EMBER
Bash had called me beautiful, and it was like my entire world no longer made rational sense. We’d had two more practices since then, and I was slowly improving and stepping on his feet a lot less. (Where were those dance movies?) I’d wanted to ask him what he’d meant when he’d said I was beautiful. Like, it was all I could think about.
Why? Why had he said it? Did he really think that? Or was it just a nice thing he’d thrown out there? Like something he said to every girl he met? The only way to know for sure was to ask him, and that wasn’t happening. I wasn’t about to reopen old wounds that I was still trying to heal just because I was curious. Okay, I was obsessively curious about it, especially since there was a seventeen-year-old inside of me who was tossing handfuls of rose petals into the air and singing, “Beautiful! Beautiful! Bash thinks I’m beautiful!”
Instead I focused on the task ahead of us and tried to ignore that his hand on my waist felt like a gateway to other things. I tried hard to keep our dancing sessions PG despite the fact that one of us kept moving closer to the other so that when we finished our chests were usually touching, despite the fact that we started the dance with enough space between us to let a freight train through.
I suspected that I was to blame.
When Bash had declared me good enough to add music, my mom sent me a link to the song that would be playing during the competition. It was pretty and by some guy named Sting, a musician my mom liked. After listening to it approximately five million times in a row as we practiced, we both picked up the words.
Yesterday during our session Bash had been softly singing along, and he was actually pretty good.
“You can sing, too?” I asked. Did he have to be good at everything?
He laughed. “Not so much. I usually only sing in the shower.”
That brought up a lot of unbidden soapy and wet images that I decided would not be safe to dwell on.
The next day I had my clinicals where we had to show off our injection skills. Since nobody liked to be a human pincushion, it forced the nursing students to practice on one another. But because I was already pretty decent at it, I got banned and told I didn’t need to keep practicing.
But I wanted to be perfect. The best.
I tried talking Deja and Molly into it, but they refused.
“We’ve put our time in,” Molly said. “There’s no point in trying for an A plus when you already have an A.”
Out of desperation I texted Jess, asking if I could stick her. With injection needles.
I half expected her not to respond; after she caught me up in math class we’d only randomly texted each other since neither one of us had much time to hang out. But to my surprise she answered immediately and said she was busy, but she’d see what she could do. She said to give her half an hour.
I sat at our little peninsula counter in the kitchen and laid out all of my equipment so that I’d be ready when she showed up. I reached for my notebook, which was empty. Flipping the cover open and seeing those blank lines filled me with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for the girl I used to be, the one who dreamed about writing.
As I thought about how much I’d loved creating stories, my mind went off on its own tangent to its favorite topic—straight to Bash. I thought of his surprise when he found out I was studying to become a nurse and not a writer. I never had enough time these days to read the YA fantasy books I adored and even less time to write them.
I wondered if I was still capable of writing a story. I grabbed a pen and again saw Bash in my mind’s eye. Only I saw him differently. In Viking armor, a beard, his blond hair long and in braids. He was carrying a sword and a shield, off to slay a dragon to protect his village.
I began writing down the details as I saw them in my head. Then there was a woman. Dark haired, dark eyed. A bit like me. But she was the commander of a Roman legion. She ordered the Viking to be caught and brought to Rome to fight as a gladiator. And in the midst of grabbing him, the entire group was attacked by the dragon.
My pen flew across the paper, and it was all I could do to capture everything that I imagined. Words just flowed out of me, like somebody else had put them there and I was trying to transcribe actual conversations.
I had forgotten this part of myself. I had always loved writing; it was my escape. Or it had been before my mom got sick.
I was so caught up in what I was doing that I hadn’t noticed Deja reading over my shoulder until she said, “Are you writing about you and Bash?”
It was like my heart had dropped into my stomach. I slammed the notebook shut, but from the sly look on my roommate’s face, the damage had already been done. “N-no. It’s not about me and Bash.”
“You are such a terrible liar.” She grabbed the notebook despite my attempt to stop her. “So, let me get this straight. Sven the Viking here is tall and blond and muscular. And Julia has dark hair and dark eyes. Yeah, I’m searching for the hidden subtext here and how it’s not about you and your massive crush on your ex. You know how I feel about exes. And football players. But I couldn’t blame you for wandering into that territory again. Because let’s be real, Bash is fine. I could totally see him as a hot Viking conqueror.”
“Yep,” Molly said from the couch. “I’d hit that.”
“You have a boyfriend!” I reminded her as I snatched my notebook back from Deja.
“I know. But if I didn’t, I’d let Bash pillage my village every day of the week.”
Deja cackled at that while I set my notebook back down on the counter. Now that it was safely away from her prying eyes, I flipped to the page she’d been reading, wondering if it was badly written or if she just enjoyed teasing me.
When Deja finally stopped laughing at Molly’s joke, she said, “I bet you Bash is a real holds-your-face-while-he’s-kissing-you kind of guy.”
“I love when guys do that,” Molly sighed.
There was a knock at the door, and Deja went to answer it. “Me too. That stuff is sexy as . . . hello, Bash!”
I lifted my head and looked at the door, convinced she was messing with me.
She wasn’t. There stood Bash with what looked like clothes in one of his hands.
“Were your ears burning?” Deja teased while Bash looked slightly confused. “I’d love to stay and chat, but Molly and I were just on our way out.”
“We were?” Molly protested. “But the latest patch for Halo released today.”
“Hush. Don’t make me slap you. Come on.”
Knowing she was defeated, Molly put down her controller, grabbed her coat, and followed Deja outside.
Leaving me alone. With Bash.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Jess said you wanted to stick me?” He walked over to sit on the bar stool next to me, his legs nearly bumping into mine as he faced me.
What? Part of me was tempted to text Jess and ask her what she’d been thinking. Why had she sent Bash? But the other part of me was excited to have a new vein victim and equally as excited/nervous that he was here. I held up the sterile needle with saline solution. “Stick, as in inject. And I wanted to practice on people because orange peels are nothing like human skin, and the other nursing students in my clinicals have kicked me out of their stick circle.”
“Stick circle sounds like an amateur adult video.” He held out his hand with the clothes. “I come with gifts.”
They were . . . my clothes. How did Bash have my EOL women’s volleyball hoodie? “You know what they say about hot guys bearing gifts.”
My words turned prophetic when I realized that not only did he have my hoodie and my favorite gray yoga pants, but a pair of red, lacy panties and matching bra. Mortification would have been underselling it.
Since I was a baggy-sweatpants-and-hoodies kind of girl, most people would never have guessed that I loved frilly underwear. Soft, satiny, in all different shades. Instead of oversize boxer shorts and faded T-shirts like my roommates, I slept in slinky negligees. It was one part of my life where I allowed myself to go full girly. It was something that was just for me.
Although considering Bash had had them in his possession, it wasn’t just for me at the moment.
I knew I was supposed to hand wash this stuff instead of putting it in the gentle cycle in the washing machine. I figured this was the laundry gods punishing me.
“You think I’m hot?” He was teasing me and acting like it was no big deal for him to have had my underthings in his possession.
“You know how you look.” I gestured toward his face and his shoulders and then the rest of him, but I was still caught up in my own internal drama. Why was I freaking out? I had bathing suits that showed more skin than this set of underwear. If it had been any other guy in the complex returning my stuff from the laundry room, I wouldn’t have thought a thing about it. But there was something there, something specific, some undertone of Bash having his hands on my unmentionables that made me blush all the way up to the roots on my head.
“What I don’t know is how you think I look. And we’ve just established that you think I’m hot.” There was a merry twinkle in his eyes that made everything worse.
And, as always, worse had another level.
“What’s this?” he asked, reaching for my still open notebook. “Are you writing again?”
Not today, Satan! I pounced on top of my notebook and grabbed it out of his way. I then threw it down the hallway and managed to get most of it through my open bedroom door. “I just had a story idea, and, yes, I did a little bit of writing. But seriously, it’s nothing.” I was never writing another word again if this was what was going to happen.
We sat in silence for a few moments before he said, “Were you still planning on sticking it to me today?”
“Sticking you. Not . . . never mind. Can you take off your coat?” And your shirt? my still-revved-up brain added.
He shrugged off his coat and rolled up the sleeve of the navy-blue sweater he was wearing. “I’m glad you’re writing again. I was always in awe of your talent.”
His legs were so long that I had to stand in between them to do the injection. I moved my supplies closer and had him rest his right arm against the counter.
I tied the tourniquet around his big right bicep and then handed him a stress ball. “Squeeze that while I look for a vein. Don’t worry, I’m good at finding the perfect one. Pretty sure I could find a vein on a former child actor if I needed to. And I don’t know how you could say my writing was good. All my stories were so stupid back then.” Seriously cringeworthy.
And he was the only person I’d let read them. “Yeah, but you’re older now with more education and more experiences. It might be different. Maybe you could take a couple of classes, considering you’re already in college.”
Maybe I could. Maybe I didn’t have to focus only on being a nurse. I could write, too.
I found a vein on the inside of his elbow and tapped it a couple of times while I waited for it to swell. I tried very hard not to think about the fact that we were standing so close or that I was basically stroking his skin like a deranged person. Why did he always smell so good?
“Taking a couple of classes might be a possibility,” I told him. I put on my gloves, disinfected the site and then pulled on his skin, making it taut. “Okay, so I’m going in at a thirty-five-degree angle. You should feel a pinch, and then we’ll be done.”
It was important to keep my hands and the needle steady, which was not easy to do when I could feel his warm breath against the side of my neck. I counted down, “Three, two, one,” and then I did it. Another successful injection. He hadn’t even flinched, which was a lot different than the time Molly claimed I had killed her and had started writhing around on the floor. I pulled the tourniquet off his arm with my free hand.
“So your new hobbies include writing things I can’t see and sticking people with needles.”
I slowly plunged the saline solution into his arm. “They were good ones to pick up since most of my hobbies involve eating and complaining that I’m fat.”
“You know you’re not, don’t you?” He put his left hand on my waist, which I was sure went against clinical protocols. But it was a habit we’d both slipped into since we’d started our dance lessons. We spent hours touching and holding each other so that it felt weirdly natural to do it in real life, too. And I liked it too much to tell him not to. “Ember, look at me.”
I was thinking about his touch to avoid looking in his eyes. But I never could resist him. I lifted my gaze to his. “What?”
“You know that, don’t you? That you’re perfect? Tell me you know that.”
I took out the needle and quickly pressed down with a cotton ball on the injection site. I grabbed some medical tape to hold it in place. “Leave that on for, like, half an hour,” I said. Still ignoring his statement.
Because I didn’t know it. I’d spent the last four years thinking that physically I wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted to date. That he wanted someone smaller and skinnier and . . . perfect-er.
But he was saying that I was perfect.
I did not know what to do with that.
A subject change was in order. “So how are you doing? Today? How is school?” I didn’t say it was a smooth transition.
He frowned slightly. “I got back a test that I thought I’d done well on but ended up with a C minus. I haven’t been this disappointed since my mom told me she’d be right back.”
My heart caught at the underlying pain in his joke. I rested my hands on his shoulders, wanting to tug him closer, but resisting because I didn’t know how he’d react.
His other hand found its way to my waist, too. “So was injecting me the only nursely skill you needed to practice? What about CPR?”
Was I moving closer, or was he pulling me? I couldn’t tell. Also, performing CPR on him should not feel so much like a fantasy in my head. “I’m, uh, all good on CPR.”
He nodded slowly. “What about a sponge bath? I’ll definitely volunteer for that.”
Okay, my imagination on that one wasn’t my fault. My hands started to slip down his shoulders, and to my surprise he had that look in his eyes from high school, the intense, hungry one that said I was about to be thoroughly kissed. My heartbeat pounded hard as goose bumps covered my forearms.
“Thank you for letting me stick you,” I said, my mouth just above his. I only had to lean down, and we’d be kissing. I didn’t even care how pathetic that made me, to be wanting him so badly that I was willing to forsake everything else. I had no poker face. Nothing. If he cared to look, everything I was feeling had to be written on my face. The good ship I’m Immune to You and Your Hotness had set sail about two minutes ago, and there was no evidence it would be returning.
“You’re welcome.” His fingers tightened against me, his green eyes turning a smoky gray-green, and the whole world went hazy.
This all felt completely unreal. Like I’d somehow willed this very moment into being, and he didn’t really have a say in the whole thing.
Why was I resisting this so hard?
I was totally going to kiss Bash and make a fool of myself, but I. Did. Not. Care.
There was a knock at the door, and then Lauren, of all people, walked in.
“Lauren?” I asked, not sure my brain wasn’t trying to trick me into stopping by conjuring up an image of her.
“Well, well, well . . . how fortuitous to find Bash here,” she said with a wink, coming over to join us in the kitchen. I pulled my hands from his shoulders, and his hands dropped from my waist. I took several steps back, not able to comprehend what had almost happened or why my sister was in my apartment. “With an elastic rope and needles,” she continued. “What kind of weird stuff are you guys into?”
“I was . . . um.” I had to clear my throat. I wished I could fan myself or put my head in the freezer. “I was sticking him.”
Lauren’s eyes lit up in delight. “Really? How felicific.”
“I was giving him an injection, Miss SAT Prep.”
“Interesting. Did you earn a lollipop?”
“Not yet,” Bash murmured the words in a deep voice that made my stomach tighten in response.
“What are you doing here?” I asked my sister.
She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and then spotted my clothing on the counter. “Why is your laundry out here?”
“I brought it back to her,” Bash volunteered. He didn’t seem shaken or undone at all. Just his normal self. “It was mixed in with my things.”
“Oh, I’m the one who finished up your laundry,” she said, the very picture of innocence. Which made me instantly suspicious. “I must have done that on accident.”
Ha. On accident? That was the biggest on purpose I’d ever seen. I hadn’t put away all of my clean laundry yet, but now I assumed that I was going to find some of Bash’s things in there.
I wished Lauren and I were alone so that I could interrogate her. Because what had been her end goal here? Did she think he’d see my bra, and that would be it? He’d fall in love with me instantly? Maybe that might have worked on a boy her own age, but not so much on a guy like Bash.
“What are you doing here?” I asked again. I would get my answer this time.
“I’m here to kidnap you and Bash, so as I mentioned earlier, it’s great that you’re together. Less time. Come on, Doug, Marley, and Mom are waiting out in the car for you guys.”
I was so confused. “For what?”
“It’s a surprise. Something for Mom’s survivor list. Come on, kids, we don’t have all day. Let’s go.”
I didn’t know if Doug had the car’s heater on, and I wouldn’t want my mom to wait out in the cold because I was arguing with my sister. So I grabbed my cell phone and coat and followed after Lauren, with Bash bringing up the rear.
They had come in their SUV. Lauren climbed into the back seat next to Marley, which left me and Bash to share the middle row. We greeted everyone, and I asked what was going on, but my mother just smiled enigmatically at me. “Didn’t Lauren tell you that it’s a surprise? You’ll have to wait and see. And we’re all going to do it together!”
She reached behind her, taking my hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. It means the world to me.”
“Of course, Mom. You know I’m always here for you.”
Mom faced front again as Doug started driving. She turned on some oldies station that she and Doug liked. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’d almost kissed Bash and now I was off on some adventure with our joint families.
My cheeks flushed as I considered what would have happened if I had kissed him. Lauren would have walked in on us. She would have told everyone. How would they have reacted?
I knew it wouldn’t have been good.
But I still wished I’d kissed him. Even if it was only one more time before he stopped me to gently tell me that we were just friends now, and he didn’t feel that way about me. I wondered what he was thinking now. If he realized what had almost happened and how he felt about the possibility of that situation.
Lauren leaned all the way forward to stick her head in between us. “Hey, Ember, do you remember when Mom first got sick and you drove me to play practice every day? We were doing Thumbelina, and I was the lead, and I didn’t want to have to drop out. And you had volleyball, and you would come home every night and clean the house and make us dinner so that Doug could take care of Mom?”
“I remember.” What was with her?
I figured it out when she turned toward Bash. “You weren’t there so you didn’t see it, but she is such a caring person. So devoted to her family and friends.”
“Yep, I know that about her. If you call her and need her help, she will always show up.” That you’re-going-to-get-kissed look was still in his eyes. “I remember, too.”
I caught my breath at his words, but Lauren pressed on. “Even now, she’s always checking up on my mom. Because she’s so caring.”
“She’s also smart and good at everything she tries,” Bash added in. “And she’s funny. She always makes me laugh, and I love to laugh.”
What was this? It felt like I was on some kind of reverse game show where instead of having me perform some embarrassing task, the other contestants were just going to say really nice stuff about me. Some song came on the radio that apparently Bash didn’t like. He grimaced and then grabbed his earbuds from his coat pocket. Once he had them in, I turned around to hiss at my sister, “Stop it, right now. Whatever you’re doing. Stop.”
“What? Is it my fault if he’s already in love with you and knows how amazing you are? I am so married to the idea of you two getting together that I’ve already picked out our china patterns. Also, I can’t decide on Embash or Bember for your couple name.”
“How about neither one?”
“Negative. Your ship must have a name. And don’t tell me there’s nothing going on, because I saw you two when I walked in. There was some serious smoochage about to happen. You are catching feelings. And considering that you’re an athlete, that should be easy for you.”
“I’m not catching anything! Besides, my job is not to catch but to smack that ball back over the net.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said in a singsong voice. She leaned all the way back, making it so that I could no longer quietly talk to her. I mad whispered her name, but she started talking to Marley and ignored me.
I had a good twenty minutes to sit and freak out over what was going on, what Lauren was trying to accomplish, and how impossible my entire situation seemed.
“We’re here!” my mom called out just as Bash took out his earbuds.
“Where?” I asked. We were in an almost empty parking lot near a couple of flat warehouse buildings. It looked like the kind of place where the government would perform alien autopsies.
Cue another big smile from my mom. “It’s my surprise. We’re all going to jump out of an airplane!”