“You’re tough.”
Ritchie scoffed and adjusted his glasses. “Yeah.” They walked together as Olivia shopped, taking her time so she’d get home later. After a few minutes Ritchie interrupted her thoughts, asking, “How do you do it?”
She paused as she rifled through a box of ginger. “Do what?”
“Ignore everybody.”
She gave up the hunt and looked at him, surprised. “What?”
He gestured at the openly staring fellow shoppers. They were the only two white people in the crowded market, and though several of the vendors were no longer interested in Olivia’s visits, there were many people who still studied her. She felt her cheeks redden, but he would never know the real reason she had learned to ignore the stares and comments, a full year before she’d ever arrived in China.
“Practice,” she said, with a shrug that belied the sadness in the word.
He seemed to buy it, because it was a few more minutes before he asked, “Why haven’t you been at the gym?”
For lack of anything better to do, Olivia kept a pretty regular routine, turning up around seven o’clock in the evening on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, then one afternoon on the weekend. She felt bad lying to Ritchie twice in a row, but wasn’t about to tell him she’d come on to Jarek and been soundly rejected. She made up a story about feeling a cold coming on, citing it as one of the hazards of working in a school, and he didn’t question her. “Do you want to come over for dinner?” she asked as penance. “I’m not much of a cook, but…”
“Sure,” Ritchie said quickly. “I could use a change of scenery.” They’d hung out infrequently since meeting in February; Olivia thought he was nervous around women and, being of the female persuasion, she probably set him on edge. He was good looking, if a bit on the small side, jittery and anxious in a way that made her want to reassure him the way she would a younger brother, if she had any siblings.
They stopped at a small stand so Ritchie could buy drinks for dinner, the sun rapidly setting now, turning the sky pink and orange. Olivia waited at the curb, fiddling in her pocket for her keys, and tuned out the noise pollution just as she’d become so attuned to ignoring everything else. Unfortunately this time she ignored the rapid pinging of a bell, the last warning she had before one of the large bicycle wagons used to collect trash crashed into her, sending her sprawling forward onto her hands and knees.
“Olivia!” Ritchie shouted, darting out to help her up, collecting her scattered purchases. “Are you okay?”
In the street they saw the tipped wagon, one of the back wheels spinning to a stop a few feet away. Evidently it had come loose and the worker had lost control, the heavy wooden wagon toppling onto Olivia’s back. If there was any blessing to be found, it was that the thing was empty, so while she might be covered in scrapes and bruises tomorrow, she wasn’t covered in garbage.
“I’m okay.” She winced, waving away the onlookers. The worker gestured and rambled apologetically, and Olivia shot him a smile, assuring him she understood it was an accident. “No problem,” she said in Mandarin, earning a relieved look. “Let’s just go.”
Ritchie carried her bag back to her apartment where she popped a few painkillers and promised him she didn’t need a doctor. She’d had to go to the hospital for a physical as a part of her visa requirement, and wasn’t anxious to return to the cold concrete structure with even colder nurses and doctors muttering things she couldn’t understand. She’d played sports growing up and knew when she was truly hurt and when she just needed rest, ice, and anti-inflammatories.
Even still, he ordered her to sit at the tiny dining room table to wait while he made a surprisingly tasty stir-fry, then kept her company for a couple of hours, asking questions about her job. It wasn’t until long after Ritchie had left and she’d eased carefully into bed that Olivia realized his questions hadn’t bothered her in the least.
It was midafternoon when Jarek entered the gym trailer on Saturday. He shook the rain from his hair and wiped his sneakers on the mat inside the door, nodding at Ritchie, who was doing sit-ups on one of the mats. He didn’t bother with stretching, just got on one of the two empty treadmills, and turned the speed up higher than was comfortable. He’d come in every night this week, and Olivia hadn’t turned up. He still wasn’t sure what he’d say or do if she did show, just that he wanted to see her. He’d turned down women before; some had taken it gracefully, some had been angry, but never before had he walked away from one he’d wanted. And it killed him that he’d walked away because she made him nervous. A kindergarten teacher versus a former interrogator, and he was the one on edge. Fuck.
He increased the speed so he had to focus on running and nothing but, watching his feet slam onto the racing rubber mat, the old machine shaking. Already his shirt was sticky with sweat; it trickled down his temples, plastered his hair to his head. He kept up the brutal pace for thirty minutes, until both the machine and his legs were ready to give up, and finally climbed off. He wiped his face and neck with a towel, cleaned up the treadmill, and joined Ritchie on the mats to stretch.
“Quiet in here lately,” he observed, just for the hell of it.
“Yeah,” Ritchie said. “Dale’s been sick.”
“I noticed.”
“Guess it’s going around.”
Jarek wasn’t really one for small talk, but he went with it anyway. “Yeah? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Plus he said he didn’t really have motivation for coming in right now.” The younger man looked a little perturbed.
“What does that mean?”
“You know,” he said awkwardly, waving vaguely at the machines. “Because Olivia’s not here. Running.”
“Oh yeah,” Jarek replied, as though only just noticing her absence. “Wonder why that is.”
“She’s hurt, probably.”
He looked over sharply. She’d told Ritchie he’d turned her down? He hadn’t known they were that close. “What’d she say happened?”
“She didn’t have to say anything. I saw.”
“You were there?”
“Yeah. We were coming home from the market, and the garbage wagon thing crashed right into her. She said she was fine and refused to see a doctor, but I’m sure she’s got bruises.”
Something that felt an alarming lot like relief and concern coursed through him. “When was this?”
“Couple days ago.”
“You seen her since?”
“I called her. She said she was fine. She went to work. If she can make it up and down four flights of stairs, she must be okay.”
“Yeah. It’s probably nothing.” Except Jarek had seen those wagons; their shoddy wooden walls came up to his shoulders. They weren’t light, and Olivia might be fit, but she wasn’t that strong. And maybe he wanted an excuse to see her.
He talked himself in and out of going until eight o’clock. By then the rain hadn’t let up, he’d finished some dreadful science fiction novel abandoned by one of the other workers, read two pages of a tattered Hardy Boys book he was way too old for, and the only thing on television he understood was the occasional European pop song on MTV Asia.
He should probably call, but he didn’t have her number. And if he was being honest, never in his life had he called a woman for a date. Not that this was a date. He was just being…neighborly.
He didn’t do relationships. He met women in bars, and he didn’t take their phone numbers, since they both knew he wouldn’t be calling. Oh yeah. He was a colossal asshole, he’d heard it a thousand times. And still he stuffed a small first aid kit in his pocket and stopped at that noodle place to point at pictures of two dishes he thought Olivia might like, miming that he needed them to go. And then he bought Sprite and a box of what he believed to be chocolate covered cookies at a second shop, just in case.
A scrawny twenty-something kid was coming out of the building when Jarek approached. He caught the green door before it could latch shut and entered the dark stairwell. The con
crete entrance and stairs were nothing but a patchwork of shadows, sparsely lit by the faint moonlight shining through the random window.
Jarek counted four floors, relieved when he reached the top without breaking his neck. He tried to tell himself this was stupid; if Olivia could make it up and down this treacherous thing she couldn’t possibly be injured. And if she was taking such pains to avoid him—avoiding the only social situation she’d managed to find in this small, strange town—his was probably the last face she’d want to see.
Still, he took a guess at her apartment number, figuring it faced northeast, the direction of his own building, and rang the bell. There was a small barred window next to the door, and though the shades were drawn, he could see a light on inside. After a minute he saw movement, then the shade was pushed aside and Olivia’s right eye came into view.
If he weren’t so fucking uncomfortable, he would have laughed at the surprise, chagrin, irritation, and hesitation that played across her face. But he was too anxious waiting for the sound of the lock on the inner door to turn—and finally, thank Christ, it did—that he just stood there holding his makeshift olive branches, face blank.
The wooden door swung open, leaving them with the outer door, composed of a series of thick metal bars, between them. Olivia wore sweatpants, wool socks, and a threadbare white T-shirt with a high school logo straining across her breasts. Her blond hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and she wore no makeup. She looked him up and down, gaze lingering on his peace offering, then she took a deep breath. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Let me in.” Jarek tilted his head so rain water dripped off the ends of his curly hair.
“What do you want?”
“Ritchie told me about your accident.”
“I’m fine.”
“Just open the door.”
She looked ready to argue, then her eyes flitted back to the bags in his hands and she reached gingerly for the keys on the table inside the door, selecting one and twisting it in the lock. She stepped back as he entered, closing the doors behind him, and he stepped out of his shoes and hung his wet coat on a chair.
“It’s fucking pouring,” he said, for lack of anything better. “Where’s your bathroom?”
The apartment was small, just four rooms leading immediately off the main entrance area, and he could see into three of them from where he stood—bedroom, office, and kitchen—so he went into the fourth, found a hand towel, and dried his face and hair. When he emerged, Olivia was peeking into the bags.
“I brought you dinner, in case you hadn’t eaten.”
“I haven’t.”
“What were you doing?”
“Getting ready to watch a movie.”
“Want to eat first?”
She looked him over strangely. “Sure.”
There were only two chairs at the small table, so she took one and he took the other, peering around the sterile room. White tile floors, white-painted plaster walls, neon tube lights on the ceiling. A few handmade posters with English and Chinese words written on them.
“Do those help?” Jarek asked, nodding at the posters as he twisted the caps off the bottles of Sprite.
Olivia peered into both takeout containers. “As much as knowing the word for ‘nose’ can, I suppose. What is this?”
He leaned forward to study the contents of one container; he had ordered it based on the picture, but couldn’t possibly identify it now. “I’m not sure.”
The second dish was the one they’d had the first night, so Olivia took that and he ate the mystery meal, which wasn’t bad. They barely spoke and she avoided his gaze, though she didn’t look angry. Tired, maybe. But not angry.
When half her food was gone, Olivia polished off the Sprite and pushed her container away. “Do you want this? I’m full.”
He’d finished his own meal. “No. I’m good.”
She stood and took the carton to the narrow fridge that stood in the corner of the room, its only furniture apart from the table. When she closed the door, he was standing behind her. She jumped and clasped a hand to her chest. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he began, “but take off your shirt.”
Her jaw dropped. “I hope you’re kidding.”
He held up the small first aid kit. “Ritchie told me what happened. I can see the marks through the back of your shirt. Let me look at it.”
She looked mutinous. “I’m fine, Jarek. Thanks for dinner, but I don’t need medical treatment.” She said the words disdainfully, just like he’d say them, no matter how much pain he was in. But he’d seen and inflicted enough injuries to know when someone was hiding their discomfort, and she’d been moving like an old woman.
“You’re walking like a senior citizen. Just turn around and lift it over your shoulders, then. That’s more than bruises.”
“They’re just scrapes. I looked in the mirror.”
“You can’t reach them.”
“I don’t need to. They’re not infected. I checked.”
“So let me check. For my peace of mind.”
“Forgive me, Jarek, but I don’t give a fuck about your peace of mind.”
He smiled. “Just let me look. I’ll clean them up for you. Then we can watch your movie.”
“I don’t want your company.”
“Like hell you don’t. I’m bored, too, Olivia. I read a book about blue people colonizing a country populated by fish people, and their battle for oxygen.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
But she was weakening, he could see it. He glanced past her into the bedroom, sparsely furnished with a twin bed covered in a purple comforter, a laptop resting on the pillow. Jarek pushed his luck, loosely gripped one of her shoulders, and steered her into the room until she was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Take your shirt off,” he ordered, unzipping the first aid kit and fishing out the antiseptic and a cotton ball.
Olivia heaved an irritated sigh, then fumbled to lift the shirt halfway up her back. He helped her push it to her shoulders, and she folded her arms across her midsection, keeping her breasts and stomach firmly under wraps. Jarek swallowed a curse at the cuts and bruises that marred her tan skin. She looked like she had a nasty case of road rash.
But he kept his voice mild when he said, “Must have hurt,” and began to carefully wipe her skin with the moistened cotton ball. Her breath hissed in at his touch, and though she had a space heater on and it wasn’t particularly cold in the bedroom, goose bumps sprang up along her spine when he gently daubed the marks on her rib cage, stopping when he reached her plain cotton bra.
“Let that dry,” he said, putting a hand on the shirt to stop her from rolling it back down. “I’ll put some scar cream on for you.”
“It’s not going to scar.”
He knew that, too, but he felt bad. He’d hurt her feelings and then she’d actually gotten hurt, and holed up all alone in this sterile apartment like a wounded animal. “Just let me. I brought cookies.”
“What kind?”
“Fuck if I know. They looked good.”
She laughed weakly. “Do you have a sweet tooth?”
He inhaled and smelled apples. “Yeah.”
A few minutes later he’d covered the worst of the scrapes with cream and helped lower her shirt. He left her long enough to fetch the cookies and put the first aid kit in his coat pocket, then returned to the bedroom to frown at the bed.
“Who sleeps in a twin?” he asked rhetorically. The bed was tucked in the corner of the room, with the wall on one side and a tiny nightstand on the other. Olivia had shifted to the corner and the laptop rested on her knees. There was just enough room for him to sit beside her, and he waited for her nod of consent before joining her, his left side pressed up flush against her right.
“I hope you like awesome movies.”
“What’d you pick?”
“Love, Actually.”
“What’s that
supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see. Hugh Grant explains it at the beginning in his voice-over—”
“Hugh Grant? Is this a chick flick?”
“You say ‘chick flick?’”
“Olivia. What is wrong with you?”
“I was going to watch this before you got here. Be quiet or leave.”
“I just—”
“Have you seen it?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, you’re going to love it. Actually.” She smiled, pleased with herself.
He grunted. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Two hours later, he was officially as hard as he’d ever been. He was wearing track pants, and he kept one leg up so he could adjust himself and hide the erection that would send her running for the hills. The movie wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever seen, but it had been fucking difficult to keep his eyes on the screen propped on her lap when beyond that she’d nudged off her socks so he kept getting distracted by her bright pink toenails. Worse still was every time she’d laugh, or sigh, or look at him like, Right? Best movie ever! and he felt the soft swell of her breast shift against his arm.
His senses were in overdrive. He could feel her. See her. Hear her. Smell her. The only thing he hadn’t done was taste her—except he had, for ten whole seconds a week ago, and he remembered it like it was yesterday. Shit shit shit shit shit.
“So,” she said, turning off the movie and closing the laptop, leaving them in the light of the lamp on the nightstand.
He avoided her eyes. “So what?”
“What was your favorite part?”
“What?”
“Your favorite plotline. I know you have one.”
He racked his brain to remember anything but the time he’d glanced down and noticed that her nipples were hard. “Ah…the one with the writer and the maid, I guess.”
“Jarek! I knew you had a heart!” She elbowed him in the ribs and straightened to look at him fully. Even sitting upright she still had to tilt her head to see his face, and he had to lean back to put more than three inches between his lips and that too-big smile.
“Did you take a lot of painkillers today?”
Going the Distance Page 4
