Anyway, guess what? I dyed my hair pink! My mother hates it says I’m ugly and will never get a husband whaaaatever.
Did my mom do it?He looked in the rearview mirror at his roots, frowning.
Yeah and she tried to feed me.
Sorry.
It’s okay. Your mom is nice. I wish my mom was like her.
You can borrow my mom whenever you want.
She sent him a GIF of a cartoon rabbit yellingYES!and Jax smiled again, but it fell from his face as he picked up the physical therapy prescription, studying it once more.
He did come all this way. Maybe he could find someone knowledgeable enough at PT to help him form a plan, any plan.
It was worth a shot.
“It looks like you’ve done these exercises before.” The physical therapist watched as Jax went through the motions.
“I’ve been in PT a few times,” he grunted, gritting his teeth as he finished the final leg lift, his back giving him a warning.
“Does it help?” Younger than him, Kyle seemed to know what he was doing, checking Jax’s alignment as he turned and did a side plank.
“Not really.” Holding himself up wasn’t easy, even with what was left of his athletic body, but his balance fell to pieces as Hot Bearded Guy walked through the door, looking just as delicious as he had a few weeks ago.
Slumping to the table, Jax took a break, pretending to listen to Kyle while his heart pounded in his ears. Seeing the gorgeous man again had the same effect, like the universe was highlighting him, telling Jax to pursue. But Jax couldn’t just get up in the middle of a PT session and start flirting.
He’d do that after.
Trying to even out his breathing, Jax slyly studied his new husband. Tall, with sandy-brown hair and eyes to match, he had a scrumptious beard and a calm, quiet assurance. And he was definitely a marathon runner because he was lean with an ass that wouldn’t quit.
Jax clicked his teeth with the barbell in his tongue, finishing the next exercise as quickly as he could.
“Let’s move to the wall bands.” Kyle gestured for Jax to get up, and they went to the main area, where Hot Bearded Guy sat on a recumbent bike beside the windows, rehabbing his wrapped right knee.
Luckily, the wall bands were in the perfect place. Pretending to stare out the window, Jax did his reps, keeping the man in his peripheral vision and noting the lack of a wedding ring.
Was he single? Gay? Bi? Not a psychopath? That would be nice. And what should Jax say? He’d never been so hesitant to approach someone before, because this felt different than a hookup, like he was teetering on the edge of a precipice, and it made him hesitant.
Apparently, he was focusing too hard because he jumped when Hot Bearded Guy did. Cringing internally, Jax snapped his gaze to the cheesy motivational sign on the wall as the man answered a call, and Jax didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the piped-in music didn’t quite cover other people’s conversations.
“Hey.” His voice was smooth like honey with a tone that said he had a soft heart. It wriggled under Jax’s bones, making them quiver. “I’m at physical therapy…It’s okay, I understand.” The tenderness in his words told Jax that this gorgeous man was already taken, which shouldn’t be a surprise. “How about I stop at the doughnut place on my way home?”
Jax heaved a sigh, his heart sinking. Yep, definitely taken. Why couldn’t he be violently attracted to someone single?
But Jax could still admire from afar, and he did just that, keeping that voice and those light brown eyes in his mind all the way to his mother’s place. It was only displaced by his pain, which bleated in his head, telling him that he should’ve thought more about scheduling.
Putting a touch-up after physical therapy was masochism. He was already hurting from the exercises, and now he had to go to his mom’s and sit while he got his roots done?
He was setting himself up to fail, but it was too late to cancel; truthfully, he couldn’t delay it any longer. Heneededto see her. A solid inch of his dark-brown hair was showing, and while that look was trendy and gorgeous, he preferred to be fully platinum, toned almost to white.
“It’s grown in a lot, hun,” his mother fussed once he arrived, carefully hugging him.
“I’ve been kind of lazy about it.” He shrugged off his coat, and she handed him a towel to put around his neck. “Work takes a lot of my energy.”
“Are you gonna start physical therapy?” His mother had grown up in a city with a lot of other Italian Americans and her accent showed it. Sometimes people were ruffled by it, and a few of his friends had joked about him being part of the mafia, but Jax had always found it warm. They’d moved several hours north when he was young, so he’d lost whatever accent he’d had, but it reappeared whenever he got too angry.
“I already did. I was hoping to get someone to work on a program with me, but they’re like robots, spitting out the same six exercises, and I already have those muscles. I’ve maxed out on that helping me. I’m only sticking around for the massage.” Jax sat on a tall chair he’d special-ordered; it let his legs dangle, and the seat had almost no cushioning, so he’d gotten one for his place and his mother’s.
