Offside (62 page)

“Oh, God…Thomas…”

“That’s it…” I strained to push up against her, but I was losing strength. I went back to using my hands to pull her down instead. She leaned forward and moaned loudly as I felt her pussy clamping down on me. “Oh yeah! Come on my cock! Come all over me!”

“Thomas!” she gasped as she collapsed on my chest. I lifted her up and down a couple more times before I lost it, growling and groaning as I came deep inside of her.

“Holy shit,” I moaned as my head dropped back down on the pillow.

Nicole giggled.

“You’re gonna kill me,” I told her.

“You love it,” she replied.

“I love you.”

She raised her head up and pecked my lips.

“Love you more.”

“Not a chance.”

We just lay there trying to catch our breath for a while as my dick softened and eventually slipped out despite her protests. She liked it when I stayed inside of her afterwards. I wasn’t about to argue.

My heart rate returned to normal, and I tucked my face against the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her hair and smiling to myself. I ran my hand up and down her back a couple of times…and dozed off.

“Thomas? Baby?”

“Hmm?” I blinked a couple of times, realizing I had fallen asleep.

“I gotta go,” Nicole said.

“Already?” I whined.

“Yeah…sorry.”

Nicole came to the center as often as possible after high school graduation, through the summer, and even after she enrolled in community college on a soccer scholarship. Between my rehab and her schooling, we kept ourselves occupied between visits, but I lived for the times we were together.

Rumple did too.

I hugged her tight against my chest and then released her. I knew she had to get back to town in decent time today since she had classes in the afternoon. She wouldn’t keep her soccer scholarship if she didn’t show up for practices.

“When can you get back?” I asked as she started gathering her clothes off the floor. She tossed me my boxers and T-shirt, and I pulled them on.

“There’s a game this weekend,” she told me. “First one of the season. Greg said he’d pick you up and take you, if you want.”

“If I want?” I snorted. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

She pulled her shirt over her head and looked at me.

“Are you sure?” she asked quietly. “I mean…if it makes you…uncomfortable, I understand. You aren’t obligated to go.”

“Rumple…” I sat up and pushed myself back against the head of the bed. “I mean…it’s a little weird, and I can’t say it doesn’t…well, make me miss it…but it’s not all about me. I want to see you play. I’ve never seen you play in an actual game, ya know.”

I smiled, hoping she believed me.

“I know,” she said with a shrug. “I just don’t want you to feel bad. It should be you…”

“Bullshit,” I replied. “I’m going to walk again—Danielle even said I would. It’ll probably be another couple of months, but I will walk. I’m not going to be able to play again…not like I did. I know that. I’ve accepted it.”

“I know you say that,” she said as she walked back over to the bed and took my hand in hers, “but I also know it still has to get you down.”

I shrugged.

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “But I also know that despite what my dad always said, it’s not my whole life. I hope I’ll be able to…I dunno, at least run around and kick a ball again sometime, but if I don’t, I’ll live with it. Maybe I’ll coach or something. If I weren’t like this, I wouldn’t have you. Losing soccer is pretty fucking minor compared to that.”

Nicole reached over and placed her hands on my cheeks and kissed me softly.

“My hero,” she said quietly as she pulled away. I wasn’t having any of that, though, and dragged her back to me, kissing her deeper on her mouth before nibbling up her jaw.

“Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service.”

“Smooth talker.” She giggled as she pulled away again. “See you Saturday, then?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Love you,” she said as she headed out the door.

“Love you more.”

“Not a chance.”

I snickered and lay back against the pillows, still smiling and still surrounded by her scent.

I knew I would never, ever regret how I ended up the way I did. I just needed to figure out exactly what I was going to do with my life now.

I placed the walker a few inches in front of me and shuffled my feet behind it.

I had just barely gotten used to the thing at all, and now that there was snow on the ground, I was completely paranoid about falling. Nicole and Greg were both hovering, and though in the back of my head I knew they just wanted to make sure the walker didn’t slip out from under me and send me flying down the driveway, part of me was still feeling claustrophobic and generally pissy.

“I put salt on the ramp,” Greg said for the tenth time. “I’ll make sure there aren’t any slick spots.”

I tried not to sigh out loud as Gardner gave me a big grin.

“Got enough fathers in your life now?” he asked.

I just sighed and looked toward the ramp.

It was supposed to be a happy homecoming after all, but I was still insanely nervous. I had grown comfortable during the six-plus months I had spent in the rehab center, and though I had been back to Nicole and Greg’s house a dozen times between then and now, this was different.

I was here to stay.

Well, somewhat.

The house I had shared with Lou Malone never sold. I guess when someone kills himself in a place, word gets around, and even though I’d dropped the price on it three times, I hadn’t had a single offer. Justin made the original suggestion, and Nicole seemed to like it as well, so the place was going to be torn down and a new house built there instead.

It would be a house that I hoped Nicole and I would share when she was done with college.

I managed to get up the ramp with the walker about an hour and a half later. All right, it wasn’t really that long, but sometimes I still missed the wheelchair. It was a hell of a lot faster. Nicole scooted around me, claiming she needed to get dinner in the oven so it would be ready on time. I loved her enchiladas and had gone on about them to Gardner until Nicole told me to shut up about it. She said it with a smile on her face, though.

“Where do you want all this?” Gardner asked as he held up my duffel bag.

“Over there, I guess,” I replied. I pointed over to the sectioned-off part of the living room that still had everything ready for me. He helped me unpack while Nicole fucked around in the kitchen, and with a beer, Greg made himself comfortable in his recliner.

“I like these,” Gardner said as he flipped through my latest sketchbook. “The detail you capture is incredible.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I still didn’t like hearing people talk about my drawing, especially an art professor. I just couldn’t get used to it.

“Do you still see everything so clearly in your head?”

“The old stuff, yeah,” I admitted. “I still remember everything before the accident completely, and when I think about it, I can remember almost everything else, too. It’s just not as…as overwhelming as it used to be.”

“These are particularly detailed,” he said.

I looked over and saw the drawings I had done of Nicole at her games. I could draw her legs for hours without getting tired of the activity. There were other sketches of her, but they were in another book that I never shared with anyone.

“She’s particularly interesting to look at,” I grinned.

“I see that,” he said, and he smiled back at me. “Are you going to reconsider letting me show these off? You know, I put that one you gave me up in my office. Several people have commented on it.”

“You weren’t supposed to display it!” I said with a scowl.

“You told me to do whatever I wanted with it,” Gardner reminded me, “so I framed it and put it in my office. I never had the opportunity to…well, you know. Lots of professors have their kids’ artwork up on their walls. It made sense to me, but…I can take it down if you want.”

I took a deep breath and looked up at him. I could tell by his expression that he wanted it to stay where it was. I finally just shook my head.

“Leave it there,” I grumbled.

“So…what about the other stuff?”

“Who would you show it to?”

“Well, the person who showed the most interest was actually from around here,” he told me. “Her name is Kathrine, and she runs a gallery in Chicago, but she has one in Portland as well. She’s heard of you.”

“How has she heard of me?”

“You were in a lot of articles last year.”

“Oh…yeah, I guess.”

Local soccer star saves girl, loses ability to walk.

It had been all over the place.

“When she put the pieces together and figured out you were, um, my son…”

He trailed off.

It had only been a month ago when I finally went to Chicago to visit him, and he had almost had an anxiety attack over how to introduce me. After I told him to tell people how it was—he was my father, but I had been raised by my mom and step-father—Gardner practically had a melt-down, even started crying, which freaked me out a little. Once I figured out they were “happy tears,” I calmed down, but it was still weird. He took me all over campus at my usual snail’s pace, introducing me to everyone as his son.

“It still feels weird to tell people that,” he said. “I love it, but it’s weird.”

“I know.”

We worked in silence for a bit, me propped up next to the dresser and putting clothes away while Gardner organized my sketching materials on the nightstand.

“Oh shit!” he suddenly exclaimed. “I forgot something!”

He dashed out of the house and came back a minute later with a tackle box. Greg’s eyes went wide.

“You want to do some fishing?” he asked.

“Um…no…” Gardner brought the tackle box over to my bed and opened it. It was full of pencils, pastels, paintbrushes, and acrylic paints. “This is for you. I like keeping my drawing stuff in a tackle box—it just makes it easy to organize. I have some canvas and an easel back in my hotel room for you since you said you’d like to give painting a try.”

“Damn.” I whistled as I looked through all the supplies. “Thanks! Maybe this way I won’t drive Greg too nuts when Nicole goes back to school.”

“Yes, you will,” Greg replied. “You always drive me nuts. Just next time you and Nicole are having one of your ‘moments’ in the bathroom, give me some damn warning!”

“Dad!” Nicole screamed from the kitchen. “You swore you were never going to mention that again!”

The lock on my bathroom door at the rehab center didn’t work. Greg thought we were down in the exercise room or something and…um…walked in on Nicole and me in the shower. Right as he opened the door to take a piss, Nicole was yelling out something a little on the colorful side.

He chuckled and covered his eyes.

“Sorry,” he said, “but I think I was scarred for life.”

“Tell me about it,” Nicole grumbled in response. “Dinner in ten!”

“Um…well…” Gardner babbled as he turned red and tried to divert the conversation. “Um…so anyway…I was talking to Kathrine, and she’d like to see more of your work. I think she might even be thinking about showing it in her gallery. What would you think of that?”

“I’d think no fucking way,” I responded.

“Thomas…”

“Don’t give me that,” I snapped. “I told you before…it’s just a hobby.”

Gardner sat on the edge of my bed and stared at me. It still made me feel all funky when he did that—it was too much like looking in the mirror.

“It doesn’t have to be a hobby,” he said—
again
. “You have talent—a lot of it. I’d like to think it came from me, but you are far better than I, despite my PhD in art, and you haven’t had any formal training at all.”

“I’m not going to move to Chicago,” I told him, because I knew that’s where this was going—
again
. “Nicole’s here. Greg’s here. When Nicole graduates, it’s not like she’s going to be able to do marine biology in Chicago.”