Chasing Serenity (Seeking Serenity) by Eden Butler

time we met.”
    “I thought you did that,” I say, earning a smile from him, a silent confirmation that his forced apology didn’t mean anything.
    “I was pissed out of my head. Too much whiskey.” Again Declan frowns, moves his head as though he can’t believe what an ass he made of himself that night on the pitch. “It’s no excuse, I know, but I am sorry. I’m not like that, really.”
    “Well, I wasn’t really pissed at you.” He raises one eyebrow and I smile. “Not for being rude today. You’re right, you don’t know me, but it’s still a bit, new, you know?”
    “I do. It was a shitty thing to say so, again, I’m sorry.” We return to the sorting and our hands work together in the box. Several times we touch. His skin is rough and there are blisters on his knuckles, on his palms. He has a player’s hand, calloused and slender, good for grabbing, holding the ball, and I find myself looking at how long his fingers are, the width of the joints, the show of vascular lines on the tops.
    “What do you play?” I ask and he stops for a moment, notices me staring at his hands.
    “Wing. Well, normally I’m wing. Tucker’s convinced Mullens to set me as scrumhalf.”
    “Ah, so that explains it.”
    “Explains what?”
    “Why you hate Tucker.” He doesn’t respond, just returns to the bookshelf to grab another box and my gaze follows him, takes in the rigid set of his shoulders. “He’ll be gone at the end of the season, you know.”
    “Hmm. If I’m lucky,” he says.
    “Mullens is a good coach. I’ve known him forever and he’s friends with Ava.” A wrinkle forms between Declan’s eyebrows. “Dr. Winchell.”
    “Thick as thieves with the president, aren’t you?”
    “No. Well, yes, but it’s not what you think. She was my mom’s best friend. They’d known each other since college.”
    He opens his mouth as though he wants to say something, but then just nods before he clears his throat. “Sayo mentioned it was a car crash?” When my eyes narrow, he shakes his head as though I shouldn’t be angry. “That was after she and the other two barked at me forever. Told me what an arse I was, how rude I was, how you didn’t deserve to be disrespected.” I relax and he continues. “You were hurt?”
    “Yes.” My hands shake, tremble as they rest on the box in front of me and I can see myself bloody and still in the car, remembering the pain, the suffocating feeling of my mother’s loss. A breath tamps down the burn of tears in my eyes. “Three broken ribs, a completely busted up leg, and a lacerated abdomen. I had more scrapes and bruises than even you’ve probably had.”
    “I’ve had many. Loads of scars as well.”
    I don’t know what possesses me to do it, perhaps some subconscious need to prove how tough I am, that I’m not some sniggering girly girl, but I lift up the side of my shirt and show Declan the top of my incision from the surgery. It’s a horrid, long line still pink that runs from my hip to just below my bellybutton.
    “A steel rod from the truck that hit us pinned me to the seat. Seven hour surgery.” Declan winces. The scar had faded and the doctors told me that over time it would continue to diminish, but it would never disappear completely. Five months on and it’s still quite disgusting.
    Seemingly without thinking about it, Declan reaches down and rubs his thumb against my scar and at his touch, my stomach flips. I know he can see the light hairs on my stomach stand on end and how my skin covers in goose bumps. He looks at my face again and once more his eyes linger too long in my eyes, then down to my lips. But then he breaks contact and unbuttons his shirt.
    “I’ve got a few nasty ones as well. See this?” He lifts his undershirt back over his left shoulder and I nod, curious of his point, his intentions. “Rory McDonald pushed me straight through the rusty, broken uprights when I was fifteen. Twenty-nine stiches that ached like a bugger. And