by K B Cinder
As I climbed the staircase, I was genuinely shocked I hadn’t broken any bones on the way down, the concrete steps more than capable of snapping a neck. I had some impressive bruises, but it was a miracle I hadn’t fared worse.
Thankfully, a neighbor found me moments after the fall while I was still in la-la land on the floor. I regained consciousness almost instantly but panicked at all the blood, not the person you want around in a time of crisis.
I had the paramedics call Lee instead of Dad, who I didn’t need rushing down from Vermont over a cut. Knowing him, he’d throw me in the back of his truck and head north. Once things healed a little, I’d let him know, but until then, I swept it under the rug with the rest of my secrets.
I could feel pressure building in my temple, the worry of popping stitches all too prevalent. I didn’t know what I’d do if they ripped. It wasn’t like I could drive myself to the hospital or afford another ambulance ride.
I walked down the hall, more than ready to say fuck it and turn in for the night with acetaminophen, not my preferred ibuprofen, but it was all I could have thanks to my scrambled brain.
“Elena, what the fuck are you doing?” demanded a voice I knew all too well.
I glanced up to see Jason standing at my door, holding a purple-striped leash with Hank in a matching harness attached to the other end.
“HANK!” I launched down the hall towards them, tears of joy replacing the sorrow. I plucked up the pudgy furball and hugged him close, burrowing my face in his back fat. “My baby!”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Jason grumbled.
I popped my eyes open, wanting to slap him, but eternally grateful that he had my boy. “Where did you find him? I’ve been looking everywhere!”
“A few blocks east of here under a bush. I wouldn’t cuddle him too close. He was eating a mouse.”
“Hank! You’re a murderer!” I scolded, shocked that he could even catch a mouse.
“Yeah, we do the prison interview for Forensics tomorrow.”
“Oh, he’s serving life on the inside after this stunt!” And he was. He was going on lockdown. I was never letting him out of my sight again.
“I owe you a thousand apologies,” Jason murmured, reaching out and stroking my cheek. “I ran into Mr. Goatee. We’ll talk after you change.” His fingers were hot against my flesh, a reminder I wandered around in the cold for hours.
He ran into Justin? And he hadn’t mauled him? The rage in his eyes was terrifying when he read the card.
“Talk?” I asked, unlocking the door with a free hand, more than ready to be warm and dry with Hank on my lap.
“Yes, we need to talk.” I cringed at his words, the ominous declaration hanging over my head as I unlocked the door.
We stepped in without another word, connected by the leash attached to the beast in my arms, Jason’s hand never letting go of its handle. I didn’t blame him either. Hank was fast when he smelled freedom. Especially fast for a tank ass.
With the lock set, I put the chunk muffin down, unhooking the leash but leaving the harness on, the straps making him look more like a busted can of biscuits than a cat.
Jason saw me staring and smiled. “Hey, I grabbed it on the way over. They were out of carriers, and I didn’t want to risk another escape. He didn’t exactly come willingly.” He rolled up the sleeves of his jacket, revealing long scratches, two marring his tattoo with red streaks.
“Oh my God!” I breathed, reaching towards him, knowing they had to hurt like hell.
He waved a hand. “Already cleaned and painless. I think his ego hurts more than my arms, but purple is his color.”
“How long have you been waiting?” I asked, watching Hank waddle to the food bowl in the kitchen, famished despite his rodent snack.
“An hour or so,” he replied. “I figured you were ignoring me in here.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I did.”
I patted my pocket, and my heart dropped, my phone not where I expected.
Jason flicked his head towards the counter where it was resting. “Good place for it, huh?”
Crap.
“Go change. I’ll make sure he doesn’t repel off the balcony.”
I left them to head to the bathroom, stripping out of my sopping wet coat and hanging it on the shower nozzle to dry. I gently pulled back the beanie and the bandage on my head, relieved to find the stitches intact. They were wet but not gaping open or bleeding as I feared.
I washed my hands like a madwoman, the memory of grabbing a random heap on the side of the road all too present. What if it had been a dead squirrel or something?
As cold and gross as I felt, I’d figure out how to shower after he left, needing to let the stitches air out. I headed to my room, peeling off articles of clothing the instant my feet touched the carpet. Regardless of the man in the other room, I wasn’t worried about appearances, changing into an oversized sweater and black fleece bottoms, chasing warmth, not beauty.
When I stepped back into the living room, I found Jason tidying the kitchen, the leftover beer bottles and the pizza box gone, the coffee table spotless. “What are you doing?”
He froze mid-wipe on the counter. “Cleaning up?”
“Do you always clean other people’s houses?”
“Only when I’m a giant anxious asshole.”
“Good to know.” I scooped up Hank and flopped on the couch, bundling us together under a blanket. His head popped out of his plush pouch like the chubbiest of all kangaroo joeys.
Jason tossed the paper towel in the trash and headed into the space slowly, sitting on the opposite side of the sofa. “So, as I was saying...”
“Thank you,” I interrupted, offering a watery smile. “For Hank... the harness, the leash, the cleaning...”
Regardless of our spat earlier, I was more than grateful for everything he’d done. God knows what would have happened if he hadn’t found him.
“I am the world’s biggest asshole, and I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I own that. That was one-hundred percent my fault, and I was in the wrong. I should have listened to you instead of jumping to conclusions.”
As hurt as I still was, I couldn’t blame him. If I found a gift from another woman in his suite, it would piss me off, but unfortunately mainly break my heart.
“I ran into Mr. Goatee while I was looking for Hank -”
“Wait...” I cut him off. “You were looking for him while you were still mad at me?”
“Of course, I was.” He looked at me like I was the nut job.
“Anyway, I ran into him outside of Bertie’s while checking the trash. He apologized for sending my girl flowers. He split with his girlfriend and felt bad about what he did to you now that he’s on the shit end of the stick. The baby isn’t his, and she left him for another man. He sent the flowers as a sorry, not a romantic gesture.”
Jesus flippin Pancakes. Talk about karma. As much as a deep dark crevice of me pitied him, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.
“So, as usual, I made an ass of myself and hurt someone I cared about rather than hearing them out,” he explained. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I can’t take back what I said, but believe me, you deserve all the flowers in the world, and you’ll get them. It’ll have to be when I don’t have a raging beast of a cat to tend to, however.”
My heart raced, a nervous jolt of anxiety erupting.
“You deserve to know everything there is to know about me before I ask you something crazy, okay? Just hear me out, and you can ask questions later. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, I promise. Just let me get it out before I run away like I always do.”
I nodded, hugging Hank tight.
“It’s no secret I can’t be intimate. I can fuck, yes, but I can’t do the lovey-dovey cuddles and all that — that is until I met you. It sounds insane, but I feel safe with you. I feel... trusted, whole, complete... You make me a better man.”
He
swallowed, focused on his hands, the steely calm I’d grown used to shattering as they trembled. “But I owe you an explanation. I come from nothing and expected nothing for myself but learned that hard work gave me anything I wanted, including trouble. I made mistakes and spent a lot of time in a deep depression I almost didn’t come back from. If I control things like sex, or people, or workouts, it keeps everything on track. But I don’t want to control this. I want the spontaneous stuff.”
He ran his eyes over me, the blue suddenly not as stormy as I remembered. “I want to give us a chance. Can we do that?”
A million different feelings came bursting forth. Fear. Apprehension. Excitement.
“We can take it slow. I’m okay with that.”
The only sound between us was the rumble of Hank’s purrs, and my heartbeat, the organ ready to burst from my ribcage at the rate it was going.
Everything about it was wrong but so right. The timing was horrendous. The situation was unethical and possibly illegal. Everything was pointing towards disaster. Yet it was painfully perfect.
“Yes,” I replied, a smile cracking through the happy tears. “We can do that.”
Jason
I thought Elena cared about me. I really did.
That was until she threw down a Draw Four card in Uno when my win was imminent.
It was our fifth match in a row, the best out of five winner awarded the privilege of picking dinner and the movie that night. So far, it was two to two and only because the first two matches dealt shit hands. The current round was going in my favor until she whipped out the card that ruined friendships and families.
She was triumphant in her maniacal move, smirking in her black tank top and orange pants, sitting cross-legged across the bed. I swore the woman had an endless supply of pajamas, wearing all the colors of the rainbow in the week and a half I was at her place.
It was so much different from mine, barely over eight-hundred feet. She kept it lively, each room bearing her kooky styling from the polka-dot armchair and yellow couch in the living room to the black and white zigzag area rug beneath her bed. I also discovered her gruesome bathmat, nearly having a stroke when the white rectangle bared bloody footprints when I stepped on it post-shower. Yeah, not the best thing to discover at five in the morning. At least Elena enjoyed my screech, though I swore her to secrecy.
She was healing well and set to return to work in the morning, though I could tell she wasn’t thrilled with the idea, and to be honest, I wasn’t either. It was nice not having to worry about her while I was at the office, knowing she was resting at home instead of stressing up a storm with Marty and Co.
The bastard hadn’t mentioned one word about her, and when asked in passing he shrugged. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know I knew Elena had emailed him with an update. I couldn’t help but wonder what else he was hiding, not that it mattered. I was debating firing him outright before a replacement was found, even if it meant more work on my end.
Outside of the office, life was all about Elena, where I set up shop in her bed, a squeaky queen-sized thing I was more than ready to toss off her balcony. Luckily she didn’t seem to mind my occasional nightmare, waking me if I was thrashing, though I assured her it was all work-related.
In my time there, we played fun games like stuff-me-in-the-closet-because-Lee-showed-up to rush-me-out-to-the-car-because-Lee-is-coming, depending on the day.
It surprised me to fit in the tiny space, a cubby packed with more clothes than anyone needed, and was relieved when the redhead called in advance, so I could flee. My body couldn’t take being wedged in there for long, and alerting her by knocking something down would be way too easy with the paper-thin walls.
I also heard ranting and raving about Monica in my hiding spot, accelerating her termination on my end. The things Lee revealed were insane, from three-hour-long lunches to full-blown temper tantrums that put the one she had in my office to shame.
When I wasn’t hiding, we cuddled and watched too much television. No sex was involved either, and I was okay with it. I refused until her stitches healed, much to her dismay. Thoughts of them opening mid-thrust were more than a boner killer, regardless of how much she wiggled that perfect ass against me in the wee hours of the morning.
“How’s it feel to be out-finessed by a trauma patient?” she taunted, slapping down two Skips and a Draw Two just to rub it in before setting down a red five. “Uno.” She waved her last remaining card jubilantly, grinning ear to ear.
She was hellbent on pizza and a chick flick, and I wouldn’t spend another night up with heartburn without putting up a fight. She still had an iron stomach in her early thirties, but I crossed the darker hump of the decade where antacids and ibuprofen became best friends.
“Not so bad, Keebler,” I admitted. “It softens the blow when she’s cute.”
She grinned wider, looking almost normal despite the deep, jagged tear in her temple, the last bits of stitches holding on for dear life. Usually, the doctor would remove them after three to five days, but someone didn’t listen to doctor’s orders and needed them redone.
I returned fire with a Skip and a Draw Two of my own, finishing the streak with a yellow seven. I might have had more cards than her, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. All her offense did was supply more ammunition for her downfall.
She scowled. “Punk!”
“Just trying to keep up with the patient.”
She picked up two more cards, frowning as she reviewed them. While she kept me guessing in many ways, she had a terrible poker face in Uno. “You’re cruel,” she replied, flopping down a green seven.
“You haven’t seen anything yet!” I laughed, tossing a green two. “Uno!”
Her lips twisted as she studied her hand, and she threw down a Wild. “Blue.”
“You’re extra cute when you’re feisty.” I slapped down my blue six in victory.
“Dammit!” She dropped her hand in defeat, two blue cards fanning down.
She crossed her arms, heaving her breasts higher, the full mounds begging for attention. I averted my attention to Hank; the feline nestled against his owner’s thigh. I only had a few more days until she could be all mine again.
“So, what’s on the menu?” She gathered up cards, still sore with defeat.
“I was thinking winner-winner chicken dinner,” I teased, relieved not to spend another night chewing chalky tablets in agony.
“And that is...” she trailed, lips twisted.
“I stopped at the store, remember?”
I grabbed some staples on the way over, owing her many meals of apology. She hit me with the Uno challenge when I walked in the door, and I couldn’t say no to the smug look on her face. Luckily we hadn’t run too over schedule. Lemon basil chicken with spinach and brown rice wouldn’t take that long to make.
As expected, there was a knock at the door.
Her face dropped, and she scrambled to check her phone for a sign from Lee but came up empty. “I’m going to kill her with all these damn surprise visits!” she snapped, flying to her feet.
“Go check it out and shut Hank and me in here. I’ll dip in the closet.”
She took off, breasts heaving as she bounded towards the door. Christ, it would be a long week.
I stood at the door and waited, knowing damn well what the knock was for.
“Jason Barrett, I’m going to kill you!” she shrieked, clear as day from the entryway.
“Not exactly the thank you I was expecting,” I admitted, popping out of the bedroom as the deliverymen poured in with asters, daisies, roses, and more. They took up every square inch of the place, each new display bigger and brighter than the last.
She looked at me wide-eyed, tears beginning to shine at their corners. “These are all for me?”
“No, they’re for Hank. He and I have started a wonderful relationship.”
She offered a watery smile before launching into my arms. “You didn’t have to do this!” she cried, burro
wing her face in my chest, tears soaking through my shirt.
“I told you that you deserve them all, remember?”
I rubbed her back as the flowers kept coming: violets, zinnias, orchids and all joining the party. She wept in my arms, and I held her there, right where she belonged.
Elena
Recovery was a heck of a lot easier with a good-looking man waiting on you hand and foot. Especially one that rocked your world with a glance.
My apartment was still decked out with flowers, and each variety cat-friendly thanks to Jason’s forethought, and luckily so, since every surface was covered. One by one, they disappeared as time took its toll, but I still had more than enough.
It had been three weeks since the fall, an ugly pink line leaving me a poor man’s boy wizard at a glance. With a shift in my part, I could hide it, though it left me self-conscious, especially when Lee’s kids kept asking if it burned when their mom was near.
I let Dad know about the tumble but left out the part where I cracked my head open. I also announced I was dating someone. He practically cheered at the news, but like the fall, I also left out the goodies, neglecting the bit about him being my boss.
I had been back at work for over a week, and Marty was giving me the cold shoulder. We hadn’t spoken since our dust-up, the product lines still dangling in limbo. I followed up politely via email to no avail.
Worse, in my absence, Monica made a mess of things, deleting dozens of messages from my inbox, sending people after my head upon my return. She did, however, rifle through my desk, leaving folders out of whack across my desk as evidence. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but I had nothing to hide. Well, nothing related to my actual work, anyway.
I spent most of the morning sorting through the weeds, still piecing together what was handled and what wasn’t as problems popped up. I asked her for help, but Monica was more than happy to hit me with a no between personal calls.
As I sent off another apology to a customer, Marty’s door popped open, and he stepped out, a mammoth coffee mug in hand. “Ladies, let’s have a team meeting!” he announced, fluttering over to the cubicle pod, earning a not-so-subtle groan from Lee.
