Love Is Beautiful (Chelsea & Max) Read online

  Intellectually, I know I’m not to blame, but for some reason that hasn’t stopped the torrents of terrible thoughts from circling around in my brain like vultures over carrion. So, today I go to work sporting a bruised body and battered ego. I also get to face Hudson, my first appointment of the day. Somehow, that just triples the embarrassment. He was a spectator of the lowest moment of my life and now I have to face him as a professional. I can’t hide from him. I can’t ignore him. I have to smile at him and touch him and talk to him when all I want to do is push him away. Which is silly, I know. But I’m not in a place where knowing something seems to do me any good at all.

  Yesterday’s rain brought the first real chill of fall with it. I’m almost too thankful to bury myself in my favorite chunky sweater. Like hiding my body under a shapeless piece of clothing will make it all better. I keep reminding myself that Sloane’s bad behavior had nothing to do with my dress and everything to do with his own broken mind, but it’s not helping. Because, for one, how lame am I? Who calls assaulting two women in a bathroom ‘bad behavior’?

  I pull into my parking space outside of Cincinnati Orthopedics. Bruised face and battered ego or not, today is not about me. Today is about getting my patients put back together again. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, check my face in the mirror and head inside, steeling myself against the inevitable hubbub that my appearance will cause.

  Mina’s the first person to see me. Shock drops her jaw before she manages to school her face into something more professional. I was honest when I called in yesterday and told my boss about what happened. Mina was the one who took over my clients so she knew what to expect from me when I walked in today. Her initial reaction makes me all the more conscious of how I must look because even being prepared, my face still shocked her.

  “Hey Bruiser,” she says, somehow sensing my need to make light of the situation. I have to give credit where credit’s due because I appreciate the hell out of the smile on her face and joke in her voice.

  “You should see the other guy,” I reply. She gives me the run down on my patients from yesterday as if I didn’t have a huge glowing beacon of embarrassment on my face and it’s so nice to just forget about what happened and feel like myself again. If only the rest of the day would go so well.

  “So, honestly,” Mina says after she finishes telling me about how yesterday went. “If you need to go home before the end of your day, my afternoon is light. I’d be more than willing to take over for you again. I had a lot of fun yesterday, working with all the big names.”

  “I appreciate that, Mina. I really do. But I just have to make it through Hudson’s appointment and then Max Grumpy-butt Santoro and then it’s a slew of dancers from the Cincinnati Ballet. Hudson’s appointment will only be as awkward as I make it and I’m mature enough to make it very easy. Mr. Santoro will be hard but that’s just because he’s kind of a jerk. But between you and me, I really like the appointments with the dancers and I really could use a huge dose of normal.”

  Mina puts a consoling hand on my arm and I resist the urge to shrug it off. She’s only trying to be sweet, but it feels a little too much somehow. I smile and show too much teeth and Mina smiles and it doesn’t reach her eyes and it sure says a whole lot that I can’t wait to find Hudson waiting for me so I can go ahead and put an end to this uncomfortable encounter.

  Well, that is, until I see Hudson staring at me from across the room. His arms are crossed over his chest, and not in that proud, badass kind of way that a lot of men adopt when they’re trying to look tough. This is a little more sunken. A little more reserved. There’s nothing proud about his posture. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth and there’s a storm cloud of worry and regret and embarrassment weighing down his pretty face. He hasn’t gotten any better at supporting that kind of emotion and for all the strength in his body, he looks almost crumpled under the burden of carrying it.

  I must be a coward because the moment I see him my heart speeds up and my breath catches and I just want to turn and run away. This isn’t even the guy that hurt me. And it’s not like the guy that hurt me did actually did anything to me…

  Wait, what? Who is this woman in my head that sounds eerily close to poor June? Sloan sure as shit did something to me. He hit me. He hurt me. He doesn’t get a pass because he didn’t get a chance to rape me.

  And Hudson doesn’t get to carry the burden of his friend’s bad decisions either. I refuse to let him feel so bad when all he did was drink too much and strut around like the player I knew he was. What happened to me is not his fault and I won’t let him make it his fault. I take, like, my fifteenth deep breath of the morning and head his way.

  “Hey,” I say, conjuring up a smile as I get close to him.

  “Holy shit.” His jaw drops in an approximation of Mina’s. “Chelsea, I am so sorry—”

  I hold up my hand and cut him off. “Nope. I don’t accept it.” His face crumbles and I hurry on. “You didn’t hit me, Hudson. This isn’t because of anything you did.” I wave a finger over my still tender cheek.

  “I’m the one who took you to Aura.”

  “I went with you willingly. By that logic, I’m also to blame.”

  Darkness settles in his eyes. “It’s not your fault that Sloan is an asshole.”

  “Nor is it yours.”

  And just like that, the weight slides off his face. His unfolds his arms. Straightens his back. “No, I guess it isn’t, is it?” The sparkle is back in his eyes, the light back in his voice. He’s so much more comfortable being happy than he is being tense, it doesn’t take him much to get back there. “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m sorry it happened to you, though.”

  “How’s June?” I ask, leading him back towards the treadmills.

  “She’s okay, I guess. I see her a lot because she’s one of those girls who just wants a football player, doesn’t matter which one. I don’t think this was her first rodeo, if you know what I mean.” He grimaces.

  “Is she pressing charges?”

  He stops in his tracks. “Are you?” He grabs me by the arm. “Because I guarantee she won’t.”

  I’m busy trying to decide if he wants me to press charges or if he wants me to protect his teammate. I’m also busy trying to cover up the fact that it wasn’t the very first thing I did. Because let’s be real here, it should have been the very first thing I did.

  “Probably,” I say and watch his face carefully, trying to gauge his reaction.

  “Good.” Hudson nods like things are all settled and starts walking again. “I’ll be a witness if you want. Too many guys think that just because they’re professional athletes they’re above the law. I like Sloan, but I don’t want him thinking he can just get away with that kind of stuff. I’ve got my own career to think about. Can’t be all wrapped up in that shit. Not after starting my first season with an injury.” He gestures down to his ankle.

  “Speaking of, are you ever going to start leading with that heel?” We stop in front of one of the treadmills.

  “Today. I will fix that shit today if it’ll get you off my back.”

  “Sure. I’ve heard that before.”

  “Is that a challenge?” Hudson smiles and hops up on the machine, walking with a very exaggerated leading heel. “Because I never back away from a challenge.”

  We joke a little bit more and I’m glad to put all the heavy stuff behind us. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I was kind of hoping that June would be the one to press charges because she was the one Sloan initially assaulted. But now that I know she isn’t going to press charges, now that I know it’s all going to fall to me, well, there’s this tight little ball of resignation in my belly. If what Hudson says is true, if this isn’t the first time Sloan’s done something like this, then I’d be socially remiss not to report him. I’d be partially responsible for each woman he hurts from this point forward.

  And with that kind of logic, I have to report him. I can’t just sit here and
let him get away with what he did because it’ll be easier or less embarrassing or whatever. My heart sinks as I think about the ramifications of admitting assault by a professional athlete. The media. The coverage. The last thing I want is my name dragged through something like that.

  I push it all out of my mind for right now. I’m at work and I’m here for my patients, not for myself. Hudson really is doing his best to lead with his heel and I examine his gait for any other oddities for a few minutes. I don’t really see anything to speak of. He’s just a few appointments away from not needing me anymore and that’s one hell of a good feeling. It’s not easy to recover from a ruptured Achilles. It takes a good surgeon, a good patient, a good PT, and just the right amount of luck.

  Luckily for Hudson, he had a healthy dose of all four.

  6

  Damn it. I was so excited to get to physical therapy and get to work on my aching knee that I’m here early and have nothing to do but sit in this uncomfortable plastic chair and wait my turn. My run yesterday was everything I needed and everything I didn’t all wrapped up into one. Today, my knee hurts enough that even I am willing to admit that it’s injured. That it needs attention before I can do my job properly. After a solid six miles of running in the rain, I finally outran the memories, so the pain today is worth it. By the time I finished my second shower of the day, I fell into bed and didn’t move until well past sunrise.

  The waiting room at Cincinnati Orthopedics is incorporated into their workout area. It’s just one big, open room with lots of machines designed to help put people back together again which, while a little unnerving when you’re getting worked on, makes it perfect for people watching when you’re not. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, studying people when I’m out in a public place. I like to try and figure out as much as I can about them by studying their mannerisms and behavior. It started as something I did subconsciously while I was in the foster system. A survival mechanism. It’s so much easier to avoid a problem if you’ve already pegged someone as a potential threat.

  But as I aged out of the system and realized that I’d been doing it and how it had helped me come through some super shitty experiences with only the smallest amount of scarring, I cultivated the habit. Now, I read people quickly. Get a feel for who they are and what they’re thinking. It’s helped me nail more than just a few criminals with nothing more than a traffic violation and a gut feeling.

  It doesn’t take too long for my focus to settle on my physical therapist. Her blonde hair is down today, hanging just to her shoulders, and continually hiding her face from view. After a few minutes, I start to think she’s doing it on purpose. A few minutes after that, I know she’s doing it on purpose. My alarm bells are going off like crazy. I know that posture all too well. Arms wrapped around herself. Shoulders slumped. Chest hollowed out.

  She’s scared and trying to pretend she’s not. And her eyes only complete the picture. She won’t keep them in one place. Her focus darts around like she’s trying to take in everything all at once. I know what that look means, and, even if she is a nincompoop, I can’t stand seeing anyone look like that.

  But then she turns towards me, showing me her whole face for the first time and my heart jumps into my throat. A massive bruise stretches across her cheekbone. There’s a gash on her bottom lip and a wariness showing in her eyes that she doesn’t seem comfortable with at all.

  I stand. I can’t help it. Seeing her pretty face all banged up like that taps into years of my own personal baggage. I even take a few steps towards her before I fully realize I’m moving and force myself to stop. Hurt or not, in need or not, this woman is a stranger, one that I wasn’t exactly nice to when we first met. The last thing she needs is me going all over-protective on her ass. Hell, I’m a big man and wear a scowl like a badge of honor. I’m scary in my own right.

  Any number of things could have caused those bruises. A car wreck. A fall. An accident at the gym. But my instincts say it’s a man who did that to her. The last thing she needs is me coming at her, regardless of my intention.

  She catches my eye and twists her face into one of wry amusement, shrugs her shoulders and her hand moves to cover her face—probably subconsciously. I purse my lips and nod, just once. An affirmation of the bruise, of her embarrassment. A promise not to come stomping over there and interrupt while she’s working with her patient.

  I sit on the very edge of my seat and drum my fingers on my injured knee. The cop in me is sizing her up. Sizing up the guy with her. Sizing up everyone in this room. Looking for answers before I even know what questions I’m asking.

  All the while I’m fighting the urge to come to her rescue. To find out what happened and take all my years of pent up rage out on whoever did that to her. Because nincompoop or not, I’m certain this woman is a good person, doing her best to make it in the world. I have a million explanations for what happened to her swirling around in her head, each one worse than the one that came before it, all of them spawned by the incredible amount of shit I’ve seen in the world. People are capable of some pretty fucked up things.

  It only takes a few sideways glances from some of the people surrounding me to make me realize that I look just like the kind of person capable of those fucked up things. Back straight, jaw set, perched on the edge of my chair while I stare down the pretty physical therapist with the bruised face. My dark features are imposing as it is, I know that and use it to my advantage every chance I get. But now? While I’m being this intense? I’m sure I’m downright scary.

  I force myself to sit back in my chair and take a few breaths. Force my attention away from the blonde with the bruised face. Ignore the surge of memories threatening to break through the barrier I reconstructed during my run last night.

  This woman is a stranger, I tell myself over and over. She hasn’t asked for your help.

  Hell, she might not even need my help. Not everyone who is the victim of a crime is an actual victim. She might have everything taken care of. And I might be jumping to conclusions about how she got those bruises. Although, watching her, I doubt I am. Like I said, I know how to read people. And I know that look on her face all too well.

  All too well, indeed.

  7

  “Good morning, Mr. Santoro.” The guy has been staring at me since he got here. Those deep lines etched into the space between his eyebrows. I wanted to crumple under the weight of it, but I didn’t, even if I did find it a little rude. This guy is a cop after all. It’s not like he hasn’t seen his fair share of bruised faces in his time.

  “Morning.” He smiles at me, polite and reserved. I’m surprised. I expected a barrage of questions after the last fifteen minutes of intense scrutiny.

  “That limp seems more pronounced today than it was when you left last week.” If he’s going to pull of professional then damn it, I will, too.

  “Observant,” he says in that tight-lipped growl of his. My sarcasm meter is going off like crazy, but his eyes are too soft for sarcasm. “I may have pushed myself too hard yesterday.”

  “And just what exactly do you consider pushing yourself too hard?”

  “I went for a couple runs.”

  There is so much more to this guy than he lets on. I can see it running right underneath his tight-lipped surface. He’s practically vibrating with energy and I know there’s so much he’s not saying. I can see it in those bullet blue eyes.

  “A couple runs.” I twist my lips into what I hope is a wry expression of disbelief. “Can you be a little more detailed?” Rather than lead him over to the bikes like I had originally intended, I have him hop up on one of the examination tables so I can get a better look at his knee.

  “No need to get all judgmental on me, Ms. London. The first run wasn’t exactly my choice.”

  I let out a surprised little laugh. I can’t believe the audacity of this guy! “No judgement. Just stuff I need to know.” I roll up his pant leg, wishing he had worn shorts because unveiling his leg like this feels o
ddly intimate.

  “I pulled a guy over for speeding yesterday and the bastard bolted. I chased him.” He flinches as I probe his swollen knee with my fingers.

  “Couldn’t you have called for backup or something?” Something about knowing he had to chase down a bad guy yesterday makes me see him in a different light. He’s not just a cop sitting in his car, waiting for poor women who are late to work to zoom by so he can make his quota for the month. This is a man who chases down criminals on a Monday afternoon.

  “I could. But the guy would have gotten away. That’s not exactly doing my job, now is it?” He looks down at me, his eyes intense.

  “I guess not.” His knee looks bad enough that I’m not putting him on the bike. I don’t even think I want him doing any exercise at all. I’ll hook him up to the TENS unit and then do some deep tissue massage before I ice him down and send him home. “And the other run? Was that job related, too?”

  “No. But it was just as necessary.” The look on his face tells me not to push so I don’t.

  “Well, you’ve pushed us backwards a bit here. I don’t want you putting any more strain on the knee today so we’re going to skip all the work on your part and go straight to the work on my part.”

  I get him stretched out and comfortable while I attach the self-adhesive pads to key points around the joint. I keep having to fiddle with his pants and am growing ever more uncomfortable with it and I don’t know why. It’s not like I haven’t had to deal with a patient’s inappropriate clothing choices before.

  “So the bruises…” he says as I turn on the TENS unit. “Feel like talking about it?”

  I tense. “I’m not sure that’s appropriate, Mr. Santoro.”

  “Probably not, but I can’t help it. You’ve got my cop senses going crazy.”

  “Cop senses, huh?” I can’t look him in the eye and wish I could think of some cute way to tell him I’m okay. Make some sarcastic remark that gets him to drop the subject and let me do my job without getting way too personal with the jerk who gave me a big ass speeding ticket last week.