On Point (Out of Uniform 3)

No fair. And Ben wasn’t ever getting access to that drawer and the confounding man who owned it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t Hulk smash the next lucky bastard who did.

* * *

“You’ve got your pick of wheels.” Ben’s voice was all fake cheerful, and not for the first time that week, Maddox was tempted to deck his friend. Ben constantly seemed to be trying too hard—the cheerleader he’d never been before, hovering over him like a mama dog. And Maddox was not a damn puppy figuring out how to walk again.

“Chair? Scooter? Crutches?” Camilla gestured at the collection against the wall in Maddox’s room in the hospital’s rehab unit. The chair was what they’d been using to get him to PT, where he practiced with the crutches and the weird scooter thing with a rest for his leg. “This is a big moment for you.”

“We’re only going to the courtyard.” Maddox wished this little excursion was more than just getting Chinese for lunch. But he was wearing actual clothes—baggy shorts and a shirt with buttons that Ben had brought. Soon he’d be able to pull a shirt on past his head stitches. And he no longer had an IV port. Small wins. He eyed the scooter with distrust—still wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t going to upend him in the hallway. “Crutches. Gotta get better if I’m going home this week.”

Camilla held the crutches for him while he levered himself up off the bed, Ben standing nearby, arm still in a sling, but looking like he’d rip the sling off himself if Camilla didn’t meet his expectations for assisting Maddox. Ben’s father’s fiancée might be small, but she packed quite the punch, and it was something of a miracle that she hadn’t walloped Ben yet for the hovering and the worrying.

“Thanks,” he said to Camilla, giving Ben a warning look. Ben hadn’t received the clearance for driving yet, so if Maddox were him, he’d be trying a bit harder to be nice to his ride.

It was slow progress to the area with the fast food options, and Maddox wished for the wheelchair by the end of the corridor, but no way was he speaking up. At least the crutches were more comfortable and lighter than the branches he’d had to use in the jungle. The summer sun made it hard to stay too frustrated, skies as blue as Colchuck Lake and the perfect warmth on his sun-starved skin as they made their way outdoors. He might not miss the field the way Ben did, but he sure as heck missed being outside.

“Should have brought your chair,” Ben grumbled. “You’re going to exhaust yourself.”

“I’m fine.” Maddox tried to speed up his uncoordinated lurching. He was bound and determined to get home as soon as possible, and that meant showing that he was capable of doing more than getting from his bed to the bathroom. “Looking forward some lo mein.”

“I’m making posole later this week. I’ll see about bringing you some.” Camilla held the door to the food joint open for him.

“Hoping to be home by then. But I won’t turn down your soup. Maybe I can trade you some corn muffins. Found a great recipe in the cookbook you brought me the other day.”

“Oh the cookbook was Ben’s doing.” Camilla laughed. “Made me take him to the store on the way back from his PT.”

Oh really? Maddox’s eyebrows shot up even as he kept his mouth shut. But Ben? Buying him gifts? That was a new one. They’d often traded dinners for birthdays and such, but they’d never been much for exchanging presents. And Ben’s gift should have made him feel good, but instead it felt weird—like Ben was trying too hard.

And it made Maddox miss having a boyfriend in his life. Unlike Ben who seemed to need sex to breathe, that wasn’t what Maddox missed as much as emotional intimacy, someone to take care of and do nice things for. Damn Ben for making him yet again long for what he couldn’t have.

“I grabbed us a table.” Ben’s father walked up as they entered the fast food joint. “Kept my afternoon free and thought I’d surprise you.”

“Surprise!” Ben’s sister Marilee waved from a table near the register. Her toddler waved from a blue stroller. She hadn’t visited as much as Ben’s folks, but she’d been around, same as some of Ben’s cousins. Ben’s family was a constant presence, but one that felt more like a stab than a balm for Maddox. Oh, they always tried to include him, but it only served as constant reminder of his own family’s shortcomings and how much he missed that closeness.

“You guys do know that we’re going to live, right?” Ben laughed and pulled out a chair for Maddox, turning toward him. “Do you need a second chair to elevate the leg?”