Our gazes collided in the mirrored glass. “You always look good anytime you change it up. Try it. If you don’t like it, change it again,” I said. Fashion and design were always his go-to distractions. I only went along with whatever he wanted if it didn’t cost a lot of money.
“Fake it ’til you make it,” he muttered, which was his anthem these days.
That phrase bothered me. It didn’t speak of allowing his energy to return in a healthy manner. To prove my point, Dash’s entire body swayed to the left. My hands darted out, grabbing his chest to keep him upright.
“You’ll have a setback if you don’t make better choices, and I’m tired of sayin’ it to you. If you want me to continue to help you, then you fuckin’ need to rest, eat the small meals we bring to you, take warm showers sittin’ on the chair, and take the medicine for your cough. You handle the therapists’ programs like a pro, but you’re pushin’ yourself too hard durin’ your downtime. We also have to do better at readin’ the summary of your day, and what’s comin’ at you the next day.”
“Fucking?” he quipped, at my use of the word. “That’s my word. And what happened to you not talking about it with me anymore? You just said you weren’t saying it again.”
He knocked the faucet handle to turn off the water. Fatigue etched fine lines in the corners of his eyes. They were turning into deep ruts. The skin over his mouth stretched across his teeth. He was seriously skinny. I’d thrown away his array of pajama pants, and helped him into a pair of fitted boy shorts and a T-shirt that three weeks ago highlighted his small belly. Now, the fabric hung off him.
“Help me to bed,” he asked sensually rather than mechanically, but I knew the truth, he’d never manage to get to the mattress on his own. He tossed an arm around my neck, his body angling against mine. We began the slow walk to the bed.
“If you’d let me carry you, we’d be faster. Your chill bumps wouldn’t spring up,” I said, focusing on his steps as we angled through the door into the bedroom.
“Changing your tactics?” he spit out. “Just say you want to turn on the heater.”
I almost sighed as he dove into another regular disagreement. I liked the room’s temperature to be warmer than ice cold.
“Beau, I need to push myself, otherwise I might not shake this.” Dash grabbed for the edge of the furniture to help him stay upright as if I’d ever drop him. “I can’t stand for my cock to be limp when you’re around. It’s never happened before. I at least plump when I see you. What happens if I don’t get running properly again? You’re a sexual guy—”
I covered his lips with my palm, stopping the insanity of his explanation and excuses.
“Can I just record a message to you?” I asked. “Because it’s been days since you’ve been home, and you won’t allow the truth to sink into your thick skull. Your body’s healin’, and you’re overly-exhausted. Of course, you can’t grow hard. Recovery requires time, rest, and effort with the therapy team, and you have to eat the food made for you.”
“Apparently, I’m not into rice or soggy vegetables. I like more consistency to them. I enjoyed the spaghetti squash meal you made, but it needed salt and pepper. And there’s something funky in that smoothie. It tastes like what soap smells like. Maybe it’s too spinach-y. And it needs more honey or date sugar, something to sweeten it.”
Slow and steady, we finally made it to his side of the bed. “Thank you for tellin’ me. I’ll amend the recipes. You liked the roasted vegetables, right?”
“I like them a lot,” Dash said. “The carrots too. Those hit for me. At some point soon, I need to check in at the office,” Dash murmured, stifling a yawn as he took a sitting position on the edge of the bed. My palm popped up to cover his mouth again. I didn’t want to hear it, yet he still chatted through the stifle. “I’ve barely spoken to my staff in weeks. They’re too inexperienced. They need me. I’ve only gotten this level of talent because I’ve recruited them when they’re green. Others didn’t see their potential.” He shoved away my hand when I didn’t move it voluntarily. “I’ll have Stone come by…”
“Dash, get underneath the blankets.” Shockingly, he minded this time, but I had to scoop his legs up and help him move better onto the mattress. “We both can talk on the phone with Stone.”
Again, his defiant glare met mine. “Beau, I don’t need a nurse. I need you to help me rehab back, not keep me in this bed. You know how to do all this. Feed me good tasting food, not hospital quality. You know all the proteins and macros and how they work together. Help my physical therapist. Learn what they’re doing and exercise with me when they’re gone. It’s why I’m home now instead of the hospital. Please help me.”
After I tucked him in, I caressed his cheek until he turned to stare at me eye to eye. “That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell you. Recovery from somethin’ this debilitatin’ is a balance. In the hospital, you weren’t tryin’ to be everywhere. You worked out, did all the therapies, then rested. Your meals were custom created. You’ll grow exponentially better every single day like you did in the hospital. Augh.”
Dash cocked a brow at me. At least something between us cocked.
“Dash, you have all the tools to do everything right,” I said calmly. “Your errors are with tryin’ to do too much too fast without downtime for recovery. You’re not bein’ lazy or unproductive when you’re restin’. Read those law books you drag around all the time, that way when you’re ready, you’ll hit the ground runnin’.”
His pretty blue eyes eased as understanding set in. “I miss our alone time. You want me in this bed then get in here with me. We’ve never gone this long without being together.”
“We have been apart longer than this. When we were in Chicago, you were workin’ with your best friend, Lon. I was kicked out of that role without a backward glance. So, I hired a sex worker to take care of me when you began all those late nights, because no matter how I tried, I didn’t fit in.”
I dropped that somewhat untrue statement while having to mash my lips together to keep from laughing at his outlandish expression, and went for my side of the bed.
“Humor doesn’t suit you,” Dash murmured.
“Alexa, turn off the overhead bedroom lights.” The dogs lumbered inside the room to their doggie beds in the corner. I gathered the therapy notes from today and scooted close to Dash, tucking pillows behind my back to sit at Dash’s same angle.
A ravaging cough came out of nowhere. It was brutal. My one hand went to his back, rubbing upward to help push the gunk up. With my other hand, I reached for the boxes of tissues, shoving several into the hand covering his mouth. Several moments later, he gathered himself, and croaked out. “Read.”
I did, under the soft glow of the lamps on our nightstands. “It says you’re improvin’ on your therapies, but you need to rest more and your lungs need a break,” I said, my knees rose to balance the papers on my thighs.
“No, it doesn’t say that.” Dash twisted his upper body until we were old-schooling it with his head laid on my chest, his arm circling around me, keeping him in place against me. I circled an arm around him, making sure we stayed connected. I’d sleep just like this to better help him get through the coughing spells.
“It also says there’s a moderate risk that you aren’t my soulmate. That my actual soulmate doesn’t argue with me so much.”
