“Awesome!” he said, hugging me close and pressing his face into the hair pulled back on my head.
At that moment, I felt three things I hadn’t felt in a very long time: light, sexy, and strong.
“Okay,” he said, letting me go. “Ready for that race?”
But just as I touched down and put my regular weight on both legs, a deep ache throbbed up from my left shin. I tried to hide my face before he saw it twisting in pain, but he was watching me so carefully he didn’t miss it.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just...the pain’s setting in. This must be a harder workout than I thought.”
“Yeah, this first one does take a little while to catch up to your muscles, fatigue-wise. Matt?” he called, gesturing to the front desk. Matt came trotting back over. “We’re gonna call it a night.”
“I saw you from all the way back there. You looked good,” Matt said to me as he helped me unbuckle and step out of the harnesses. I watched my own arms grab the waist belt and ease it down. My delts still looked defined, solid. And after the skin buffing Joey had insisted on before this date, the skin there was flawless. There were no rough patches, and it was covered in velvety, shimmery lotion.
Beautiful.
I felt my back standing up straight, bringing me to full height. I wasn’t even close to standing as tall as Nate. Just one more incredibly sexy thing about him. “Are you sure it’s okay to go?”
“You’re not feeling good, so we’re going. The gym’s not going anywhere. We’ll come back.”
He slid his arm around my waist again, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I pulled my abs in even more, a reflex. But I felt good. Tall, and substantial in a good, tight, muscled way.
As we got in the waiting cab, I realized two things: I had desperately needed to feel strong and fit since I got back to school, probably earlier, and that Nate was directly responsible for helping me feel that way.
And that felt about twice as sexy as his hands on my waist.
Doctor Albright’s words rang through my head over and over again as we cruised back down the expressway and downtown.
Something that makes you feel strong and beautiful.
Nate
.
I glanced over at him as he stared at the road and navigating the wide curves of the expressway. His hand rested on his right thigh.
I screwed up every last nerve I had, reached over, and slid my hand beneath his. Immediately, his fingers laced with mine, and he looked up at me with a gentle, closed-mouth smile. We rode another mile or so in silence, and then I turned my head to his, opening my mouth and saying, “Thanks for taking me,” at the exact same moment he looked at me and asked, “How’s your leg?”
We laughed as he pulled off at the exit nearest 30th Street station, and I smiled at the solid building lit up so beautifully.
Sometimes, I loved to go in to the train station during a free hour just to think, and always imagined how romantic it would be just to while away some hours there with someone I loved. But I hadn’t loved anyone in a long time, maybe ever. I remembered one instance when I thought I’d loved Jake, one night when the sex had been good, and he had almost made me come. Almost, I remembered thinking. Next time, for sure.
But then I’d broken my leg. And then I’d gotten fat. And then he hadn’t wanted anything else to do with me.
Nate cleared his throat beside me, and asked again, softer, “How’s your leg?”
I managed half a laugh. “Well, it really was a workout. But you’re right. I feel good. Throbbing shin and all.”
“Aw, shit.” He looked over at me with a concerned expression. “Do you want me to take you home?”
“Weren’t you going to do that anyway?”
“Well, I...I don’t know. I mean...I made dinner. At my place.”
I arched one eyebrow up and gave him a little smile. “At your place?” I repeated.
“I mean...I know it’s kind of forward, but you did ask me up to your place a couple nights ago, and I found this really good recipe, and I thought...I wanted to have somewhere you could put your feet up. After the climbing. I thought about this a lot, okay? I called Hannah, who called Joey, who gave me your number.”
Oh. So Joey engineered all this, sort of. I had to give her credit. The girl was sneaky, and smart.
“She told me you’d been feeling like shit, about the accident, and how you used to look, and I told her I didn’t get it, and then she told me you thought you were fat, which I
really
didn’t get, but...”
“Oh my God. Okay. Stop right there. I...yeah. I’ve gained weight. And I kind of hate it. But I am not the kind of girl who talks about it.” At least, I didn’t want to be that girl. Not anymore, anyway.
“But,” he interrupted, “she said to help you do something that makes you feel strong, and beautiful. So I thought, rock climbing. And then I thought, she’ll feel so good that she’ll eat this mac and cheese that I’m really good at making, and...”
I groaned. “Shit, Nate. Shit. I’m sorry.”
“What? Too unhealthy? It’s cool, I can...”
“No. Lactose intolerant. All that cheese and cream...you would not want to be near me after eating that.”
“Which is why I should have asked Joey about that, too.” He ran his hand back through my hair and looked at me with crinkled eyebrows. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, no!” I laughed. “No, that’s ridiculous. I’m so messed up.” I tried to pull my hand away, because...I didn’t know why. It just felt weird now, for some reason.
But he held on firmly, running his thumb over the back of mine. “No. You are perfect.”
We wound through the streets, pulling up at a block of older brick rowhouses near Drexel University.
I was perfect.
I tried to still my heart fluttering like wild in my chest. “Is this your place?” I asked as the car slowed and stopped.
“Yeah.” That same soft smile was back. God, I wanted to jump on him right there. If I thought I could fit between him and the back of the front seat, I would have. “Now, tell me the truth, okay? It’s okay either way.”
“What?” My voice was breathy, light.
“Are you really lactose intolerant, or do you just want an excuse for me to take you home? Because it’s okay either way. You don’t have to come up,” he said, looking down at our hands, “if this is all just...I don’t know. If you don’t like me, or whatever, I won’t bother you any more. It’s just that the way you kissed me was...incredible. Meeting you, here, all the way across the country after all these years... I didn’t want to miss my chance. But if you’re not interested, I’ll take you home right now.”
I should have asked him why he didn’t come up to my place two nights ago. I should have hesitated, or been coy, or told him that I thought the kiss was awesome too, and let him make the first move. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was lean over, grab his face, and plant my lips on his.
So I did.
He gave a slight gasp of surprise, but then his hands were on me, too. One pushed up through the hair on the back of my head and the other clutched just above my waist, under my ribs, the one spot on my body with little enough fat to make me feel sexy. I captured his bottom lip between my lips, flicking my tongue into his mouth a little bit with each pass.
He pulled away from me again, and I had the worst incidence of déjà vu I could imagine. “What?” I gasped.
He cleared his throat, slowly pulled his hands away. For a second, my heart sank, but then he popped open his door, digging out a twenty for the driver. His eyes glinted at me as his gaze met mine. “I know you can’t eat the mac and cheese. But will you come up for dinner anyway?”
I had no idea what “dinner” meant at that point, and I didn’t really care. All I could think of was one thing—buff guys like him weren’t supposed to like big girls like me, but he seemed to, and I was going to take advantage of it.
My mind flew to Joey’s obsessive “first-date prep” with me—every sort of plucking, waxing, buffing, moisturizing, trimming, and polishing I’d ever heard of, she made me do yesterday. That was the second thing about tonight I’d have to be sure to thank her for.
Wordlessly, he caught my hand on my way out of the car—no way I was going to wait for him—and tugged me up the stairs. Those long, strong fingers punched a combination of numbers into a keypad at the front door, and I almost drooled watching them. Inside the main foyer, he backed me into the wall against the metal mailboxes bolted there.
His lips dove into mine, like he was dying of thirst. For me. That same warm thrill bloomed through my stomach and I had to have more of him. Had to.
Finally, I broke away, just so I could beg him, “Take me up.”
“Right.” His voice was breathy, deep, and made my skin almost shiver off my bones.
We walked up two flights of stairs, and I felt it. The burn of rock climbing. Suddenly, the throb in my left leg was all I could think about.
Nate jammed a key into the door to his apartment, pulled me in, and spun around to face me. But then his expression fell. “Oh my God. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said, grabbing for his waist and kissing him again. I moaned, but it wasn’t from pleasure. Goddamn leg. “I’m so sorry.” I pushed away, gasping. “It’s just...can I sit down somewhere?”
It was only then that I looked around at his place. A full-sized bed against one wall, a tiny kitchen in the other corner. A bathroom door beside the bed, and a flatscreen TV on the wall opposite the bed. And...that was about it. This was good news—he lived in a studio, so there was no roommate to worry about.
“Oh, my God,” I said, just relieved to see somewhere to sit down. I was so far beyond pissed that the pain in my leg was aching, and starting to burn, more than anything because it was overshadowing the other type of burning I felt—the one that was telling me to tear Nate’s clothes off as soon as we got inside, and mine along with them.
“I know, I know, it’s not much. Just a studio.”
“No, it’s great. But can I sit down on the bed?”
“Of course, of course. What can I get you?”
I half walked, half limped over to the simple bed, on a simple metal frame which was completely outfitted in white sheets, topped with about eight pillows and two billowing white duvets. A sigh escaped my lips when I laid back against the pillows Nate stacked behind my head, stretching my legs across the comforter. Just taking the weight off my leg made a world of difference.
Nate didn’t miss a beat. He sat down on the bed, facing me, and ran a hand over my forehead. “Are you really okay?”
“I don’t have a fever,” I said, smiling, but with him so close, I couldn’t think about myself at all. I reached up and tugged his head forward, bringing his lips to mine again. I knew one thing as his tongue dove between my lips, tasting, seeking, playing against mine—I wanted those lips on every part of my body.
Which is why it made no fucking sense that, when his lips drifted to my neck and his fingers played under the edge of my shirt, I started shaking. And then—oh my God, not now, I begged myself—I was short of breath, and my vision blackened at the edges.
I could not be having a panic attack. Not right here, not right now. No.
I wanted him so badly. But my hands pressed flat against his chest and pushed him away.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, sitting upright and running a hand through his hair. Every time he moved his arms, all I could see was the slight movement of his pecs underneath that close fitting shirt.
“No, no. It’s me. I swear.”
“Tell me it’s just your leg. Tell me I didn’t misinterpret this.”
I let my head fall back on the bed. The air hit the damp trail his lips had left on my neck, and I shivered with wanting his lips there again.
“God, I hate myself,” I moaned. “I’m so sorry. Just...ever since my accident...everything is so different. I feel like my whole body is just some prison for a person who looks different, who feels different. I keep trying to shake it, but sometimes...I can’t forget who I used to be.”
His face was so confused, and even though I’d sworn I’d never do this, I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone. I scrolled back through the pictures from my freshman year at college, and pulled up one of me in short shorts and a tank, on the quad in between classes during the first hot August week of school. My collarbones jutted out, my thighs weren’t even close to touching each other, and there wasn’t an excess blob of fat anywhere.
Nate peered at the phone, then peered at me.
“Skinny you?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down and shaking my head slowly. “See? That’s what I used to look like.”
“Well, that doesn’t look like you. Not the you I know anyway.”
His comment was sweet, and I knew that. But by now my brain was already a step ahead of him. I swept my hands down, indicating my whole body. “No.
This
doesn’t look like me.” A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed hard, forcing it back down. I would not cry. Could not. Refused to cry in front of used-to-be-fat-and-was-now-totally-gorgeous Nate.
“And when you kissed me like that...I don’t know. The last person I did this with”—I motioned to the bed—“totally dumped my ass the next time he was close to seeing me naked.”
He scooted closer to me on the bed, letting his hand rest on my waist. His voice dropped and he looked into my eyes. “Is this okay?”
I nodded, biting my lip. There I went again, trying to look sexy in one of the least sexy moments ever.
“I want to tell you a story,” he leaned in, his voice low and husky. “About the day I went to my human form drawing class at Drexel. And instead of some ugly horny-guy model, or some old woman, or some skin-and-bones girl with ribs popping out, literally the most gorgeous individual I have ever seen in my entire life walked into that room.”
“You’re kidding me.” My voice was a whisper. “My therapist said it was either try doing shit like that to get over my body issues, or have them get even worse.”
He moved his hand farther down my waist. When it grazed against the bump of fat and skin at the top of my yoga pants, I tensed. I didn’t want to hate my body. But I did.