both naked and cuddled up underneath his very comfortable down blanket.
“Yeah, why do you sound so shocked?”
“You were terrible at foreign languages in high school. And didn’t you have to like, I don’t know, rehab in rehab.”
He snorts. “Yeah, but one of my caretakers was from Mexico, and I guess she took pity on me or something because we ended up building something like a friendship. She started teaching me Spanish. And I was only terrible at foreign languages because I hated school. Shit was boring.”
I giggle. “You’ve got a point there,” I say, sitting up to sit with my legs crossed to look down at him. I trail my finger up and down the length of his chest and abdomen, admiring the muscles I feel there. “School was pretty boring.”
“You didn’t seem to mind.”
It’s my turn to snort. “It was one of the only times I could be out of my household. Growing up, there was always a heaviness in that house. Everything had to be a certain way, look a certain way. My father made sure we were picture perfect. It was overbearing. I was happy to get away by going to school. It doesn’t mean I took enjoyment in it, though. Not until you came along.”
He smiles and pulls my fingers to his lips, kissing them individually.
“Is that why you never became a doctor?”
I stiffen at the question. I don’t want to lie. “No. I hated what I did to you. I thought I was undeserving of being a doctor after what happened.”
I gasp, surprised by the force at which Mark pulls my body down, taking my face firmly into his hands. “Stop saying that shit,” he growls. “You saved me, long before that fucking fall, okay?”
“How can you say that?”
“Do you know the type of shit I was getting into before I met you?”
“Fighting?”
“That was the least of all my bullshit. For a short stint, I was even selling drugs.”
“What? Why?” I never knew that.
He shakes his head and shrugs. “Dumb teenage shit.”
“It wasn’t just that, Mark.”
“Yeah, nah, the truth is I was always searching for something more. To be something bigger. You know how rough it was for me growing up being Connor O’Brien’s little brother. Everyone saw me as his shadow. Even my own father.”
“You wanted to be just like him.”
“Yeah, because everyone expected me to be just like him. My dad started teaching me to fight at the same age he taught Connor. But he’d always say shit like, ‘C’mon, kid, when Connor was your age, he knew how to throw a fucking punch the right way.’ Or, ‘Connor was two years younger than you when he learned this shit.’”
I reach out and take his arm, squeezing it.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, J.”
“I don’t. I just think it’d be hard to grow up with that kind of comparison.”
“It was fine, or so I thought, but then I got older and wanted to make a name for myself. Hence, why I started fighting at a local gym, but that wasn’t enough. They all knew my brother and compared our styles, just like my dad. So, I sought ways to make a name for myself.”
“Is that why you were doing all those fights after school and stuff?”
He nods. “But once you and I got together, I cut a lot of that shit out. Fighting was still in my blood, though. I don’t think I could ever give that up. Not then, especially.”
He turns to me, staring at me directly in the eye. “You saved me before that fall. And yeah, I fucking fell apart when I woke up in that hospital, and they told me I’d never walk again. But what was worse was that you weren’t there.”
Taking his hand in mine, I squeeze it. “I thought I’d be the last person you’d want to see in the hospital. I couldn’t look you in the eye and not tell you what I’d done.”
“You didn’t do shit.” He glances over at his chair. “Do I wish I could still walk? Yeah. Hell, yeah, but I have a life. A damned good life, and whoever’s looking out for me up above made sure I made it through that hellish time without killing myself to get to live it. Don’t feel sorry for me, J.”
“I don’t.”
“Good, because this chair isn’t stopping a damn thing in my world.”
I laugh as he pulls me into his arms to straddle him again.
“Last night, while I was holding Colin, you said you