After Hours (InterMix)(23)
“And Audra, barking corrections,” Kelly added.
“Yeah. That’d be a mood killer.” Oh f*ck, why had I said that? His resulting smile was as dangerous as ever, a shot of pure, liquid stupid plunged straight into my bloodstream.
He answered my flirtation with another assessing look. It wasn’t terribly professional, but I was grateful for that. I’d spent my first two shifts feeling like a newbie, a jailer, a waitress, and a wuss. Felt good to feel like a plain old woman, something enticing enough to bring a little heat to Kelly’s cool gaze. The wine suddenly tasted very expensive, and I decided it was everyone else’s loss, not taking the opportunity to dress up a bit, not my folly.
A small group of people came by and we made room for them to get drinks. I wandered toward the middle of the party with Kelly, praying no one could see the comical lust lines vibrating from my body toward his.
He’d worked at Larkhaven for years so he knew everyone, and as long as I stuck by him, I was never at a loss for conversation. It seemed perhaps he did shed that cold façade alongside his gray uniform, and tonight he was as warm as I’d yet seen him. He introduced me and goaded our colleagues into recounting old war stories—funny ones, not scary ones. I was even invited to join Larkhaven’s softball team, though judging by the way my coworkers put away the boxed wine, recreational drinking was the institution’s official sport.
After an hour’s mingling I felt relaxed, even a little charming. I also felt dangerously attracted to the man on my left. But I wouldn’t ever act on it, so what was the harm? It’d been more than a year since I’d made out with a guy or had a date or even a crush, and I’d forgotten how fun infatuation was. Like being continuously buzzed on champagne. You just have to know when you’ve had enough.
By ten I was yawning uncontrollably, and as nice as it was to feel cheerful for the first time since arriving here, it couldn’t top the promise of bed. I got to sleep in a bit the next morning before restraints, and I could use all catch-up rest I had coming to me.
“You want a refill?” Kelly asked me, nodding at my empty cup.
“No, I better get to bed. It’s been a long couple days.” Walk me up, I wanted to say. Walk me to my door, and give me a look that said he wanted to kiss me, but not actually do it. Send me to bed with no thoughts of attacks or paperwork or antipsychotic dosages.
But he didn’t. He drained his own cup and took mine, tossing both in a nearby garbage can. “You’re taking all the glamour away.” He said it like I ought to feel guilty, and gave me a final assessing glance.
“You’ll cope.” I smiled wearily and offered a wave before heading for the stairs. I wanted so badly to turn, to see if he was watching me go. But if he wasn’t, I’d be disappointed. And if he was, he’d know I cared.
Upstairs, I changed into pajama pants and a tee shirt and checked a voicemail from my sister—no crisis brewing thank God, just “Happy Birthday” sung into the phone, with Jack shrieking gleefully in the background. I hung up, smiling.
A knock at my door interrupted my search for a washcloth. Nervous, I peered through the peephole.
Kelly, of all people.
Every ounce of my hard-earned self-possession vanished in a breath.
I swung the door in. “Um, hello.”
He took up the entire threshold, and he was holding a vase of white lilies.
Fucking hell, he was here to woo me. And I would go so, so easily.
I wished I hadn’t just gone from heels and a dress to bare feet and an oversized Red Wings tee shirt.
“Happy birthday.” He held out the flowers and I accepted them.
“How did you know that?”
“Saw it on the roster this morning—the participants list for the restraints course.” His chameleon eyes looked blue again, the pale robin’s egg shade of my walls.
“Oh. Well, thanks.” He was being so uncharacteristically sweet, I offered a dopey smile and admitted, “I wish you’d said something earlier. I was feeling sorry for myself all day, thinking no one knew.”
“That’s a shame. Want me to sing to you?” This was a strange hybrid version of Kelly, a mix of the cool, civil man I passed on the ward, and the more mischievous one who’d proclaimed himself a controlling hothead in the neon intimacy of the bar.
“That’s all right.” I put the flowers on my dresser, disreputable bits of me still clinging to the hope that he was here to seduce me. Getting trounced by a gigantic orderly seemed a great way to kick off my twenty-ninth year. Except for . . . well, he was my coworker, for one. And nearly a stranger, and a bit of a chauvinist. But only a bit, my * pointed out. And he brought me flowers. Valid points.