Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) (39 page)

Read on for a sample of Sidelined 2:

Damaged Goods

Owen
rolled to his back as fingers of awareness prickled his brain. Seconds later, with
the involuntary tightening of the muscles of his torso, he was fully awake. He
groaned, stomach hollowing out as a spasm squeezed across his chest.

He brought his knees up, heels pressing into the mattress, and when
that didn’t relieve the aching pressure, he grunted and straightened his legs
out again. There was no comfort. No avoiding this. And it was too soon. But
there was nothing he could do to stop the throbbing wave of feeling coming.

His fists were balled at his sides, curled in the sheet. He needed
to calm down. If he could calm down, it wouldn’t be this way. He tipped his
head back into the pillow, chin up, mouth open, his breath coming in snatches.
God, it was too soon. He had to hold out. But the swoop of nausea arrived along
with the sharp hug of sensation wrapping around his ass, hip to hip, making him
want to buck against it. A hiss of heat ignited along his spine, tendrils of
fire licking deep and hateful, and a stream of profanity smoked from his lips.

This was going to eat him from the inside out.

He rolled, bringing his knees up and over so he was on his side,
trying to make himself smaller, to get away, to find comfort, but the fire was
out of control now, electric in its intensity, unrelenting in its intention to
break him.

Hands to his face he stifled a sob.

He used to be a man who ruled his body with his brain, who made
sense from chaos, thrived on ambiguity and loved taking risk by the scruff of
its neck and shaking it until it was shouting Uncle. Now his body set the
agenda and he cowered at the uncertainty he couldn’t master. Not without help.

This was his life now.

After the accident.

This merciless invasion of pain turning his waking moments into a
dance of caution and his sleeping ones into anticipation of another hijack.

Like precision clockwork, every four hours the pain was back, drying
out his mouth, making his hands shake. Each assault hitting him harder than the
last, weakening his resolve.

He wouldn’t sleep again, unless he took a pill. If he didn’t sleep,
he’d be a zombie during the day. And it was a day where he needed to prove he
was ready.

Could he breathe through this pain, find the slices of ease in the
knife slides of agony until it was time to get up? He was better off wishing it
was worse. If it was worse, he’d pass out and never need to know the struggle.

How did his life become a place where worse was better?

But it wasn’t worse, it wasn’t better, this invasion of pain in his
body wasn’t a foe he could get familiar with. He squinted at the clock, three
minutes since he’s last looked. If this was before, he’d be awake in fifty-five
minutes. At five-fifteen, he’d be dressed and leading his Cannondale bicycle
out from under the garage door. He’d have an hour to ride in Golden Gate Park
and still make the office in Palo Alto before eight.

He’d thought about giving the bike to someone who could use it. Just
the idea of sitting astride it, leaning forward to take the handlebars made him
tense. Before the accident he’d been able to put his body in that arched
forward position made to chase speed, and lose it there while his head did
other things: solved problems, planned, dreamed. That hour was the prayer
portion of his day before the business of living started. Now the business of
living was as much a strain on his body as it was on his mental strength.

He’d thought he knew how to handle pain. Having his heart ripped out
should’ve taught him everything he needed to know to master this.

And it wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be healed.
Recovered. Good as new. Taking it easy still and to expect fatigue, but mended,
ready to pick up where he’d left off when the truck crashed into Kuch’s Tesla
and put them both on the critical list.

That was four months ago. A whole season had passed. A summer he’d
filled with surgery and therapy, resting and impatience. And a lifetime of
arguments with his family. He was not going back to Chicago, and no way was he
going to Vegas. He wasn’t joining the family business now or ever. He’d crossed
the country to put distance between himself, the easy money and the hard
addictions of being a Lange. And it was going to stay that way. He might have
broken his back but he wasn’t breaking that rule. He’d make his own way or not
at all, and that hadn’t changed since Stanford, meeting Reid and starting Plus.

And nothing Brooke said or did, while she kicked around to care for
him would change that. She’d smoothed his way and given him a dozen
distractions as only a wayward baby sister who had no reason to earn her own
living and no ambition to change that could.

Without Brooke sleeping down the hall, there was no reason to stifle
his moans. No one in the house to wake if he stumbled around in the kitchen or
ran scalding shower water long enough to create a citywide shortage. No one to
take that information and make it another reason for his family to pressure him
to come home.

Knowing he was alone made this more freeing and more desperate. But
he’d wanted this, to be back to normal, even as he knew his body wasn’t ready
for it. For fuck’s sake, parts of him still weren’t functioning and maybe never
would again.

As if living through that first fatal crash in his life wasn’t
enough to make him wonder if he’d always be alone.

The pill bottle on the bedside table was empty. It’d had a merry
rattle to it this time last week. The pain doc said he shouldn’t need them anymore.
But one more wouldn’t matter because if he had the shakes when he fronted the
office he wouldn’t get past Sarina’s eagle eyes or Dev’s probing. Reid, he
could bluff, unless Zarley had continued to work her voodoo on him, taking his
wooden Pinocchio and making him into a real boy.

The sane part of him hoped she had.

There wasn’t much left of the sane part of him. Another axe swipe of
evil rippled around his hip and under his thigh. He used it to push his legs
over the edge of the bed and reef himself upright. He was sweating, his hands
shaking. Standing made his head spin. He shuffled to the bathroom holding on to
walls and doorways and the edge of the sink. He made the shower water almost
too hot to stand, trying to sear the pain out. But five minutes under the spray
and his legs were trembling and the decision made.

He got out, toweled his face off, avoided the mirror, he wouldn’t
like what he saw. He took a fresh prescription of relief from the bathroom
cabinet and popped a pill from the blister pack. These things were highly
addictive, he’d been warned. A gateway drug to other opiates. But he wasn’t
addicted. He was the only one of the Lange’s who hadn’t made booze, drugs or
dice his religion.

He just needed a little help on this last stage of his recovery. He
took the pill, guzzling water with it. He’d sleep now, a few more hours and be
refreshed and ready when he woke. When he was ready, he’d find another way to
deal with the pain. Move to the slow release drug and learn to pace himself,
waiting the hours required till it was safe to take another dose. He could do
it. He wasn’t an addict.

He drank a second glass of water and caught sight of his eyes in the
mirror, red-veined, sunken and heavy lidded. Barely recognizable. Damaged goods.

He wasn’t addicted, but he was destroyed all the same.

About Ainslie Paton

By day Ainslie Paton is a mild mannered corporate
storyteller working in marketing, public relations and advertising.

She’s written about everything from the African refugee
crisis and Toxic Shock Syndrome, to high-speed data networks and hamburgers.

Nights and weekends she writes cracking, hyper-real
romances. Her heroes are often tongue-tied and brooding, or heartbreakingly
beta. Her heroines are the challenge they didn’t know they deserved.

You can find out more about her books and newsletter at:
www.ainsliepaton.com.au

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