Page 80 of Show Me How to Heal
Tomorrow we’d start fighting back.
“It’s crazy he came all the way from Germany,” Luke said, shaking his head after closing the front door. It was already dark outside, the headlights of Moritz’s rental flashing as he turned and headed back to my house while I spend the night with Luke again.
Luke had offered Moritz a room here, but he’d wanted to give us privacy. Well, he’d said he didn’t need to listen to his brother fucking someone, but yeah… privacy.
“He cares about you,” I told him. “Deeply. He told me about your anxiety, and it sounded like he blames himself for not seeing how bad it got.”
We gravitated back towards the living room. It was a little cold in there, but that was nothing a fire in the fireplace wouldn’t fix within a couple of minutes. Besides, Luke had all these fantastic throw blankets all around the house. They were all knitted from heavy yet soft wool, and I refused to even think about how expensive they must’ve been. If they were handmade… damn.
“He couldn’t have known,” Luke said, dropping on the couch. Sammy merely raised his head and huffed before going back to sleep. We’d tired him out today. Going on walks, playing with him in the yard. “Remember what I told you about you only being able to help Adam if he wanted help?”
I nodded.
“For a long time, I legitimately thought the anxiety was a reasonable reaction, not a problem. It wasn’t until my therapist asked me if I thought PTSD was an unreasonable reaction to trauma. Like someone who’d been to war suffering from flashbacks and stuff. I told her no, of course it wasn’t unreasonable for the mind to react that way. Then she asked me if I didn’t consider PTSD and or flashbacks a problem. She got me good. I thought about her question for a week, then we started talking about steps to get better.”
“How did your fleeing the country favor into that?” I asked, grabbing two of the blankets before cuddling up against Luke.
Luke snorted. “Well, I don’t know how, but I somehow came across the listing of this cabin while in the hospital and I fell in love. I stalked it for… I think a week, and every time I looked at it, I kept hoping it was still online, still available. Well, then my therapist said something about a change of scenery possibly being good for me and that was all the justification I needed. Of course, she was talking about a vacation, not about permanently relocating, but by that time the plan had already formed inside my head. It wasn’t the first time I thought about getting away from it all, but the pieces started falling together and… yeah. Here I am.”
His smile was so wide, I knew the next question was unnecessary, but I still needed to ask, though it’d break my heart if the answer wasn’t what I expected. “Do you regret it?”
His head swirled around. “What?” He shook his head, his hand searching for my cheek. It was cold to the touch yet radiated so much warmth and comfort. “No. I could never regret moving here. Even though some things still seem weird to me, I love it here. For the first time since going pro, I have real friends — or at least people that might very well become friends — I found a new purpose in life, I found a super sweet puppy, and the most amazing boyfriend I could ever find.” He smiled at me with tears in his eyes. “How could I ever regret that?”
“The press still found you. They outed you,” I said. “The whole purpose for coming here was to live anonymously amongst us.”
Luke shrugged, though he had to swallow heavily. “That was the reason for coming here. But I found so much more. And… what’s the alternative? Leaving everything behind me, look for another place to start over, and go into hiding again? And again, and again? I’m done hiding. Facing the press is a terrifying thought, but I won’t leave one of the best things that ever happened to me in my whole life behind.”
“One of the best things in your whole life?”
“You,” he said, his thumb caressing my cheek. “You’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”
My eyes prickled. I wouldn’t cry now, I wouldn’t! “What about reaching the semi finals of the European Championship? Winning the Champion’s League or the… what is it called? Bun-des-li-ga and some other tournament all in the same year?”
Luke shrugged. “That were the best moments in my life before. But… dreams change. And I always knew that I’d want a boyfriend after my career ended. I hadn’t wished for it to happen so soon, and I’d hoped I could end my career on my own terms, but… this is everything I wanted to have afterward… just without the busted-up knee.”
“And kids?” I blurted thinking back to my vision this morning. “We haven’t talked about that yet.” Yeah… because we were six weeks into our relationship, which was fucking early to think about kids and stuff like that.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. Then he straightened, a thoughtful expression on his face. For a couple of seconds — which might as well have been hours — he stayed silent. “I mean… I’m not against it, I just… well, I knew early on that I was gay, and I grew up knowing having kids weren’t an option… In Germany, same sex marriage became legal in 2017 and before then, homosexual couples couldn’t adopt. Foster, yes, but not adopt. Surrogacy is still illegal. So… growing up, I never thought it was possible, and when it became a possibility, it was a distant one since my career was just really taking off. I’m… not against it. But I think I need more time to really think things through. Like… what are my options? What do I want? How many kids would I want — and I’m afraid I have to tell you I’m not comfortable with the thought of having enough kids to fill all the bedrooms in this cabin.”
I kissed him briefly, a smile on my face.
“That’s a bummer,” I said, unable to keep a straight face. “How many bedrooms does this thing have?”
Luke shrugged helplessly. “Five? Or six? I’m not sure.
“It’s your house!”
“Yeah, but I only ever use one.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Since we’re talking about bedrooms… what do you say? You wanna head upstairs?”
“To do what?” I asked, faking absolute innocence. “I’m not tired yet.”
Luke snorted, smacking my arm. “You can’t fool me. But if you need me to spell it out: Your cock. My mouth. The other way around. I don’t care.”
Well, that was an idea I definitely could get behind.
Racing him to the bedroom wasn’t as fun as I’d thought. First of all, because technically I didn’t win — Sammy was already waiting in front of the bed when I got there, excitedly wagging his tail. Secondly, Luke had confessed he’d overextended himself by taking Sammy on too long walks, which was why he was back to using crutched.
Meh. Okay. Maybe the race had been a stupid idea.
