Page 33 of Show Me How to Heal
Having never seen him before, so I could only assume, but he looked as if he’d lost weight, his cheeks a little hollow, the jacket almost hanging from his frame. If it had fit at one time, he’d definitely lost a couple of kilos The bags under his eyes were evidence of a lack of sleep. His exposed skin all looked a little pale and grayish.
“Holy shit,” Zayne murmured, crushing my fingers in his death-grip once again. I didn’t mind. What were a few broken fingers, anyway?
When Adam stepped up to our table, Zayne turned his head to face Adam and smiled at him, no trace of his shock on his face.
“Hi!” he said, trying to contain his excitement to appear calm.
“Uhm, hey…” Adam swallowed. “I…” He blinked. “Thanks for saying hi.”
“No problem!” Zayne’s smile had reached a million megawatt, looking all kinds of forced now. “It’s good to see you.” The unspoken“Though I’d preferred not to see you like this”hanging heavy between them. “How are you?” Zayne asked instead.
“I’m fi—” Adam shook his head. “I’m… okay. Sorting some stuff out in my head. And you? I heard you bought the Meyers’ place?”
“Yeah.” Zayne cleared his throat. “I’m finally opening my own shop. And this” — he nodded in my direction — “is Luke, my first employee.”
Adam’s gaze fell on our combined hands, a thousand emotions darting over his face. Had I seen longing there?
“That’s amazing,” he said, yet his voice was quiet, defeated. Damn, the staff was right to worry about their boss. Even I could see he wasn’t fine — and I’d never seen him before. “When’s the opening?”
“I’m planning on doing a soft opening a week from now and a grand opening in three months.”
“Ahh.” Adam nodded. “The soap needs to cure first?”
Zayne snorted. “You got it.”
This. Those two sentences, as short as they were, were the first bits of conversation that didn’t feel stilted. Unfortunately, silence spread between them.
“I… I need to get back to the kitchen, but… it was good seeing you. I might swing by your opening… if you want me there.”
Zayne pressed his lips together for a moment, his hand gripping mine even harder. “Always, Addy. I’ll always want you there.”
“That’s, uhm… good to know.” Adam gave a curt nod. “Your food’s almost ready… Have a great evening. Zayne, Luke.” He gave one last nod before turning around and almost running towards the kitchen.
Zayne watched his friend go until he’d disappeared behind a swinging door, and even then, he continued to stare for a while.
“That was… not good. He looks horrible,” he whispered. “What’s Marc doing to him?”
“But he came,” I reminded him, feeding the seed of hope in Zayne’s chest, not wanting the negative aspects squelch it. “He came.”
“Yeah.” Zayne sighed, his lips curling to a sad smile. “It’s a start.”
FIFTEEN MONTHS AFTER HIS GRUESOME ACCIDENT: LUKAS RICHTER — A PORTRAIT ABOUT ONE OF THE BEST FOOTBALL PLAYERS OF HIS TIME! FROM HIS BEGINNINGS TO THE TRAGIC END OF HIS CAREER!
Chapter 8
Zayne
I didn’t know what I expected when I gave my hookup a job. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought it through when I offered him the position. And to be completely honest, up to this day, I still hadn’t thought it through. I hadn’t dared to.
Because the truth was: I didn’t know anything about this guy apart from a sob story I believed deep inside my heart was true but could very well be fake. I hadn’t asked for references — though I probably wouldn’t be able to check them, anyway, since Luke was German. Even with him having an accent, I tended to forget that little fact. He didn’t have any qualifications for this job. He wasn’t even that passionate about soap and personal hygiene stuff — to be fair, most employees probably wouldn’t be — and he didn’t appear as an overly outgoing or friendly guy.
Yet I’d offered him the job after one night. One night of sex and one weirdly intimate shower.
I looked at him sipping his Coke and couldn’t help but feel this weird little flutter in my stomach that had been my constant companion during the past couple of weeks. Whenever I’d texted him or received a text from him, there’d been this flutter, a tingling sensation.
And the dreams… in my dreams we weren’t fucking — well, sometimes we did — but showering together, laughing, sitting on my couch.
Fuck.
