He shrugged, which rubbed our arms together. I wondered how that little, unintentional touch could fire up my blood more effectively than a full-on hand on my dick. It was him. There was just something about Orlando Frederick that did it for me on every single level.
“I was always a sports guy. Growing up in a house with my dad, I didn’t have much of a choice. But I loved it. I played soccer; I swam competitively, and I played lacrosse in college.” He laughed a little and turned to look at me with humor stamped all across his face. “I even tried rugby for a while, but I wasn’t built for it. You, on the other hand”—he lifted an eyebrow at me with a smirk—“you look like you were born to be in a scrum. If the whole law-enforcement thing doesn’t work out, that can be your backup plan.”
I think he was kidding but considering I knew how he felt about my job I wasn’t so sure. The image of that snapshot of him with his arm around the beautiful dark-haired boy dressed in a football uniform flashed behind my eyes.
“What about football? That not your cup of tea?” We sidestepped a couple arguing after I gave the guy a “watch yourself” look and lined up in the shortest line for the VIP ticket holders.
“I used to love football. It was my favorite sport. Right before I started college I had big plans to go into this field with the idea that I could be a team trainer. I had the connections thanks to my dad but …” He trailed off as we moved forward and handed our tickets to the guy in the yellow staff jacket manning the door. “Something happened and it soured my entire feeling for the game. I couldn’t get passionate about it anymore. I couldn’t stand to be on the field. Every time a player comes in with a shredded ACL or a broken clavicle and a season’s worth of closed head injuries it makes my skin hurt. All sports are brutal but the toll football takes on the body is insane.”
The noise inside the auditorium echoed and bounced as excited fans made their way from the entrance to their seats. I touched his elbow and Lando stopped and looked at me with lifted eyebrows. “So what happened?”
I saw his quick intake of breath and watched as he debated how to answer me. He was opening his mouth to reply when an arm was suddenly slung around my neck in a strangling hug and my torso was bent over as a big hand smacked across my abs.
“If it ain’t super cop. Long time no see, Dom. We miss you around the station, dude. When you getting your lazy ass back to work?”
I grunted and straightened up to see a couple of my fellow patrol officers dressed down and off duty, clearly here for the game as well. The one that had jumped me was Devin Shea and the other was his partner, Diego Ramirez. Both had been in the academy when Royal and I had been going through the paces and both had been there the night I got shot and fell. They were good guys, good cops, and part of the brotherhood I missed so much I could taste the bitterness of the loss on my tongue.
I rubbed my stomach like the smack had hurt worse than it did and gave the men a scowl. “I’m working on it. How about you take a header off a ten-story building and see how quickly you bounce back, hot shot.” I narrowed my eyes playfully. “Dick.”
He laughed and then got serious. “Heard about your girl and the accident. Sucks to have you both down for the count. We’re short staffed as it is, and it isn’t like the bad guys don’t already outnumber us.”
I hooked a thumb at Orlando, who was watching the exchange with a guarded expression and had taken a few steps away from my side. “Thanks to this guy and his magic I’m hoping to be back before you know it. Devin, Diego, this is my physical therapist, Orlando Frederick.”
The three men shook hands as Lando offered up a reserved hello. Devin’s eyes widened and I thought he was going to make a smart-assed remark about me sleeping with the guy responsible for getting me back to work but instead he asked Lando if he was the guy that had handled the rehab of some professional snowboarder that I had never heard of. Lando nodded and before Devin could launch into fan-boy mode I grabbed my guy’s hand and dragged him toward the rink with a shouted good-bye over my shoulder.
I could feel the tension coiled tightly in the hand I held and I could see it on Lando’s face. Something had just gone really wrong and we were in an arena with hundreds and hundreds of people, so I couldn’t exactly ask him what was up. I made it to the first intermission between the first and second period with the Avs up by a point before practically dragging Lando out of his seat and back towards the parking lot.
He blustered and asked what in the hell was going on the entire way but I wanted to know the same thing, and inside the arena surrounded by strangers was no place to go digging inside of that complicated head of his. I stopped when we got back to the low-slung car and pushed him up against the side of it with a hand in the center of his chest. He was so startled that he finally stopped arguing and just stared at me.
“Okay, Lando, it’s just you and me now. Why in the fuck did you go ice cold when I introduced you to the guys from the force? I know you don’t like my job, I get that the idea of fixing me up so I can turn around and very possibly get broken again pisses you off, but those are good guys, friends. So what’s the deal?”
His mouth opened and closed like he was a giant redheaded fish caught on a line. He put his hand over mine and moved it so that I could feel his heart beating through the heavy fabric of his coat. “You introduced me as your trainer. Not your friend, not your date … I wasn’t sure what kind of role you were expecting me to play with the people in your real life, Dom. I was just being careful. I didn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression.”