Anticipation (10 page)

“Yes,” he said, because he couldn’t get anything else out past the thickness in his throat. He tightened his grip on her, telling her with his body what he couldn’t say with words.

She pulled back from their embrace, but he didn’t step out from between her legs, one of which was missing a pretty vital accessory.

“Where’s your cast gone?”

“They took it off —
and
they took away one of my crutches. Apparently weight-bearing encourages the bone to knit back together.”

He looked at her leg, clad in dark denim, protected only by a flimsy-looking brace. “What stops it from snapping in two again while it’s doing that?”

She grinned. “I have no freaking idea.”

He couldn’t not smile, not when she lit up like that.

“You look good,” he said.

“I feel good. Ribs are better, headaches have gone. And soon this little baby —” she patted her injured leg “— will be in top form and I can have my life back.”

He looked into her eyes, and all he saw was Blue. No shadows, no reservations. The tension in his neck and shoulders relaxed a notch.

“Raf tells me you’re back at work on Monday.” He’d very carefully not asked her when she was returning to Melbourne or work in any of their brief conversations. She’d set the boundaries. He was doing his best to respect them.

“Yep. Tell me — how foul is the microwave in the staff room? I know none of you have cleaned it while I’ve been gone.”

“Pretty bad.”

“You people are disgusting. You’d all die from botulism or something even worse if I wasn’t around to keep you in line. How hard is it to put a bit of cling film over the dish when you’re reheating?”

“You could put a sign in the kitchen.”

The only thing Blue hated more than cooked-on grunge in the microwave was messages exhorting people to do this or do that.

“When hell freezes over.” She took a pull from her beer, her gaze roaming his face. “You need a haircut. This Jesus look you’re going for at the moment isn’t working for you.”

He ran a hand over his hair. “I wasn’t going for a Jesus look. I just haven’t got around to getting my hair cut.”

“I’ll talk to Cal, hook you up.”

“Five minutes, and you’re already organizing me?”

“Someone has to. So, tell me, what else has been happening? Who’s your latest deluded concubine?” She glanced around as though expecting to find someone trailing him.

“I’m concubine-free at the moment.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What, this week?”

“Since Denise.”

She nearly choked on the mouthful of beer she was swallowing. “You’re kidding me. Eduardo Oliveira, don’t tell me you’re been celibate for five whole weeks?”

He relieved her of her beer and took a drink. “It’s all coming back to me now — you’re a pain in the ass.”

“We should contact the
Guinness Book of Records
. Have you seen a doctor? Are parts of you starting to atrophy?”

“You finished yet?”

She grabbed the bottle. “Barely getting started.” She picked up a spoon from the countertop and tapped it against the glass, raising her voice to get the room’s attention. “Listen up, people. We’ve got an emergency on our hands.”

Everyone obediently quietened and turned their way. Eddie rolled his eyes as he waited for whatever outrageousness she was about to perpetrate.

“Don’t freak, but Eddie hasn’t been laid in five weeks. I know, I know, it’s like the apocalypse or something. So if anyone’s got any spare action hanging around, send it his way, okay? Because God knows what will happen if he doesn’t —”

He cut off her final words by laying his hand over her mouth. She laughed, leaning backward to get away from him, and he wrapped his free arm around her so he could control her, pulling her against his chest. She might be small, but she was strong, and she did her best to wriggle away from him as everyone laughed and returned to their own conversations.

“I just remembered why it took me four weeks to miss you,” he said.

She bit his hand, and he snatched it away.

“Bullshit. You missed me like crazy.”

She was delighted with herself, her cheeks flushed.

“You’re a menace to society,” he said, releasing her and stepping away.

“I’m not the one tempting fate by abstaining. You’re upsetting the balance of the universe, you know.”

Maggie appeared at his side, shaking her head. “You two can’t be in the same room for five minutes without causing trouble, can you?”

“He started it,” Blue said, pointing at him.

“Babe, you started it the day you were born,” he said.

“Before this degenerates into a he-said/she-said squabbling match, can I get you a drink, Eddie? Something to eat?” Maggie asked.

“You don’t need to wait on me, I’ll grab myself a beer,” he said.

“While you’re at it.” Blue waggled her empty bottle in the air to indicate she’d like a replacement.

“So much delicacy of manner. So elegant and refined,” he said.

“You wouldn’t know refined if it bit you on the ass.”

Maggie rested a hand on Blue’s knee. “He’s missed you, you know.”

Blue’s gaze flicked to him briefly before returning to Maggie. “I know.”

There was a certain smugness in the way she said it. He made an exasperated noise as he went in search of the beer, but there was no denying the new spring in his step or the relief he felt.

Blue was back, in every sense of the word. Now things could return to normal.

Blue watched Eddie make his way toward the utility room where the drinks fridge lived, supremely conscious of how hard her heart was pounding.

“He really has missed you. I wasn’t just teasing him,” Maggie said beside her.

“He’ll be sick of me again soon enough.”

Maggie’s smile was slightly quizzical, but her gaze slipped over Blue’s shoulder as she focused on something else.

“Oh, Penny came. Yay. I’ll go say hello.” A big smile on her face, Maggie moved off to greet the new arrival.

Blue was glad for the small reprieve. Eddie would return with her beer soon, and she needed to a moment to recover before she resumed Operation Don’t Fuck Things Up.

There was no denying how wonderful it was to hear his voice again and look into his eyes… It fed something in her soul, being near him. It also made her so damned conscious of her own body and where it was in proximity to his.

It made her want to touch him. It made her wet with longing and animal awareness.

The only good thing was that she’d come here tonight expecting to feel those things. Four weeks of quiet self-contemplation had forced her to face the truth — the accident and its aftermath had shifted something big inside her, and she’d resigned herself to the fact that it wasn’t going to shift back in a hurry.

It didn’t change anything. Eddie was still her friend. He was still a huge part of her life. She might want him, she might ache for him in a way that she hadn’t ached for him since the very early days of their relationship, but she still couldn’t have him.

She could handle all of the above, though. That was something else she’d worked out while she was away. Now that she’d finished freaking out over how raw her feelings were, how powerful and visceral and compelling, she had a grip on the situation.

She would get through this. She would endure. She’d survived a lot worse in her life. She would survive this, too, because she wasn’t prepared to pay the price of failure.

Eddie was her rock. She wouldn’t do anything to endanger that. End of story.

Her gaze found Eddie as he emerged from the utility room, two beers in hand. He made his way back to her, exchanging a few comments with other partygoers along the way. She watched him and hoped that the emotions rocketing through her didn’t show on her face even though she felt like friggin’ ET, she was so lit up inside because she would spend the next few hours shooting the shit with him and drinking beer.

“No Peroni left, so I got you a Stella,” he said as he approached her, holding out an ice-slicked bottle.

She took it and twisted the top off and chugged down cold. malty alcohol. Then she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth and launched into her next verbal assault on her best friend.

Two days later, Blue stepped out of a taxi in front of Brothers Ink and paused on the sidewalk to contemplate the building. Situated on a corner, its grand Victorian Gothic facade was painted a deep charcoal grey, and the black and white Brothers Ink logo popped against the dark background.

She had mixed feelings about returning to work. On one hand, it meant she could get back to doing what she loved, what she was good at. On the other, it meant she would see Eddie every day, which was both heaven and hell.

She tucked her single crutch under her arm but barely had a chance to take her first step before the man at the forefront of her mind barreled out the door and down the steps.

“What the fuck? Why are you in a taxi?” Eddie asked, clearly annoyed.

He wore a pair of black chinos and a dark grey Henley, the soft fabric draping beautifully over his flat belly, his too-long hair swept off his forehead.

“Because I can’t drive yet.”

“You should have called. I could have easily swung by your place on the way in.”

“Taxis are easier,” she said.

Eddie’s frown deepened. He waited at her elbow as she mounted the three steps to the door, then held the door for her. Steffi and Hans sent up a little cheer as she entered the brightly lit reception area. The air smelled of glass cleaner, and Blue guessed they’d been wiping the fingerprint smears off the cases that displayed the studio’s range of body jewelry. Backlit images of various tattooed body parts decorated the walls, the colorful artwork dominating the monochrome space in the best possible way.

“Welcome back,” Steffi said, coming forward to kiss her cheek.

“Eddie has given us full instructions,” Hans said, a big smile on his face. “We are officially your bitches until you’re off your crutch. Anything, you need, you let us know, okay?”

He handed her what looked like a kid’s walkie-talkie handset. Blue peered at it a little more closely and realized that’s exactly what it was.

“What’s this for?” she asked blankly.

“So you can call us if you need anything. And I mean anything — glass of water, coffee, see a client out, whatever. Like I said, we’re your bitches,” Hans said.

Blue looked at Eddie. “This is awesome, but I don’t need you guys bending yourselves out of shape for me.”

She tried to hand over the walkie-talkie, but Eddie refused to take it.

“Accept the help like a smart person, Sullivan,” he said.

“We’ve put you in workroom six for the rest of the week,” Steffi explained. “That way you won’t have far to go to the loo and the staff room.”

“Guys, seriously. I don’t need special treatment,” Blue said.

Hans pressed the button on his handset and lifted it to his lips.

“Eddie is the boss. Sorry, sweetie,” he said, the slight delay on the walkie-talkie creating a crackly echo.

Blue looked at Eddie, but he shrugged.

“Someone has to be smart, since you’re determined to be stubborn and stupid,” he said.

“Wow, it’s so nice being back. I’ve missed you guys,” Blue said dryly.

“You want a coffee while you set up for your first client?” Eddie asked.

“I suppose if I say I want a doughnut to go with it, you’ll rush out and get one of those, too?”

“Whatever you want,” he said simply. His gaze held hers, unwavering.

He was being so freaking noble, she couldn’t resist testing him.

“So if I said I had a hankering to own a tropical island…?”

His mouth curled at the corners. “Within reason.”

“What if I wanted you to hop on one leg while rubbing your stomach and patting your head…?”

Eddie studied her for a long beat. Then he lifted one leg and started hopping. It took him a couple of seconds to work out the circling-hand-on-stomach versus patting-hand-on-head thing, but finally he mastered it.

“Hey, kudos to you, man,” Hans said, offering him a high five when Eddie was done. “That is some hard shit to pull off.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows, waiting for her response.

“You’re really going to do this?” she asked.

“I am.”

The expression on his face was so certain, so warm, she had to look away.

“Okay, all right. I know when I’m outnumbered,” she said.

Hans glanced at Steffi. “You were totally right. Good call, man.”

Blue narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What was she right about?”

“She said you’d hate us fussing over you, but that you’d give in in the end,” Hans said.

“What I actually said was that you’d suck it up, because Eddie would make you,” Steffi corrected him. “If you’re going to drop me in it with Blue, make sure you get it right.”

Hans and Eddie laughed. Blue wasn’t sure she liked the implication that Eddie could make her suck something up even if she didn’t want to. It felt a little too close to the bone.