Captain Jack (Book Three - ManxMan ManxManxWoman)

Chapter Eleven

It was the middle of November and the already warm days of Spring had become hotter as Summer loomed. Jack spent all of his time indoors in the weeks that followed his return from Hospital. Where ever possible he would remain in his bedroom, working out on the weight set and running machine Blake had provided him with under the guise of helping him rebuild muscle mass he'd lost during those blurry weeks of recovery in the hospital.

Really though it was just the way Blake showed his understanding that Jack didn't want to go out in public.

At the dinner table each night he watched the looks going back and forth between Blake and Melissa and occasionally the other looks sent their way by Tyler, or Sam, or Nick, or even Ben who'd called on him once he'd found out (through Jarrod) what had happened.

The brief flicker of light that had been the visit of his brother went out once he was recalled to duty. Seriously considering leaving the military; Ned had only gone back after Jack had pointed out to him that destroying lives had been precisely what his attackers had tried to do, and that if Ned left the military (which was his life) they'd have succeeded.

What the fuck had to be so wrong with someone that they could commit such an atrocity against anyone, let alone him.

The police had asked him precisely that in the hospital once he'd been given the clear by his doctors to speak with them. They couldn't understand why someone like Jack would be the target of such an act. A jock by any other description and Captain of the football team to boot; they just couldn't rationalise it.

As if such an attack was rational.

That all changed once Jack informed them that he was gay. They hadn't been rude about it, nor did either of them seem homophobic. However, Jack got the feeling that a homosexual being gang raped in a park was far more believable than that of the heterosexual version of himself.

Why were they so different? How would he be any different if he was straight? And how would that justify his right to live free of being a target for rape?

"It's not sexually motivated," the policeman tried to explain, "its sexuality motivated; this is a hate crime."

So, if he were straight; it wouldn't have happened?

In essence that's what they meant. The reality they painted suggested that Tyler could walk through the park at four in the afternoon and not become a rape victim.

But not him.

Jack could see the park from the solitude of his bedroom window. He could see the people walking through it without a care in the world. As he watched he could see Tyler jogging out of the park across the street from Watson Tower.

Reality in motion.

Great. His daily pity visit. School was out for the day and Tyler was on his way to his new job, which just so happened to be Jack's old job with Ben and Jarrod at Subway.

Tyler had gotten the job while Jack was in hospital. Jack couldn't be bitter about it though because he'd been instrumental in Tyler losing his job at the hotel. As Jack had had the misfortune of being sexually assaulted occasioning bodily harm and potential attempted murder, he'd been unavailable for his shifts, and they'd have found someone else anyway.

It might as well be Tyler.

That jerk. The beautifully innocent of any wrongdoing; jerk.

Jack finished the next mile on his running machine and stepped off of it, mopping away the sweat he'd accumulated with the towel he had draped over his shoulders.

If he got in the shower now, maybe Tyler wouldn't have enough time to wait for him to get out before he'd have to rush off to work.

Jack knew that after losing his job at the hotel for precisely that reason, Tyler was somewhat hesitant to ever be late for work again.