Chapter 7

SEVEN

Days later,Oakley was still seething over his humiliating trip to The Chameleon Club. Things at the club had become easier when a handful of his actual friends had arrived for lunch. Jamison didn’t have any classes to teach after noon, and Xander was actually free of lunch meetings for a change. But the vast majority of the men who had approached him to offer their sympathy had been the older, retired sort who saw any sort of physical impairment as a tragedy.

It was a fucking tragedy. It was a tragedy that Oakley couldn’t do something he’d once loved without feeling like some sort of specimen under a pin. One that was a disappointment to everyone who had been so certain he was full of promise.

“Thank you, Stan, but I can take it from here,” Oakley said as graciously as he could to Stan, who had been taking the night shifts for the past week, after the man had helped him put on his pajamas for bed.

“Are you certain, Mr. Manfred?” Stan asked, a little too much surprise and concern in his voice for Oakley’s liking.

Or maybe he was still just unbelievably pissed off from lunch at the club the other day and taking out his frustration and sense of uselessness on other people. His psychologist had pointed out that he had a tendency to do that at his session earlier that day. She was right too, but Oakley needed something to stop the tidal wave of hopelessness.

“Yes, I’m certain,” Oakley snapped. “I just need to get from my chair to the bed. Everything will be fine from there.”

“Alright,” Stan said. Oakley couldn’t help but hear the doubt in his voice.

Summoning up all the determination he had and then some, Oakley braced his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed himself up. He’d practiced the deceptively simple action a dozen times and more with Will over the last few days. He was about fifty-fifty for being able to get himself out of his chair and into bed, or onto the toilet, or into one of the more comfortable chairs in the living room downstairs. His upper body strength had improved nicely in the two months since the accident, and his confidence was growing with it.

But it was fucking annoying how much concentration it took him simply to muscle himself out of a chair, then to grasp and claw at his bed to find purchase and to drag his heavy, useless lower half across the mattress until he was certain he wouldn’t slip and fall out.

“Good job,” Stan congratulated him once he made it.

Oakley indulged in a satisfied, if exhausted, smile as he continued to drag himself around until he was lying the way he wanted. “Thanks,” he said, as if he’d accomplished something special instead of something his four-year-old niece, Eugenie, could manage without blinking. “You can go now.”

Stan looked as though he might argue, but ended up saying, “Thanks, Mr. Manfred. And if you need anything, consider me on call. I can be here in a jiff if you need anything in the night.”

Oakley hated to think what he would need in the night. A change of nappies, maybe.

Although he was regaining more bladder and bowel control with every passing day. After Stan left, as Oakley settled in, pulling his covers up to his neck and closing his eyes, he wondered if toddlers were as pleased with themselves for learning to go pee-pee in the potty as he would be as soon as he could accomplish it.

God, it was humiliating.

But as Will had told him the other day, feeling that humiliation instead of just taking for granted that he was as helpless as an infant was actually progress. With humiliation came the determination not to be humiliated anymore.

Sleep wasn’t coming, especially not with thoughts of Will now swirling in Oakley’s head. The trip to The Chameleon Club had been awful, but Will had, admittedly, been wonderful. Oakley couldn’t help but grin as he remembered the protective scowl that Will had sent some of the nosier members of the club. He laughed a little as he remembered the way Will had set Chauncey Flynn down when the old queen had asked if Will was allowed in the club and Will had informed the man he was a member.

Oakley sucked in a breath as he remembered the way Will’s hand had felt in his and the bolstering affection in Will’s eyes when he’d made his little speech about how the only person who could make him not feel like an invalid was him. It had been exactly what Oakley had needed to hear.

Will was everything that Oakley needed just then. He was stubborn and bullish, just as much as Oakley used to be and wanted to be again. He was knowledgeable and able to communicate that knowledge exactly when Oakley needed it. And at the end of the day, Will was hot as hell with a smile that should have made Oakley hard and dripping.

Following that thought, Oakley slipped a hand under the waistband of his pajamas and fondled himself, feeling as awkward as a teenager. The feeling that touching such an intimate and formerly excitable part of him in the state it was in now was almost too much for him. The best he could say was that he could, in fact, feel something now, something more than he’d been able to a month ago.

At his last hospital appointment and scan, his doctor had said that more of the swelling around his spine had gone down, and that the reduction of the compression seemed to be accelerating. That meant sensation might return to those parts of him at a faster rate than it had so far.

Oakley huffed and pulled his hand out of his pajamas. Tell that to his cock.

Fuck, but he wanted to get hard so badly! He wanted to masturbate while thinking about Will and how sometimes, when they were working together, Will’s scrubs would ride up enough so that Oakley could catch glimpses of the man’s tight abs and the beginnings of the vee of muscle that led to all the things Oakley wanted to feel pressed against him. He wanted to come while imagining Will sucking his cock…or vice versa. Because even though he’d been almost exclusively a top before, since there was nothing wrong with his mouth, Oakley had been imagining himself as a bottom lately, and he didn’t hate the idea.

What he hated was his body failing to react to his imagination.

And yet, there was progress. Will had tried to play footsie with him under the table at The Chameleon Club, and Oakley had felt…something.

With a sigh, Oakley tried to put those thoughts aside to get some sleep. Sleep was important for healing, but it didn’t always come easy because of all the medication he was on now. And because of that restless sense that something was missing.

Hewas missing. Half of him, at least. And maybe something more.

Hours ticked by, as shown by his bright, glaring bedside clock, which he’d forgotten to ask Stan to dim before bed. Midnight came and went, and Oakley started to feel the tell-tale sign of a full bladder. The fact that he could feel it was awesome and horrible at the same time. He was wearing a pair of the damnable nappies that had been fashioned to look like briefs, but that fooled no one, but suddenly that wasn’t enough.

He’d gotten himself into bed, so he would damn well get himself out and to the toilet. There was no question about whether he could, only how long it would take.

Oakley grit his teeth and muscled himself over to the edge of the bed, where his wheelchair was parked. He could do this. It was easier moving from the bed to the slightly lower chair than it was to pull himself up and into the bed. He threw back the bedcovers, then maneuvered his legs how he wanted them so he could easily slip into his chair. Then he held his breath and pushed.

Maybe everything would have been fine if either he or Stan had remembered to lock the breaks on the wheelchair. But just like he hadn’t bothered with his seatbelt on New Year’s Eve, the brakes on his chair did nothing and the chair rolled back quickly. Oakley missed it entirely, falling with a painful thud to the floor between the bed and the chair.

“Fuck!” he growled, managing to roll himself to his back. “Bloody fucking hell!”

The chair was out of his reach now, all the way against the wall. He could drag himself over to it and spend God only knew how long trying, and possibly failing, to muscle himself back into it. He hadn’t succeeded at climbing into his chair from the floor once in all his training with Will.

Another choice was that he could sleep on the floor that night, piss himself, and have Hillary find him sprawled and likely shivering there in the morning.

“No,” he growled to no one, detesting the idea.

The third option was to reach up onto his bedside table to grab his mobile phone, which he kept within arm’s reach at all times expressly for situations like that one.

That was exactly what he did. With a growl, he pushed himself up enough to grab his phone, then flopped onto his back again. He opened it, then stared at the glowing screen with a creeping feeling of humiliation. Who should he call? Stan? Rushing over in the middle of the night to help him was what he paid the man for, but actually doing that and then explaining why Stan was needed gave Oakley a sour feeling in his stomach.

Heath? If he called his brother, Heath would be there in a heartbeat. And Oakley would never hear the end of it or be able to live without being fussed over ever again.

There was really only one option, the one that filled Oakley with emotion, but allowed him to feel that emotion without guilt at the same time.

Will answered after four rings with a groggy, “Hello? Oakley?”

Oakley let out a heavy breath and scrubbed a hand over his face before mumbling, “I’ve fallen out of bed trying to get to the loo and I’m lying on the floor soaked in piss.” Because yeah, the time limit of his fledgling bladder control had passed.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Will said. No fuss, no judgement, not even a goodbye. He just said he would be there, then ended the call.

They were the longest fifteen minutes of Oakley’s life. He relaxed and closed his eyes, waiting. He tensed up, his face pinching, millimeters away from bursting into tears and feeling sorry for himself. He practiced the deep breathing techniques his psychologist had taught him in an effort to manage his emotions.

He nearly shouted and wept with joy when he heard the beeping of his security system, followed by the door opening and closing and Will heading up the stairs.

“Oh, hello, you,” Will said, smiling down at Oakley as he flicked on the lights from the bedroom door.

Oakley’s throat squeezed with affection and relief…and bone-deep shame to the point where he couldn’t speak. Instead, he gave Will the finger.

Will laughed, not like he was making fun of Oakley or was too nervous to have any other reaction. He laughed like they were just two mates taking the piss out of each other over some stupid stunt gone wrong.

“So what happened here?” Will asked in a voice that was entirely too cheery for one in the morning as he crouched to sweep Oakley into his arms, as easily as if he were a snotty handkerchief that had been abandoned on the floor.

“I had to piss,” Oakley explained with as much honesty as he could, “and I felt like I could control it long enough to take myself to the toilet.”

“You did?” Will asked, the enthusiasm in his voice showing just the right combination of being impressed and hopeful about what that meant.

But of course Will would understand both the science and psychology of what that meant.

“I forgot to lock the wheels on my chair,” Oakley went on as Will carried him to the en suite, “so it rolled out from under me as I tried to throw myself into it.”

Will hummed as if Oakley hadn’t truly done anything stupid. “Shall I make you a checklist to go through before bed every night?” he teased. “Brush teeth, wash face, empty bladder, lock wheelchair.”

“Fuck you,” Oakley grumbled, though it was hard to put any sort of energy into swearing at someone when they’d just sat you on the toilet and pulled your pajama bottoms and nappy down.

“I don’t know if we should add that item to the list,” Will said with a wink.

Oakley gave him the finger again, and Will laughed.

Even the humiliation of that couldn’t penetrate the sense of joy and relief Oakley felt at having Will there with him. Will helped him by fetching a wet washcloth and a clean nappy, then had the decency to look away while Oakley cleaned himself up and started the process of getting dressed again.

Will said nothing when Oakley needed his help to finish the job, he just did what needed to be done without radiating pity or disappointment. And when Will lifted Oakley into his arms to carry him back to bed, Oakley felt cherished instead of tolerated.

It was raw and base and unbelievably sexy.

“There,” Will said once he had Oakley back in bed. “Do you need anything else?”

Oakley’s heart sped up so suddenly it nearly made him dizzy. He gazed up at Will in the dim, quiet light of his bedroom at night and said, “Yes, I need you to stay and spoon me until I fall asleep.”

He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Will was his physical therapist. Yes, he had a crush on the man, but that was questionable even in the light of day. It would be stretching things to call Will his friend, even though Oakley thought about him nearly every moment of the day when he wasn’t—

“Alright, but I have to warn you, I snore,” Will said with a smile, shifting to pull off his shoes.

Oakley’s mouth dropped open like he would make some sort of tart reply, but nothing came out. He just stared up at Will with excitement and awe, as if he were a teenage virgin about to be fucked for the first time by an older man. Even though fucking was so out of the picture right now as to be laughable.

“I was actually joking,” he managed to say eventually, though his voice came out small and rough. “I don’t expect you to spend the night with me.”

Will shrugged as he tugged off his socks, then hesitated, then pulled his long-sleeved t-shirt off over his head. “I don’t mind.”

Every cell in Oakley’s brain told him he should be hard as iron at the sight of Will’s firm, toned chest. He had just the right amount of hair covering his pecs and pointing its way down to the waistband of the scrub trousers he wore. His nipples were dark and pert, and Oakley immediately wondered what they tasted like.

He couldn’t drag his eyes away from Will as he climbed into bed beside him, then nudged him to his side so that he could do exactly what Oakley had asked him to do and spoon him.

“There. How’s that?” Will asked, throwing an arm over Oakley’s side to hold him and pull him close.

Oakley’s mouth hung open for a moment, and he blinked a few times to fight the sting that threatened to tip over into tears. Honesty. He had to go with absolute honesty where Will was concerned.

“I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t ever have a man in bed with me again,” he pushed out in choked tones.

It was too dark and he was faced the other way now, so Oakley couldn’t see Will’s facial expression in reaction to that spewing of vulnerability. He could only hear Will’s intake of breath and feel the hot moisture of that breath as it was expelled against the back of his neck.

And for a moment, Oakley swore to God something twitched down there.

“I can tell that you need it,” Will spoke at last, his words as soft and incandescent as the dawn mist across the Pennines.

Something started to unfurl in Oakley’s heart before he could grab at it and shove it all back in, where he could ignore it and deny it. He couldn’t make himself vulnerable like that. It would be a disaster to depend on someone else so completely to restore that part of him that he was so blisteringly terrified he would never get back. He felt more raw and exposed lying in Will’s warm embrace than he had sprawled and helpless on the bedroom floor.

“Won’t your boyfriend mind you spending the night in another man’s bed?” he asked, trying to be funny, trying to throw some sort of wedge between him and the abyss of emotion that he was so close to losing himself in.

“Smooth,” Will said, his sarcasm with just a hint of too much truth in it. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Oakley expected him to say more, to go on about how he was married to his work or how he didn’t have time to date right now because of his schedule, or how he just wasn’t interested in dating a man who had yet to be able to feel his own dick, let alone get it up and know what to do with it.

Will couldn’t possibly want him.

“Oh,” Oakley said. “Well, in that case, I guess neither of us need to feel guilty about lying here like this for the rest of the night.”

“Not guilty at all,” Will said, his voice sleepy.

And then he leaned in and kissed the back of Oakley’s neck, right on his damaged, disobedient spine.

The shock of that sensation, even though it was high above the spot of Oakley’s injury, sent tingles flying through Oakley’s body. His heart hammered against his ribs, and his skin prickled as if he’d been dusted with starlight. More miraculously, something registered in all the dead parts of Oakley as well, as if the force of the blood pumping through him because of that kiss was enough to enliven even the most stubborn nerves within him.

But with the hints of sensation and whispers of renewal came tears of grief and frustration. Oakley had to fight to make them silent and not to raise his hand to brush them off his face as they rolled hot, scintillating lines over his skin that he felt as acutely as nails dragged down his back.

“Thank you,” he whispered as soon as his throat loosened up enough to allow him speech. “For being here, for staying, for putting up with me. Thank you for everything.”

For a moment, he wasn’t certain if Will was still awake or if he’d heard him.

Then Will’s arms tightened around Oakley, and he let out another breath as he nuzzled his face into a comfortable spot against Oakley’s shoulder.

Relief that ran so deep it sent more tears spilling down Oakley’s face filled him. He would be alright after all. He could still be loved. He was still a man. If everything else failed, he still had Will.