And so was Theo, and he’d been pressed up against Spencer’s back, holding him tight as they slept.
Spencer pondered that as he leaned against the wall to make it to the bathroom and used the facilities. He washed and dried his hands and hopped down the hall and then slid into bed again.
He made sure Theo had his arm wrapped around his waist as he fell asleep again. It felt like that’s where Theo belonged.
Reaching
“HE seems to be getting on all right,” Elsie remarked, and Theo nodded, distracted from watching Spencer crutch his way across the tarmac, clipboard in hand.
He’d been back from the hospital for three weeks—but after two he was begging Glen so hard for something to do that Glen decided he and Theo could come in and start managing the office, since that would give Spencer time to rest in the office.
The decision left Theo wondering if Glen was seriously fit to fly.
They were supposed to come in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—Damien helicoptered them in on Monday, but they’d driven the truck that Wednesday morning so they could make a supply run for Preston on their way back. Monday, Spencer had been excited, happy to be going, talking a mile a minute.
The truck ride that morning had been a 180-degree turn—he’d been taciturn and bitchy, and Theo couldn’t figure out why.
Because before that moment, it had been going great. There had been no talk about sending Theo to the guest room. He’d slid in behind Spencer every night, and some nights they just kissed, long and luxuriously, palms skimming bare skin in the dark. Some nights they ground up against each other until they spent or gave each other thrilling climaxes in each other’s fists. Theo felt like he was exploring new worlds with each moment in Spencer’s bed, and every world was more glorious than the last. He thought of it as Phase 1 Sex. While it was great—and could be a solid basis for any relationship—he was pretty sure that with Spencer’s self-proclaimed manwhore status, there was a Phase 2 and a Phase 3 lurking in there somewhere, and as soon as Spencer’s healing body was up for it, Theo would be too.
But the last two days had been… hard. Spencer had been distant, not meeting Theo’s eyes, exhausting himself on the weight equipment, trying to walk on his own in the trailer and failing. That morning, Theo had awakened to a thump and a clatter and had rushed in to find Spencer struggling to stand up in the shower.
“What the…? C’mon, Spencer. You’ve got a perfectly good shower seat—were you even using it?”
“No, I was not,” Spencer growled back. “Because I am a grown-assed man!”
“Then act like one and don’t take risks like that. Man, the nurse is going to be here in half an hour to change your bandages, and you are bleeding again!”
Spencer struggled to sit on the shower seat and covered his eyes with his hand. “Theo, could you just… just go for a few? Let me wash my hair and soap my pits in peace? Don’t… don’t look at me when you can count every fucking rib? Can you do that for me, please?”
And Theo had come to the realization that they’d made love in the dark every night for a reason, and it had nothing to do with Spencer not liking the way Theo felt underneath his admittedly skilled fingers.
So now, as Elsie noted Spencer’s determined pace across the tarmac, Theo didn’t have an answering smile.
“No?” she replied to his silence. “Not all right?”
“He was fine until he came back to work,” Theo said. “Now it’s all about the stuff he can’t do, and it’s making him bananas.”
“Oh shit,” she said. “Speaking of—Gibby! Stop that shit!”
But their newest employee—Collie Gibbs, aka “Gibby”—who shifted freight and greeted the people dropping off and picking up outside the hangar, was about to smash into Spence with the electric-powered hauler. The hauler made a squeaking noise as the backend jackknifed and Spencer stopped short and tried to backpedal, falling to his knees right in front of the platform.
Theo and Elsie were running toward the debacle before he even hit the ground, and Theo could see his face go practically green with pain.
Spencer squeezed his eyes tight and flat-palmed the hauling platform, making a mighty bang. “Goddammit, Gibby! What the fuck are you fuckin’ doing here?”
“Sorry!” Gibby gasped, barely remembering to set the brake as he scrambled out of the driver’s seat. “Sorry, Mr. Helmsley. So sorry! Goddammit! I didn’t see you there… I… sorry!”
But Spencer was beyond hearing apologies. He was resting his forehead against the side of the hauler, working hard on his breathing, and banging on the panel with the flat of his hand with steadily decreasing regularity.
Elsie, Theo, and Gibby all waited, breath held, for that hand to stop pounding, because that, Theo knew, meant he had the pain under control. Finally, his hand fell to the ground, and Spencer rasped, “Elsie, can I have some help up?”
Theo’s heart dropped, although he tried to tell himself it was because Spencer had trusted Elsie longer and for no other reason. He took one arm and Elsie took the other, and together they hauled him to his feet and got his crutches under his arms.
“Let’s have Gibby get you back to the hangar, Spencer,” Theo said quietly. “I need to check your bandage.”
When Spencer spoke, it was like he was gasping for air. “Yeah, fine.”
“And I’ve got your pain meds. When was the last time you had one?”
Spencer looked away, and Theo suddenly knew the answer to that question, and his own temper hit the flashpoint.
“Goddammit, Spencer! Why in the fuck would you not take a pain med in three goddamned days!”
“Theo…,” Spencer practically whimpered, and Elsie moved out of the way. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”
“Yeah,” Theo snapped. “Yeah, we will. Get him to the hangar, Gibbs. I’ll be right there.”
“After you take a lap around the hangar,” Elsie cautioned, “because right now you are coming in hot!”
Theo took a deep breath in through his nose and let out a growl. “I may kill him,” he said pleasantly when the growl was done. “How’s that?”
“Well, you knew he was a handful,” she said. “But you need to tell me why this pisses you off so bad.”
Together they took off, striding toward the hangar, which was far enough away that Theo thought they might do without the lap around it.
“Because we were doing so damned good!” he told her, stung. “We were doing great! And suddenly he gets angry and withdrawn, and it’s because he’s in pain, and why would he do that?”
“Maybe you should ask him,” she said, and she was in prime shape, so she wasn’t breathing hard even though he was going pretty fast, but something told him it would be polite to slow up a tad anyway.
“I will,” he declared, and then he blew out a breath. “But first I’ll give him some pain meds and something to eat to go with them. And then I’ll ask him if he’s stupid.”
“Good plan,” Elsie said, humor lacing her voice. “But you know he’s going to tell you that he’s fine—it’s the cat who’s Stupid.”