Page 83 of What You Wish For

I untied his tie, my fingers nudging at the silk knot until it released—unable to not notice how sexy even the most mundane action seemed in the wake of that kiss. Then I slid it from around his neck with azipand tossed it on a chair nearby.

Sexy.

“You smell good,” he said then. “But I knew that already.”

“Just… focus.”

Next, I shifted to those stiff leather oxfords of his, tossing one and then the other with aclompacross the room. Then I peeled off his black dress socks, and he wiggled his toes at me, as if to say hello. Then, I stood. Frowning harder, I said a quick prayer that he’d be wearing underwear, and I stepped closer to unbuckle his belt, unhook his pants at the waistband, and unzip his zipper, all in quick succession. Then he had to stand up a little so I could work his pants down over his—thank God—boxer briefs, and then I helped him step into the sweatpants.

All of it: inescapably sexy.

Once all that was done, I figured we were through the hard part.

“Okay, pal. Can you get your shirt off on your own?”

After the pants, the shirt really should have been a breeze.

Duncan nodded, but then his fingers were too rubbery to do the buttons. I watched until I realized the attempt was doomed, and then I stepped in to help. At one point, he put his hands over mine, met my eyes, and said, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” I said.

“I never get taken care of,” he said, like it was a fascinating fact he’d just noticed. “It’s nice.”

“Me, neither,” I said.

He shrugged his dress shirt off, and I got a whiff of his deodorant, which reminded me of a scented candle I used to have called Winter Beach. Time for the undershirt. I reached down and pulled up the hemas he lifted his arms obediently. I raised his undershirt up and off—and that’s when I saw his torso.

That’s when I saw what he meant by “ruined.”

Because the whole left side of his body, armpit to hip, was covered in scars.

fourteen

I gasped, and I pushed back a little—the shock of the sight reverberating through me.

I didn’t mean to, but I did.

He looked like he’d been chopped up with a butcher knife and then stapled back together.

At my reaction, he remembered it. “Don’t look!” he said—dopey enough that he put his own hand over his own eyes. “Pretend you didn’t see.”

I’d expectedsomething,of course. I knew he’d just had surgery on that side to reduce some scarring. I’d skimmed the post-op instructions on the ride here. I’d been expecting… a sterile gauze pad, maybe?

I don’t know. Something… smaller. Not…this.

He had a thick, fifteen-inch incision scar running along the contour of his ribs from just under the armpit to the bottom of his rib cage. It was not a clean line—it was dark red and jagged, puffy and stippled, angry and chaotic. He had red marks along both sides where they’d stapled him back together. Below that, closer to his hip, was another, shorterincision with round scars underneath it. And around toward the front, on his chest, just under his nipple, there were two round discs of scar tissue that I thought… as soon as I saw them… had to be—

“Duncan, what happened?”

“You don’t know?” He blinked at me.

I was holding him by the shoulders now. “I don’t know anything. Tell me.”

“Yeah. I got shot.”

“When? How? Who shot you?”

“At my last school. It wasn’t just me, though. It was… a few people.”

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