Page 15 of Another Chance
7
It hadn’t been in Theo’s plan to go to the park. But after working for the whole morning, and barely seeing a dent in the overall amount of work that he had to do, he had eventually gotten to the point where he just couldn’t wipe free any more dust, or spray any more cleaner.
He’d never thought of himself as having allergies before, but then, he’d never been in a place like that house before, either. Some bread gone moldy, that was about as bad as it ever got for Theo, and this house was like that but times about a million.
So he’d done the logical thing, and he’d gone out for a walk to try to fill his lungs with air that wasn’t full of spores. It felt good to walk, and he let himself just roam, allowing his feet to take him where they wanted. After all, there was no chance of him getting lost. He knew this whole town like the back of his own hand. Better, maybe.
The day was glorious. It had dawned cloudy, with the clouds thick and black and threatening rain, but that threat had proven to be a hollow one. By noon, they had cleared, and now the sun was out, lighting everything up, emphasizing the fragile, brilliant spring green of the leaves, the grass, everywhere, bathing the world in golden light.
When he had seen the park, it had seemed far, far more pleasant to just lie on the warm grass and allow the sun to wash over his face, to bake the mold and dust from his skin, his hair, his clothes. He had a few things to take care of, getting the utilities going again, and he tried to figure out how to do that while not being the legal owner of the house.
He met a dead end there and sighed softly. He was going to have to call his father, but that was just not something he was going to do in a public park. It seemed that, over the past eight years, ever since they’d left this town, every conversation he’d had with his father had ended up with them arguing about something. Even when Theo didn’t mean for it to go that way, it did.
If he was going to end up yelling, he’d prefer to do it somewhere more private. So he sighed and turned reluctantly back toward the house, heading for the parking lot which would lead him back out onto the street.
When it happened, it happened faster than Theo could even follow. The truck was obviously veering out of control, the driver’s face behind the wheel a wash of horror, and Theo was in the exact right place, in the parking lot a few feet from where the truck was about to hit someone, at the exact right time.
He didn’t even know who it was, lost in his allergic funk, until he had his arms around the guy, had him pinned under him. It was only then, looking down into the man’s face, gazing into his dazed green eyes, that he realized just who it was that he had tackled to the ground.
He could only hope that saving the guy from being a pancake on the ground would keep Eric from being pissed off that Theo had gotten so close to him. So close. Bodies pressed so tightly together, Theo wasn’t sure that he even knew where Eric left off and Theo began.
“Teddy,” Eric gasped, and dazed from the near disaster or not, it seemed that the guy had recognized him. No chance of letting him go, of getting up and walking away before Eric made some sort of big deal about this. Although the truth was, after something like that, Theo was thinking that Eric probably needed some medical attention.
It felt so strange, so wonderful, to be called that again. Teddy. Not since he was a child had anyone but Eric called him that, and that was exactly how Theo wanted it. Now, in this moment of stress, he found himself liking that Eric had reverted to it.
He had honestly never thought to be called Teddy, not ever again.
The gravel all around them had to be pushing mercilessly into Eric’s back, but Eric didn’t complain. Flecks of mica in the rocks gleamed around them, and a fine layer of dust was settling onto them, but that didn’t seem to matter, either. For one endless moment, it was them, back together, only closer.
An illusion, Theo told himself, brought on by the moment of great stress. That was all it was, all that it could be. He stiffened his back and his resolve and pulled himself off of Eric’s prone body, then offered the other man a hand to help him to his feet.
“Can you move?” he wondered. He didn’t know much of anything about first aid, but he had the vague idea that people who had just been in accidents should probably lay still. “Do you need me to call an ambulance or something?”
One of the bystanders had probably already done that, because, Theo became aware, the truck which had careened out of control had slammed into a little sedan, one which, thankfully, had been empty. The car was totaled, but no one had been hurt, as far as Theo could tell.
No one other than the driver of the truck, who slumped over the steering wheel.
Theo felt warmth, pressure, surrounding his fingers, and Eric used his grip to heft himself up.
“I’m fine,” Eric said, and Theo frowned and looked into his eyes closely. There was some shock there, no doubt about it, and understandably so, but they seemed otherwise more or less clear.
“You’re bleeding,” Theo pointed out, and Eric was. The gravel had torn up his shirt and even the tough denim of his jeans, and blood was oozing from these wounds, but that was about the extent of Eric’s injuries, as far as Theo could tell.
“Yeah,” Eric murmured, glancing down at himself. This was the longest conversation, and also the only one, that they’d had in eight years, and Theo hated the situation that had forced it, of course,he did, but he couldn’t help but be secretly thrilled that he was this close to Eric and Eric wasn’t punching him in the face. “It’s fine. I’ll wash up at home.”
Theo took a deep breath, trying to push the shakiness which came from the overdose ofadrenalinewhich his body had pumped into his veins when he’d seen Eric about to be hit. He let it out slowly, very slowly, and it helped, a little.
“You should go to the hospital,” Theo told him. “You hit the ground hard.”
“Yeah, with a damn giant on top of me,” Eric said, with, remarkably, the slightest hint of a smirk on those beautiful pink lips. “When did you get so big, Teddy?”
Theo narrowed his eyes, then he heard it. The sirens. An ambulance was coming, and that was probably good news because Eric didn’t seem that excited about getting medical care. Though, to be honest, it seemed that the truck driver needed it a fair bit more.
“Stop trying to change the subject,” Theo scolded, fighting back the warm glow of pleasure at being called, once more, Teddy. Eric was out of it, he told himself. Eric barely knew what he was saying, except that he didn’t really see any signs of that.
“Look, man, I get worse than this all the time at work, okay? It’s no big deal. I’ll go home, patch myself up, and be good as new before you know it.” Eric pointed over Theo’s shoulder, to the wrecked vehicles, to the driver of the truck who was only now starting to move, and sluggishly. “He needs help. I don’t.”
It was very, intensely frustrating, Theo remembered, to be around Eric sometimes. He’d thought that he hadn’t forgotten anything about their time together, but he had forgotten just how stubborn this man was, how unwilling to ask for help or accept it even if offered.
