Ace
“…sorry, thought you were dead.”
Actually, I was staring at the lump on her head wondering if I should grab more ice and had accidentally started playing with her hair and staring at the freckles on her cheeks, by the time I was done counting them I’d moved on to her full lips and the way she pressed them together when she slept.
It would be the only time I could have peace with her while being her partner, since I knew her well. She’d wake up, and I’d be all like oh hey I nursed you to health and she’d be like oh my shit, my hero, what happened?
And then I’d have to say. “I got scared, slipped, fell on my ass, and hit you in the head with a purple stapler. It was touch and go a bit, but hey you made it!”
Wow, add me to B team Avengers any day. On second thought, I stared over at the purple bruise on her forehead. Maybe c team?
Her long dark hair was a matted mess in her ponytail from tossing and turning on the couch, the sweat from terror didn’t help, and I had my own sweat going on once she found out where we were and why. I’d have to explain it to her, and she was going to figure it out soon. No, this was not her apartment, no it wasn’t mine, it was in fact a penthouse suite given to us on another level of the hotel away from contestants so she could have privacy from the stapler incident.
Maybe if I just said it really fast she’d only catch a few meaningful pieces and turn around and ask to watch a tv show or something? Did concussions make you lose short-term memory or would that be long-term memory? Hell, did I have a concussion by just sitting next to her? My brain was firing in all the wrong ways.
Bri stretched her arms above her head and yawned, she had two heavy blinks before looking down. “This isn’t my couch.” Those same eyes locked onto me and narrowed. “And you look nervous, unless you have to pee, which gives you a free pass.”
“Well, in that case.” I grumbled. “And it’s not your couch.”
I hoped that the chipper tone I used would be disarming, but who knew when it came to Bri, plus she had blunt force trauma to her head by way of office supplies.
Maybe if I was extremely agreeable, she wouldn’t keep asking. One could only hope.
She traced the white leather with her fingertip. “Is it your couch?” Is it your couch?” She asked next. “Are we in your apartment?”
“No.”
“Did the stapler put me in a coma I’m not aware of, are you a mirage, and why am I laying dangerously close to your lap and why do you look ready to confess to homicide right now? Oh God, did I help you bury a body and just black out from the sheer trauma of the next challenge?”
I sighed, then did this rough exhale that kind of felt like I was about ready to have a panic attack and not because she’d be pissed, but because I was barely holding on by a thread as it was.
Concussed people should not be trusted with me.
At lease not gorgeous ones I used to be in love with.
Used.
Right. Used. I was going to have to repeat that word a lot if I had to keep being her partner and work in close quarters with her, a penthouse suite out of a dream did not help, they even had the tiny ice in the freezer, the kind that she loved and used to force me to pick up on the way home from work from the one and only gas station in town that had it.
I always told her she was lucky I was on that side of town.
I was never on that side of town.
It was a simple lie in order to see a wide smile when I got back to the apartment. The gas to get there cost more than the ice itself, but that smile? Priceless.
The awkward throat clearing coming from my mouth probably wasn’t helping the situation while Bri really did take a look around, only to nearly fall onto the ground ass first as her legs got tangled in a blanket. “Huh? Seriously, where are we and why are you here? Is this part of the game?”
I licked my lips and leaned forward, grabbing the blanket from the ground and tossing it onto the couch. “I’m your nurse for the night, apparently you got a concussion from the stapler and you need to be woken up every few hours, I think this is the part where I say no man left behind—but really, Max gave me a key card to one of the penthouse suites away from the contestants so you could rest and I was given the task of making sure you don’t die.”
“Has anyone ever told you how charming you are?”
“Oh daily, grandmas love me too, by the way, sometimes they even give me a piece of gum just for smiling.”
“Gross.”
“Some might say cute.”
“Some might say you need to get a life if that’s what you find exciting.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, you’re alive, you’re welcome for staying with you for the night. Are you hungry? Do you need to shower, actually scratch that, I’m assuming you need to shower after sweating your way through all of that but there was no chance in Hell I was going to take a passed out girl under water after stripping her clothes off and this is so going downhill the more I speak isn’t it?”
Bri smirked. “I think it started going downhill with the grandma conversation and just veered off a cliff when you said based out girl in the shower and stripping.”
“Yup.” I nodded. “On that note.” I stood and grabbed the remote from the other couch. “Should we just go for it and watch a crime drama?”
She tucked her legs underneath her body and pulled the blanket over her. “You know I’m a sucker for the ones where the women are the killers.”
I plopped back down next to her. “Why do they always use poison again?”
“Mmm, easy,” She snatched the remote from my hands and turned up the volume, then handed it back forcefully for someone who had a head injury. “Women for the most part aren’t as strong as men physically and well, we don’t really like to get our hands dirty, so for the most part we’ll choose a weapon that’s sneakier oh and also men are dumb-dumbs, they see tits, ass, and a meal in front of them and the last thing on their mind is arsenic.”
“Huh, I had you for more of a Wild Parsnip or Hemlock sort of gal.”
Bri winked. “You just earned points for even knowing that.”
“How to poison someone? Thank you, best compliment I’ve ever received might have to write it down and frame it for my living room.”
“You lead a sad, sad life, don’t you?”
“Shut up.” I elbowed her and turned the channel, sure enough there was a crime show on HLN called Black Widow and it had just started. “Oooo, bet he cheated.”
“Nah.” She crossed her arms. “It always starts that way, they’re so happy, in love, the world is they’re oyster then bam!”
I jumped when she clapped her hands together. “Bam what?”
Bri dropped her hands into her lap. “Usually it starts slow, you don’t just wake up and go, hey I think I’m going to slowly poison the person I love to death by way of his morning coffee, might take me six months, but I’m a nurse they’d never suspect me and neither would he, because I’m the perfect wife, meanwhile he’s been cheating with his brothers fiancé all along.”
I blinked at her. “That was scary detailed, care to share your trauma with the class?”
“We need popcorn.” She stood up on shaky legs, then fell back down onto the couch. I caught her and gently laid her against the pillow. “Ugh, I hate feeling dizzy.”
“You’ll be fine. Just sit, I’ll make the popcorn, plus do you really think I’m going to let you touch my snack after talking about poisoning your lover?”
Her smile fell. “But you aren’t my lover, so you don’t have to worry.”
“Does that mean you’d poison me if I was?”
“Never.” She scoffed after a few moments of silence. “I’d probably just hit you over the head with a bat or cut your brakes.” A grin followed.
A very scary grin.
“On that note.” I walked past the couch. “I’m going to be paranoid for life and for your information, I was a great lover and why are we using the word lover? It’s like our conversations have done nothing but gone downhill since the grandma talk.”
“Loverrrrr.” Bri laughed. “Hey at least you didn’t give me your flower or take mine, we could be having that conversation.”
“Please, your flower was probably plucked years before I even met you. You clearly weren’t a virgin and terrified me the first time we slept together.”
I grabbed the popcorn from the cupboard and popped it into the microwave and pressed start.
“Repeat that?” She asked from the couch. “I scared you during sex? Because that’s kind of the message I’m getting here, and it’s not a sexy sex one.”
I leaned against the counter and locked eyes with her. “You don’t remember?”
“Of course I remember!”
“Hitting me in the face with your elbow mid orgasm? Then pulling my hair out? I woke up with blood on my chest from the talons you call nails.”
She made a face. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t bad at all, best sexual experience of my life to date.” Her cheeks burned bright red. “Except for the whole physical injury thing, I had to explain to my boss at work why I had a black eye, told him I ran into the door and was sent to HR that same afternoon to talk about potential abuse at home and the workplace. They said most victims blame objects, not people.”
Bri burst out laughed. “Okay, you never told me you got pulled into HR. And hey, they were just doing their jobs!”
“Bri, I had to come clean and finally tell them that I had really rough sex with my hot girlfriend and things got a little bit crazy but that I had zero regrets and am in a safe space also known as the apartment I share with her.”
Bri grinned. “What did they say?”
The microwave went off; I pulled out the popcorn, shook it, then carefully opened it up so the steam wouldn’t hit me in the face and poured it into a glass bowl and brought it over. “Oh, they still gave me a pamphlet, that one was on burnout and how we tend to fantasize over things in order to deal with stress.”
Bri snorted into her hands. Yes, hilarious. Almost got a cramp from laughing so hard.
I sighed. “Yup, get it out, all the laughter.”
“Why did you never tell me this?” She grabbed a fistful of popcorn and started eating.
I shrugged. “Because I didn’t want,” I sighed and looked away. “Let’s just watch the show.”
She grabbed my arm. “Tell me. We are partners.”
Were, is what I wanted to say. I guess at that point it didn’t really even matter, did it? She was a co-worker, a partner for a stupid game, nothing more, not now at least.
She leaned in closer. “Please?”
“I didn’t want it to end.” The admission hung heavy in the air between us, thick with tension. “I didn’t,” My voice cracked. “I didn’t want you to stop. Ever.”
“Even though I drew blood and gave you a black eye on accident?”
“Even then.” I jerked away and dug into the popcorn. “Happy now?”
She cleared her throat and leaned back. “Yeah. I’m happy.”
That was a clear lie. Her face had paled, and she was suddenly back into poisoning of the husband mode.
I don’t know how long we sat there, but I knew we’d made it through at least three episodes before she yawned behind her hand and started getting comfortable on the couch again. “Promise you’ll wake me just in case?”
I’d stay up all night just in case.
Even if she wasn’t ever going to be mine again, she was still precious, so yeah, I would stay up all night, protecting her for someone else, and for a future I wouldn’t be a part of.
That didn’t sound depressing at all.
And yet, I knew I would never take it back, even if it meant the end of the story had me completely written out of it.