Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

Logic and reasondictated that Oakley should have been able to put the incident at La Friponne and the fight with Will after out of his mind. The rational, powerful thing to do would be to write it all off as a painful learning experience and to be grateful that he and Will had used their argument to come to a better understanding of each other and their feelings for one another.

And that was what had happened. He and Will had enjoyed a peaceful and sexy night together. Will had indeed carried him up to bed like a prince, and the two of them had kissed and cuddled, and Will even managed to get off on the whole thing. It was sweet, and Oakley had felt so much closer to Will afterwards.

But in the cold light of morning, the weight that had been pressing down harder and harder on Oakley’s soul was still there. It felt heavier and more impossible to move. So much so that when Will had gotten up to rush around, getting ready for work, Oakley had stayed in bed and snoozed a while longer.

Will was gone by the time he got up. Hillary had arrived to assist Oakley, and for the first time in weeks, he asked her to help him out of bed and into the shower. For weeks, he’d been adamant about performing the basic tasks of living himself with Hillary only there for back-up and to do the tasks Oakley couldn’t manage on his own. But he didn’t feel as though he could manage that morning.

He had Hillary make him breakfast once she’d helped him downstairs, and when he’d picked his way through that, not really tasting or enjoying any of it, he’d rolled morosely into his office to fire off an email to Keir, telling his partner he needed more time before coming back and perhaps he’d pushed himself too hard too fast after all.

The rest of the day was spent on the sofa with the telly on, though Oakley didn’t really watch it. He napped, he stared up at the ceiling, and he worked to push back his thoughts that he was lying to himself about ever being competent and able to conduct his own life now.

He thought about Ellis, about texting him and raging at him for not making certain he’d been wearing his seatbelt that night, or about his poor driving on the ice. He thought about telling Ellis he didn’t blame him for walking out and not looking back. A tiny part of him wanted to ask Ellis for forgiveness for, well, everything as well—for being a terrible boyfriend, for paying him off with gifts in exchange for sex, for being a miserable person in general.

In the end, he did none of that. He tossed his phone aside and refused to look at it, even when it rang a few times. Heath called him once, then twice, but Oakley ignored it.

“Have you been on the sofa all day?” Will asked when he’d returned from work, in a slightly better mood than he’d been in the day before. Oakley never had discovered the source of Will’s bad mood before the disaster of La Friponne.

Oakley grunted and muscled himself from lying on the sofa to sitting across it. “What’s it to you if I have?” he asked with far too much petulance.

Will finished hanging his coat and putting his wallet and keys on the side table, then walked over to the sofa. “Still smarting over last night?”

Oakley scowled up at him. It wouldn’t help anything if Will was flippant about the way his life was in tatters.

When Oakley didn’t answer, Will let out a breath and reached for him. “Come on. Time for your exercises.”

Oakley didn’t want to get off the sofa, let alone go through their pointless routine of stretching and bending limbs and muscles that were never going to work again. He let Will help him into his chair, trying to ignore Will’s puzzled look of concern as he did, and maneuvered himself into the lift, though he was inclined to have Will do that for him.

Once they were upstairs and he was lying on the mat, he let Will do whatever he wanted while Oakley’s mind drifted. He didn’t feel the same pulse of hope within him that his exercises would increase blood flow to his paralyzed limbs, which would aid in the healing process and bring back motor function as well as sensation. He didn’t feel anything, even when Will tried to get saucy while he worked on Oakley’s hips, spreading them wide and leaning over him suggestively.

Oakley almost didn’t notice when Will’s attempt at a teasing grin faded into a frown of concern.

“It’s still under your skin, isn’t it,” Will said once their routine was done. He moved to the side of the mat closer to Oakley’s head and slipped under him so that Oakley was lying in his lap.

The tender position pinged at Oakley’s heartstrings, but he frowned all the same. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

Will made a frustrated sound, but didn’t say anything. He sat there, cradling Oakley’s head and shoulders in his lap and stroking Oakley’s arm for a few minutes instead. It was clear he was thinking, but Oakley had no idea about what.

Finally, Will said, “I’m giving you one week.”

“Sorry?” Oakley asked, brow knit in confusion.

“I’m giving you one week,” Will repeated. “One week to feel sorry for yourself so that you can get past this bump in the road. Or maybe it’s more of a pothole.”

“I don’t need you to give me permission to feel like shit,” Oakley growled, pushing himself up out of Will’s embrace.

He didn’t feel any better for having moved away from his lover. In fact, what he really wanted was to sink back into Will’s arms and just stay there forever, ignoring everything else. But that would have taken a paradoxical act of pride that he didn’t feel up to.

“One week,” Will told him in a warning voice.

The ultimatum was irritating. At first. But as the days of that week wore on, Oakley sank from irritation to sullenness to depression over everything. He went from thinking Will was ridiculous and condescending for giving him a week to knowing that a week wasn’t enough.

It was too hard. Too many things were set against him. Without his rose-colored glasses on, he could see that he wasn’t actually making progress. Being able to feel his toes was nothing if he couldn’t do anything with those toes. He was stuck, and that was never going to change.

By the end of the week, Oakley was resolved to stop fooling himself and to embrace his life as the pitiful, damaged half a man he was now. He stopped trying to do everything for himself, because what was the point? And when he came across the portfolio of renovation plans for Brynthwaite House, he resolved to throw it out, along with his hope.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Will demanded when he walked into the living room after work, shoulders bunched with frustration and the lines in his brow more pronounced, like he’d had another bad day.

Oakley was in the middle of ripping up the schematics and conceptual drawings of the changes to Brynthwaite House. Deep guilt splashed through him like spilled milk, and he hunched a little under Will’s stern look.

“There isn’t any point in renovating the country house,” he said, trying to sound determined and sensible, but knowing he came off as sullen. “I don’t ever want to go back there anyhow. I plan to sell the place, and messing about with it too much will decrease its value.”

Will said nothing at first. He just walked over to the table where Oakley had the portfolio spread out and yanked the ripped pieces of drawings from Oakley’s hands. He shoved it all back into the portfolio, then snapped the whole thing shut.

“Your week is up,” he said, directing whatever anger he’d walked into the house with at Oakley. “I’m done putting up with this self-pitying bullshit.”

“My life is not bullshit,” Oakley nearly shouted, twisting and turning to say as much to Will’s face, since he’d walked behind his chair.

“Say that again and mean it,” Will said, unlocking the brakes on Oakley’s chair and pushing him into the hall.

It took Oakley a second to grasp what Will was getting at. He’d been acting like his life was bullshit all week. Will probably mistook his complaint for the first signs of getting back on track, or some other nonsense like that.

“Where are we going?” he demanded when Will grabbed his keys from the table and pushed Oakley toward the door. “I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Tough shit,” Will said, skipping forward to open the door, then pushing Oakley outside before he could react fast enough to stop him. “It’s a beautiful, spring day, the flowers are blooming, and you need to be outside to enjoy it.”

“I’m not dressed to go out,” Oakley complained as Will shut and locked the house behind them. “I’m not even wearing shoes.”

“Are you planning to get your feet dirty dancing through the garden?” Will snapped at him as he returned to the chair and pushed it hard enough to jolt Oakley.

“That’s not fair and you know it,” Oakley hissed, battling the hurt of the comment…and the excitement of the unexpected, the thrill of Will in one of his angry, cocky moods, and the fear of being out where people could see him again.

“Fuck fair,” Will snapped. “Life isn’t fair, so suck it up and get on with things.”

Oakley jerked to face straight forward instead of trying to look at Will as they argued. His skin prickled and his heart raced, but not just for himself. Will had brought something home with him from work, and it wasn’t good.

They walked on, heading south, toward GKH, actually. Oakley wondered if Will had someplace specific in mind to take him for his social torture or if Will was just so used to walking to work that his feet automatically headed that way. He contemplated asking about it, but he was too angry with Will for forcing him out of the house to do something as magnanimous as having a conversation with him.

And then his silence became more about the people they passed as they walked swiftly down Holland Park Ave and the way they stared at him. The same creeping sense that he’d become a freak show at the circus welled up within Oakley, like sewage backing up. Everyone seemed to be staring, especially the children they saw playing at the corner of Holland Park.

“Take me back,” Oakley muttered, then said in a louder voice, “Take me back. I don’t want to be out here.”

“No,” Will said, picking up his pace as he veered onto one of the paths through the park. “You need fresh air and sunshine.”

“I’m not some Victorian child being pushed around in a pram by his nanny,” Oakley complained.

“Then stop acting like one,” Will barked at him.

That shut Oakley up for another few minutes. Anger overtook shame, but only until they reached the far end of the park, close to the hospital. Then the eyes all seemed to turn to him again and the silent judgments rang in his head.

“This is cruel, you know,” he grumbled to Will. “Taking me out and showing me off, like I’m some sort of—”

His complaint died on his lips when he spotted someone else in a wheelchair, one that was far more extensive than his, being pushed along the paths as well. She was bundled up tight, and Oakley didn’t have to be a medical expert to see her paralysis was ten times worse than his own. A man was pushing her chair, and two small children and another woman carrying a toddler walked with them.

“Moira, Henry, hello!” Will called across the green to them, raising a hand to wave.

“Did you know they would be here?” Oakley asked, a jumble of fear and anger and sheepishness tangling inside him. “Is this some sort of ploy to get me to see that other people have it worse than me?”

“No, you sod,” Will said quietly as the small family stopped and turned to them. “I didn’t know they would be here. But Moira and Henry are wonderful people, and it looks like they have her sister and all the kids with them today, so you need to stop being an arsehole and be kind to my friends.”

Oakley winced—partly because he was being an arsehole and he needed to stop, and because of the unexpected pinch of jealousy over Will having other friends. Oakley hadn’t heard from the vast majority of his so-called friends in months.

“Will, hello.” The man pushing the chair—Henry, Oakley guessed—waved to them.

“This must be your boyfriend, Oakley,” Moira said. Her smile was as bright as the April sunshine, despite the state she was in. “I’m so happy to get to meet you at last.”

And she was happy. The woman radiated a sort of happiness against all odds that put Oakley to shame.

“Hello,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Moira, by the way,” Moira introduced herself. “This is my husband, Henry, my sister, Tabetha, and my darling babies, Lawrence, Riley, and baby Kate. I named her after Princess Kate,” she went on in a whisper, “but don’t tell anyone. I don’t want them judging me.” The sparkle in her eyes said she was joking.

Oakley was stunned to silence. Of all the things someone might judge Moira for, the name of her baby daughter was the one that came to her mind first?

“Oakley and I were just out enjoying a bit of sunshine before dusk,” Will said, sounding as cheerful as if the two of them had never said a cross word to each other.

“It is lovely,” Henry said. “We’re taking a whole-family walk ourselves, since the children are visiting today.”

That simple statement and the clear strain in Henry’s eyes told Oakley more than words ever could. Henry was struggling more than his wife, and oddly enough, Oakley felt that struggle. Far more than he would have anticipated. With it, he felt an instant desire to know the man and his entire family better.

“You must be relieved to get out of the hospital after all the drama today,” Moira told Will with a wink.

Oakley sucked in a breath. What drama? Why hadn’t Will told him about any drama?

Because he’d spent the last week being a grumpy git. He’d let his grief and frustration get so big that he’d drowned out anything Will might be feeling or wanting to tell him.

Will laughed as if it were all nothing. “It’s just the usual hospital stuff,” he said with a shrug.

“If you say so.” Moira send him the look of a mother who knew her children were holding back on her. She then looked at Oakley and said, “Tell this man that he’s a shoe-in for the new director position, and that it’s bollocks for him to not apply because of something stupid Rich said.”

Oakley’s eyes went wide. Little Lawrence’s went wide as well, and he said, “Mummy, you said a bad word.”

“I’m allowed to, bunny,” Moira said without missing a beat. “I’m a grown-up.”

Oakley blinked, and against all odds, he smiled.

At the same time, he was deeply humbled and ashamed of himself. Moira had a thousand times the grit that he had. He knew it with just one conversation. Chances were that she and her family didn’t have even a fraction of the advantages in life that he had, but there she was, smiling in the sunshine, even though she could barely turn her head up to face it.

“I don’t want to impose on your family time,” Oakley said, feeling about twelve new kinds of sheepishness that he hadn’t known existed. “Perhaps we could all meet up here in the park deliberately one of these days.”

Moira smiled brightly and stole a peek at Will. “We would love that. Wouldn’t we love that, Henry?”

“We would, darling,” Henry said, darting around to kiss Moira’s cheek.

They said their goodbyes and Moira and Henry headed off toward the children’s play area with their family while Oakley and Will kept walking around the perimeter of the park.

“They’re nice,” Oakley said after a long silence between them.

Will hummed. “Yes, they are.”

There was a pregnant pause between them in which all of the “I told you so’s” seemed to flitter around them, like gnats on a hot day.

“I’m sorry for being an arsehole,” Oakley mumbled at last.

“Apology accepted,” Will said. His voice was lighter, and when Oakley twisted a bit to look at him, he wore a more relaxed smile.

“Is that it?” he asked. “Is that the end of our argument?”

“Um, I think so,” Will said, smiling broader.

“Just like that?”

Will laughed. “Do you want to discuss your epiphany about those who have it worse than you and the benefits of strong support from loved ones? Or how the world has continued to turn, whether you’re in a chair or not?”

Oakley grinned despite himself. “No, I think I got the message.” He paused, then added, “I’m sure I’ll forget it as soon as I’m back home.”

“I’m sure you will,” Will said with a soft laugh. “Because recovery isn’t linear.”

The statement was simple yet profound. It meant more to Oakley than he could have imagined it would. Recovery certainly wasn’t linear. It was a fucking roller coaster.

And for the moment, at least, he wanted off.

“What did Mrs. Moira mean about you not applying for a director’s job because of something someone named Rich said?” he asked instead. “Is that why you’ve been coming home in such a foul mood?”

Will sighed heavily. They were near a cluster of benches, so he wheeled Oakley over to one, positioning him so that they were facing when he sat. Oakley didn’t like the way Will immediately went to resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his face with his hands, then pausing in that defeated posture for a moment.

“In case you were considering it,” Oakley said, trying to maintain a bit of humor, “you are no more entitled to hold things back from me than I am from holding them back on you. And I know there are things you haven’t been telling me.”

Will raised his head and looked at Oakley for a while, like he was considering what to say.

“There’s a Director of Development position opening up at the hospital,” he said, speaking a little on the fast side, like he needed to say it all before he changed his mind. “It’s exactly the sort of thing I’ve always wanted to do with my life. It would mean a great deal of responsibility and power.”

“So why haven’t you applied for it?” Oakley asked. “And who’s Rich?”

Will winced and flushed a little. “Rich is a coworker.” He cleared his throat. “One who has been consistently provoking me for having inappropriate relationships with patients.”

Oakley’s temper flared—both over this Rich person and because he hated the idea of Will with any other patients.

And then it hit him.

“Oh,” he breathed out. The weight that had been pressing down on him took on a whole new character. “It’s because of me. Do people at the hospital think you’ve done something unethical by getting involved with me?”

Will’s failure to answer immediately was all the answer Oakley needed.

“Oh, Will,” he said, reaching out and taking Will’s hand. “I didn’t realize. It didn’t even occur to me.”

“Stop it right there,” Will said, raising his voice. “I haven’t done anything wrong. You were not a patient at the hospital when we started dating. Well, you weren’t my patient. At least, not through the hospital.”

The impact of suddenly realizing that his and Will’s relationship could be adversely affecting Will’s career was as much of a rude awakening to Oakley as being unable to navigate a fancy restaurant. But instead of filling him with gloom and depression, it lit a fire in him.

“Fuck them,” he said. “Fuck this Rich person and whatever he must have said to you. Moira is right. Don’t let some idiot prevent you from applying for the job you were born to do.”

Will sat up with a jolt, staring at Oakley with wide eyes. “Really?” he asked.

Oakley nearly laughed. “Why the fuck would you let anyone shame you into not doing something that I know you really want to do?”

“First of all,” Will said, shifting in a way that brought life and energy back to his entire body and joy to his expression, “listen to yourself. Heed your own advice. Secondly, I haven’t ever discussed this with you, so how do you know that I really want to do this?”

Oakley frowned, but his heart beat quickly, and the hope within him seemed to have made a return. Only now, it wasn’t for him, it was for Will.

“I know you,” he said. “I’ve come to know you well enough to know that a promotion is what you want. So why let someone stop you from going for it?”

“Because—” Will stopped after one word. He stared at Oakley, but Oakley could tell he was actually looking inside himself.

“If you’re afraid of people telling you you’re somehow incompetent because of me, that’s bullshit. What we have is between us only.”

Will seemed to take that in and think about it. His posture slumped again, and his hand, which Oakley still held, went slack.

“No,” Oakley said, squeezing his hand. “You’re thinking about it too much. Just do it.”

“I have to think about it,” Will fired back, sitting straighter again. “It’s a huge decision. It would mean a lot of changes.”

“But you want it,” Oakley said.

Will smiled at him. “Look at you, all finding a purpose in life again.” His smile turned ironic. “I’d rather that purpose was not to bust my arse, though.”

Oakley laughed. “You know you want your arse busted. In more ways than one.”

Will grinned. “I think we should keep walking. And perhaps head back home. It’s getting close to supper, and I’m getting hungry.” He got up and moved around to push Oakley on.

“A likely story,” Oakley teased him.

He also felt the first stirrings of desire that he’d felt in a week, which made him more than happy to drop the subject and hurry home. He could let Will stew and fret about this new job prospect for a few days. Will had let him mope for an entire week, after all. But time was usually a factor for job applications, so he would have to keep the fire lit under Will so that he did something soon.