched his lips slide over the tines, wanting to kiss them. “Didn't know you were looking to do that sort of thing.”
“Neither did I.” Laurie's eyes were dancing. So beautiful. Ed tried to feed him another bite, wanting to move on to dessert.
Laurie pushed it away and shook his head.
“You're hungry,” Ed said. His voice was gruff.
Laurie swallowed and leaned forward. “Not for salad.”
They moved to the bed, nuzzling all the way, but Ed's mind was racing ahead. He had to be careful, and he could do this. His neck was better, but it was still really fucking tender. He undressed carefully, leaving his boxers on.
When Laurie gave him a questioning look, Ed gave a sad smile. He reached out and stroked Laurie's arm. “How about tonight we just make this all about you?”
Laurie hesitated, then nodded and hurried undressing. He stripped down all the way. When his cock sprang free, it was already bobbing at half-mast. Ed wished like hell he could grab him, turn him over, and lick him into submission before he fucked him into next week. The acknowledgment that he couldn't upset him for a few minutes.
Don't focus on what the pain is taking from you; focus on what you have.
He tried to hold Tim's advice in his mind as he lay back on the bed and watched Laurie climb over to him.
Laurie was here. Ed had quite a lot.
Laurie's eyes were hooded with lust. “Where—how...?”
“Straddle me.” Ed motioned to the tented area of his boxers. “Let's have more of your frottage.”
Laurie hesitated and glanced at Ed's neck.
Ed stroked his arms gently. “I want to watch you come, Laurie.” Ed ran his hand down the pelt of his chest and grinned. “Come all over me, babe. I want to watch.”
Laurie blushed a little, but he gave Ed a wicked smile as well. “That all?”
Ed lifted his eyebrows. “You have something else in mind?”
Laurie climbed over Ed, straddling him as instructed, but he reached down and grabbed Ed's hand too. That was when Ed realized, God bless him, that Laurie had a tube of lube in his hand. He picked up Ed's free hand and placed it on his thigh.
Ed's blood was humming. He stroked Laurie's thigh as he turned silently around, presenting his ass to Ed's face.
Oh, it was fucking hot to watch naked Laurie straddle him, to have that prim little ass backing up toward him, and wasn't it just heaven itself to pull Laurie's hips back farther and farther until he could run his tongue over it, fondling his balls and stroking his taint and pushing his tongue up against his hole. God, but the noises Laurie made were heaven.
But it was just as good to lie back like a fucking sultan and push lube-slick fingers into that ass as it quivered over Ed's chest, to listen to Laurie gasp and moan, to watch him quiver and then start to push back against Ed's hand. As Ed watched Laurie's ass open to take first one, then two, then three of his fingers, his own cock swelled, brushing up against Laurie's chest as his head began to sink down even as his ass began to rise.
When it became too much for Ed to thrust, he slapped Laurie's ass and had him pull out, then repositioned him beside him on the bed, sitting up. He had Laurie slide back onto his fingers again, which was actually so fucking hot Ed almost came, and he might have tried, except the tightening tugged at his neck, and the resulting pain took care of his erection pretty quickly. So he just lay back and watched, turned on as all hell as Laurie rode his fingers, gripping the metal frame of the headboard as he fucked himself on Ed's hand, his eyes shut, head back, body slick with sweat, his erect cock bobbing up and down until with almost no warning, he shot all over Ed's chest, his neck, his mouth, and his hair.
Then he collapsed onto the pillow beside Ed. But when Ed tried to rise, Laurie shook his head. “Stay here,” he said and stumbled off to the bathroom, coming back with a warm washcloth, which he used to clean Ed's face, chest, hair, and, finally, fingers.
“Sorry,” he said when, once he was done, he found more semen in a tuft of hair by Ed's ear. He grimaced and tried to get it out with a washcloth. “I made a mess.”
“I like your mess.” Ed reached up and caught Laurie's hands, intending to say something playful, but somehow when he looked up into his lover's eyes, everything overwhelmed him.
Laurie caught the shift and bent down to kiss him lightly. “What's wrong?”
Ed swallowed the emotion caught in his throat, but it just came back again. “Why do you stay with me?” he whispered.
He wished he hadn't said it once the words were out of his mouth, wished he could pull them back, but Laurie didn't seem fazed at all. In fact, he just smiled a crooked smile and kissed him again.
“Because I don't want to dance by myself,” he whispered.
For some reason that just made Ed worse. He tried to shut his eyes and turn his head away, but Laurie just kissed the tears, and when that only made them come faster, he curled up beside him and hugged him close, pressing his naked body against Ed's side, stroking the hair of Ed's chest and whispering softly against his shoulder, so softly that Ed couldn't hear. Before long the tightness in his chest eased, and soon he was sleeping, wrapped safe in Laurie's arms.
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
enchufla: dance movement common in salsa dancing where two partners facing each other change positions, keeping constant contact with one or both hands while rotating one hundred and eighty degrees around the same point in opposite directions.
Laurie had never been happier than he was that December.
He'd stayed that night after the pain goals sheet with Ed, and he'd spent most of the weekend with him too. Ed came with him to tour the new space, which was across from the center, and they'd gone over to see Vicky too. Unsurprisingly, they'd run into Duon, who volunteered to help clean things up in exchange for lessons.
The new studio wasn't anything fantastic. For dressing rooms, he'd have to use two undersized offices, and for his own office, he had to set up a cubicle off to the side. The carpenter's price for a new floor had made him want to drink heavily. After dipping so much into his savings already, he was starting to feel less confident about this investment. This was before he'd priced the mirrors too. But he felt good every time he went there, even though the neighborhood was depressed and he still hadn't quite gotten over the urge to run to his car with his keys ready in his hand to gouge out the eyes of any approaching attacker.
He'd arranged a meeting for Vicky and Oliver the second week in December. It hadn't gone terribly, but it hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped. Vicky was even more bristly about outside funding than he'd thought she'd be, but Oliver was Oliver, and it wasn't long before he had her charmed. He introduced her to a few short-term grant possibilities she hadn't known about, but he also convinced her to let him throw a benefit for her in the spring. They were viewing it as a conditional trial; they'd see how the benefit went, and if the board liked it, Oliver would be happy to help them look for local funding for the
summer and the fall and beyond.
For his own studio's future, Laurie had his advertisements ready for printing, announcing he was opening a new center, but he hadn't posted them because he hadn't talked to Maggie yet. The only preparation he'd done was to turn over his Monday and Friday classes to other teachers so he could focus more on getting the Saint Paul center ready. Maggie had given him several confused looks, but he'd done his best to avoid her.
His mother, however, was far more difficult to dodge.
“You look tired,” Caroline remarked in mid-December as Laurie slid into his seat across from her. They were at a quiet restaurant downtown that she favored. “What has you working so hard?”
Laurie forced a benign smile. “Nothing. Just tired. And a little busy.”
“I heard a rumor you're giving up some of your classes.” She gave Laurie a sly look. “New project?”
“You heard that?” Laurie put down his glass, alarmed.
This seemed to amuse his mother. “One of the adjunct instructors’ mothers is on my benefit committee. She's very excited about the opportunity, and her mother wanted to thank me.” Her eyes danced. “Maggie doesn't know yet, does she?”
No, she didn't, Laurie agreed quietly, because she hadn't tried to kill him that morning. But did his mother know, or was she just guessing? She couldn't possibly know the truth. She hadn't tried to strangle him.
But had Oliver told her something?
His mother let the subject shift, talking of mundane things and detailing the planning of a party she was throwing. But then during dessert she asked, “Have you given any thought as to what you'll be performing?”
Laurie looked up sharply. “Performing?”
“For the benefit.” She smiled encouragingly.
Laurie clutched at his napkin. “I hadn't agreed formally with Oliver that I'd perform.” His grip went slack. “Though I suppose he's right. I have to.”
His mother frowned. “Oliver?”
Now it was Laurie who was confused. Then realization dawned. “Oh—you meant your benefit.”
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