Page 7 of Steady Stroke
Lincoln didn’t have any energy to be embarrassed by her finding him naked in bed.
“What did that asswipe do to you?” she asked.
“Migraine.” The two syllables felt like glass in his mouth. The idea of moving even an inch made his stomach roll with more acid, threatening to dredge up every last bit of its remaining contents. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one this bad, so blinding that he couldn’t move. Could barely speak.
Not since the first few months after the accident, when his dizzy spells had been the worst.
“You got a migraine this bad from sex?” Roxy asked, blessedly keeping her voice low and somewhat soothing.
As soothing as any sound could be at the moment.
All he managed was a grunt.
“Think you can keep a pill down?”
Another grunt, and even that sent spikes through his skull.
He waited an eternity for her to get water and one of his migraine pills from the bathroom. Actually shifting his head long enough to swallow and not choke threatened to send the pill right back up, so he closed his eyes and focused on the pill working. On it breaking up and oozing into his bloodstream. On the arteries in his head calming and widening and allowing blood through normally.
Visual aids courtesy of the three therapy sessions he’d attended to deal with his depression over his new handicap.
An ice pack landed very gently across his forehead and temple. He was vaguely aware of Roxy nearby, and squishy sounds. She was cleaning up his vomit.
I fucking suck so bad.
She wouldn’t clean bathrooms or the kitchen, but she was cleaning barf. His barf, because of his stupid fucking head, and the fact that he’d lost control of the sex he was having. Totally lost control, and a flash of anxiety hit him in the gut. He needed to take a shower, and the urge hit so strongly he nearly surged off the bed before his head reminded him why that was an epically bad idea.
The intensity of the migraine began to ease, which allowed him to doze. Time passed in fits and starts, peppered with fragments of dreams he didn’t remember. They left him uneasy, and by the time the pain became a distant throb, he was ready to get up and leave the dreams behind.
Sunlight peeked from behind closed curtains. He blinked hard several times to clear his vision. The room smelled faintly of lemon, but he himself reeked. Mostly of sweat, a little bit like ass, and the reason for that once again socked him in the gut.
I need a shower, like, right now.
The apartment was quiet, but as he strained to hear, he picked up two distinct sets of feet creaking around on the old wood floors. One set in Roxy’s bedroom, and one set in the kitchen. Had she invited someone over?
His heart lurched with the briefest, joyful thought that Dominic had changed his mind and come to visit. It lasted only a moment. Dom loved him, but one migraine wouldn’t drag him away from Trey like that. Not unless Roxy painted his unfortunate sexual encounter in a worse light than it had been.
Worse than what, exactly? The guy didn’t stop when you told him to.
He cringed at the memory, then shoved it away. No wallowing. Shower. Fresh sheets. More sleep.
Footsteps moved toward the hall, approaching his room. They stopped. A very quiet knock was followed by the door inching open. A wonderfully unexpected face peeked inside.
Zelda Bounds had been a second mother to Lincoln after his own parents disowned him. When Lincoln came out at seventeen, his father actually pushed him down the stairs. The fall broke his collarbone and gave him his first concussion. Two days later, his mother dropped a suitcase of his clothes off at the hospital. Dominic’s parents immediately stepped in and gave him a safe place to recover and get his feet under him again.
Lincoln hadn’t spoken to his parents in almost eight years. His sister on birthdays and Christmas. He didn’t care. The Boundses had become his family, and he loved them all dearly.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Zelda said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “How do you feel?”
“Less like death.” The words didn’t hurt to say, so that was progress. He tried sitting up a little, reclining on the pillow instead of lying flat on the mattress, and the headache remained a dull throb at the base of his skull. “Not great.”
She came all the way inside the room and eased down on the bed near his legs. “Roxy called late last night and said you’d had a pretty severe migraine. I love my girl, but she doesn’t have the most level head in emergencies.”
He couldn’t remember much about those agonizing moments between Tom leaving and waking up this morning. Vague shadows of Roxy being there. Asking questions. Covering him with a blanket. “Glad she was here.” Words were still a little hard to find. “Got me a pill.”
“She mentioned that.” Her Mom Face cameon full force. “She also mentioned you had a boy over, and that he left in a hurry.”
“I barfed.”
