by Jolie Day
“Mom, please,” Kara said, stepping forward to help Joel as they attempted to wrestle Elizabeth back in the direction of the door. But she began to struggle, screeching as Joel pressed her arms to her sides and Kara tried to wrap her in the jacket. She kicked when Joel finally just picked her up and began to carry her, bridal-style. She growled as she suddenly sunk her teeth into one of his arms and Joel let out a loud, pained grunt. Kara tried to tear her away, but he waved her off.
“Go get help,” he said. “I’ve got it covered.” Kara looked hesitant to leave him. “Go!” Joel barked and she nodded, scurrying off, holding the skirt of her dress so as not to trip. “Mother, let go,” Joel said in a warning tone. Elizabeth just growled louder and stayed latched on as he attempted to shake her off.
Finally, she seemed to grow bored and let go, her mouth bloody where it had held onto her son’s arm. Blood bloomed underneath the deep blue of his shirt, but Joel ignored it in favor of wrapping his jacket over his mother’s top half, careful to keep any of his appendages away from her mouth, even as she screamed and continued to thrash. Her words had become nonsensical and Avery could tell that Joel was aware of every set of eyes on his back, but he didn’t care. His only focus was on his mother and getting her back to the safety of her apartment.
She wanted nothing more than to step in and help, but she could think of nothing at that moment. All she could do was watch as he struggled to keep hold of her, as big and strong as he was. It wasn’t until several security guards had approached to help that they finally got control of the situation. Two of them relieved Joel of his mother’s top half while the other two grabbed at her feet and carried her, as a group, out of the hall. Kara followed along in worry. Before she exited, she turned back to her brother, but Joel was already waving her off, storming off in the opposite direction.
Avery watched this all unfold in the time it took for the young waiter to return with Elizabeth’s drink on his tray. The room remained silent for several long moments after their departure, before suddenly the DJ’s voice came over the speakers.
“Okay, then!” his voice boomed. “Let’s get this party back on track! Come to the dance floor for the Electric Slide!”
Avery stood there, dumbfounded, wondering what the hell had just happened. How could they possibly…? After what just happened, how could they be so calm? Did this happen often? Had Elizabeth Harper shown up before, at galas and charities, and created such a scene? Did others? Were they so used to these kind of scenes that it could be glossed over so effortlessly by all in attendance? What kind of world had she entered?
She watched as couples returned to the dance floor. She watched as small groups of men and women continued to talk. She watched as the DJ spun his discs and took requests and encouraged all of the guests littering the room to throw their hands up and to dance like there was no tomorrow. She watched as, slowly, Mrs. Harper’s scene seemed to seep out of the room, leaving her confused and desperate for answers.
She wanted to ask around; wanted to ask if this was a common occurrence with Elizabeth Harper. She wanted to know if this was something that Joel and Kara had to deal with on every night they had a night out. If this was a constant worry in the back of their minds. If they had to make “special arrangements” to avoid situations like this. Arrangements that had obviously failed tonight.
She just had so many questions. But first she had to find Joel.
Returning to her table, she grabbed her clutch and smiled politely at the others sitting there, before heading off in the direction she’d seen him go. The doors were towards the back of the room and as soon as she walked through them, Avery came to a hallway, silent except for a few faraway voices and the sound of cars honking.
To the left, she saw the door to the kitchen and a propped open door, labelled ‘Exit’, where one of the waiters was puffing on a cigarette in the adjacent alley. To the right, there were several clearly labelled bathrooms and a staircase at the end of the hall. The sign above it told her that it led to the terrace on the second floor of the hall. Checking the bathroom first, Avery found it unoccupied and deduced that he could have only gone way.
Or, at least, she hoped he hadn’t just snuck out the back and left her to fend for herself.
He wouldn’t do that, a soft voice, which sounded too much like her mother’s, said in the back of her mind. You have to start trusting in him, Avery. Oh god, did she want to.
Avery took a deep breath as she started toward the stairs, unsure of what she would find when she got to the top.
*****
Joel was leaning against the wall overlooking the city when Avery made it to the terrace. She could see his profile and the way the lights illuminated half of his face, glittering against the lenses of his glasses. His lips were pressed in a firm line and his brow was furrowed as he watched the cars below race by, listened to them honk at pedestrians as they crossed and yelled back.
She watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and he took deep, calming breaths. One hand raised to stroke through his hair, mussing it. Avery frowned at him, taking a few silent steps forward, attempting to make no sound.
“I’m not some easily frightened animal, Avery.” Joel’s voice was like a gunshot; sharp and sudden, causing her to stiffen slightly in shock. “I’m not so easily spooked by loud noises.”
“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” she admitted. “After…” she waved her arm, though she doubted he could see the gesture, “all that. Are you—”
“I’m fine,” Joel interrupted. “I’m—I’ve dealt with her before.”
“So this is a usual occurrence for you, then?” Avery asked.
“Every few months, my mother has a lucid moment,” Joel informed her. “It doesn’t last long; never more than a few hours. But she’s always able to sneak away from her nurses. Always gets out of the apartment, convinced that there’s somewhere she just has to be. It usually happens when there’s a party to attend to.” He scoffed. “She always did love parties.”
“Has she…was she always violent?” Avery asked, stepping forward until she was leaning against the wall right next to him.
“Never in my life,” Joel said, his voice firm. “She never even spanked us. Mother was the kind of parent that believed isolation was the worst form of punishment for a child.”
“Isolation?”
“An hour alone in an empty room in our house, with no toys or music or anybody to talk to. Only when we’d done something bad or received a bad grade when she knew we were capable of better work. It was like torture.” He took a deep breath. “But she never raised her hand to us. Not once. Not until…recently.” He motioned to his now-saturated sleeve. Avery gasped and reached for it, pausing just before her fingers brushed over the covered wound.
“May I?” she asked. Joel nodded and held his arm out toward her. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, carefully undoing the button of his shirt and rolling the sleeve up as gently as she could. Joel didn’t show any signs of pain, but she reasoned that he could still be in shock. The pain probably hadn’t hit him as quickly as the fact that it was his mother that had been the cause of it.
Still, Avery’s fingers were swift and didn’t press too hard at the wound. It wasn’t as deep as she’d been expecting, going off the amount of blood that was now surrounding it, but Elizabeth Harper had left behind an almost impressive gash. It would need to be cleaned, Avery decided. And wrapped.
“Do you know where we could find a first aid kit?” she asked Joel.
“The kitchen, probably,” he replied. “But I don’t…I’m fine, Avery. I don’t need—”
“Yes, you do,” she said, firmly. “And you need a new shirt, as well.” She sighed. “Come on.” Taking his hand, she began to tug him back towards the stairs. Joel’s hesitance stopped her in her tracks.
“What about the gala?” he asked. “Should we be skipping out?”
“After that display?” Av
ery scoffed. “I don’t think anybody would blame you, Joel. But, really, it would only take a few minutes. I need to wrap that bite and you…you should probably find a new shirt to wear. We could be back before anybody even realizes we’ve left.”
Joel considered her for a long moment, before nodding. “Okay,” he said. “I trust you. Let’s go.”
There was a stutter in her chest at his words and Avery swallowed thickly, smiling up at him as she wrapped her fingers more tightly around his, tugging him along after her as she continued toward the stairs.
Chapter Fourteen
It wasn’t hard to sneak out through the back. There was nobody but the single, smoking waiter to witness their exit and Joel slipped him a fifty to keep his mouth shut (though Avery doubted he cared enough to say anything, anyway).
At the end of the alley, they hailed a cab and Joel held the back of Avery’s dress to keep it from becoming filthy. “Lila would kill me,” he murmured. Avery debated on whether or not she should tell him where his mother had likely gotten the dress she’d been wearing. As they slid into the backseat of the cab and she caught another glance at the bloody bite mark on his arm, she decided that he already had enough to deal with as it was, so she was silent.
The trip to their apartment building went by much more quickly than their earlier ride to the banquet hall and Avery was thankful. Joel’s hand was warm around hers and, though he tried to hide it, she could see his barely restrained winces out the corner of her eye. He was in pain and she couldn’t say she blamed him.
Joel barely waited for the car to slow down before he was throwing the door open and stepping out onto the curb, tugging Avery out with him. He tossed a few bills at the complaining driver before slamming the door and practically dragging her inside, his eyes flitting all around, as if searching for anybody. At Avery’s questioning glance, he explained: “Paparazzi.”
Avery nodded in understanding as she allowed him to guide her inside, past the enquiring doorman, and into the elevator, where he pressed the button for her floor. Their fingers stayed interlocked all the way up and it was Avery who gently led Joel down the hall to her studio, reaching for her clutch, which had been tucked under her arm this entire time, and pulling out her key. Her hand was out of his for only as long as it took to unlock the door, but then she was grasping at his fingers again as she pushed it open and guided him inside.
Joel had just enough time to kick the door behind them before Avery’s hand was wrapped around him as she pulled him—with impressive strength, he might add—to sit on the couch, instructing him to hold his arm above his head. It wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as it initially had (in fact, it had almost stopped, altogether) but she was insistent about him keeping it elevated, above his heart, while she grabbed the fully stocked First Aid Kit from under her kitchen sink.
Avery had only used it three times in the month and a half since she’d started living there. Twice, she had cut herself while cooking, and had made good use of the Neosporin and small, nude band aids, wrapping them easily around her afflicted fingers, before tossing the kit back in its place. A third time, she’d used the burn ointment to soothe a small scorch on the side of her hand from the time it had brushed against the hot griddle. Other than that, it remained relatively untouched and she easily located some gauze, bandages, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, carrying the haul back to Joel, who still held his arm awkwardly above his head, his eyes roaming the apartment.
“Not one for decorating, huh?” he asked as Avery perched herself on the coffee table in front of him. The studio was more or less as bare as when she’d first arrived. There was only the occasional article of clothing, tossed haphazardly on various surfaces around the room. She hadn’t bothered to buy any kind of personalized furniture.
Avery shrugged, soaking a wad of gauze with the alcohol and carefully dabbing at the bite mark on his arm. Joel let out a low growl of pain. “Sorry,” she murmured, then cleared her throat. “I figured I wouldn’t be here for that long,” she admitted. “So there’s no real need for me to start decorating until I’m in my own place, you know?”
Joel nodded in understanding. “But no photographs?” he asked, shivering as Avery gently wiped the dried blood from around his wound. “Not even of your family?”
“My only family is my father,” Avery told him. “And I only have one photo of him in my wallet.”
“Can I see it?” Avery paused at that, her eyes widening as she looked down at Joel. Her hand was paused hovering above his arm, the gauze clenched in her hand. “Sorry,” Joel said, “was that too—”
“No,” Avery said, shaking her head and focusing her attention on the bite mark. “I just, uh, don’t know why you’d want to see it. It’s just a grainy photograph. It was taken about twenty years ago, when my mother was still…” She trailed off, shaking her head again. Joel could see something shining in her eyes; tears. He’d caused her to cry.
“Hey,” he said, using his good arm to still her by clasping his hand around her wrist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Avery took a deep, shuddering breath. “You didn’t,” she lied. “I just…would rather not do this right now, if you don’t mind. Take off your shirt.”
“What?” He was thrown by the sudden change in subject.
“I don’t want the bandages to get bloody if you take it off later,” Avery explained, pointing to the saturated spot on his sleeve.
“Right,” Joel said, taking a deep breath as he reached for the buttons on his waistcoat. He hissed when the clenching of his forearm muscles sent pain rippling up his arm and Avery reached out, wrapping her fingers around his wrist.
“I’ll do it,” she offered, softly, not meeting his eyes as she reached for the first button. Joel nodded, moving his injured arm out of the way as he watched her fingers fumble for a few moments until he could feel the tight vest loosen around his midsection. Avery parted the material and carefully helped him slip his arms free. She folded the article of clothing and set it aside, then reached back for the buttons on Joel’s shirt, swallowing thickly at the skin she revealed as each one released. She fought to keep her breathing even as her fingers brushed bare skin and then a smattering of hair across his chest that trailed below the belt. Her fingers clenched into fists before she reached down to extract the bottom of his shirt from his suit pants and undid the last button, then reached back up to loosen his tie. She slipped the silk noose up and over his head, setting it aside, before helping him carefully extract his arms from the shirt. She tried to ignore the muscles that clenched and jumped everywhere their skin brushed, but she was quickly becoming short of breath at the sight.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to salvage this,” Avery said, trying to keep her voice even. Besides the blood soaking the expensive fabric, there were also holes where Mrs. Harper’s teeth had torn through. Blood was hard enough to get out of clothing as it was, but to sew up small holes…it wouldn’t even be worth it, really.
“I wasn’t going to try to,” Joel informed her. “I have more like that upstairs, anyway. I’ll just change into one of them.”
Avery couldn’t help but mourn the loss of such a beautiful piece of clothing, though; it perfectly matched the deep, icy blue of Joel’s eyes.
Ignoring her personal feelings about a shirt, she reached for the bandages on the table next to her and unwrapped them, motioning for Joel to hold out his arm. She made quick work of that part, wrapping the white cloth around the wound thrice and tying it tightly to stem the flow, before gently pushing Joel’s arm back toward him.
“If you have bandages in your apartment,” she said, “you should change those in a couple of hours. It’s not deep enough for stitches, thank god, but it’s still bleeding a little bit. Make sure you don’t lose the tie, either.”
Joel nodded, giving her a small smirk. “Thank you, Nurse,” he said, teasingly. Avery snorted and rolled her eyes, looking down at the remaining bandages in
her hand, twisting them nervously between her fingers. When Joel’s large hand covered hers, she jumped slightly and looked up to see him staring meaningfully into her eyes. “Seriously, though,” he said. “Thank you, Avery; for everything.” His voice was deep and genuine and so were his eyes. Avery could see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and then she was staring at his lips, which parted slightly under her heated gaze. When her eyes returned to look into his, she found them flickering down to her mouth, before returning to stare deeply into hers. She felt a flush spread over her entire body.
Before either of them knew what was happening, Avery was straddling Joel’s lap, grinding down as her lips pressed hotly against his, her teeth nipping at his bottom lip as his responded in kind. Joel’s hands traveled the length of her body, stroking heat into her bare spine and making her skin sizzle and sing with every single brush of his fingers. She moaned into his mouth as he buried one of his hands into the cascading auburn curls and tugged, gently, pulling her lips away from his.
For a split second, Avery was paralyzed. What had she just done? How could she possibly repair the damage? He was her…her boss! And she, his assistant. Would he just throw her off of him, yell at her for being unprofessional? Or would he simply walk out, never to speak of this again? She couldn’t imagine which was worse.
The thoughts all flew from her mind the second his lips made contact with the pulse on her neck and then Avery was moaning, her hands flying up to scrape her fingers through his hair, pulling him impossibly close to her, even as her hips continued to move against him. If she were thinking more clearly, she might have been embarrassed by the desperate movements, but her mind was blissfully devoid of any thought other than the ecstasy Joel’s hands and teeth and tongue and everything sent coursing through her bloodstream. She felt simultaneously as if she were suffocating and breathing for the first time in her life. It was exhilarating.
