She stood in her apartment, holding a cardboard box full of bills and alarm clocks, watching as Tommy and Lila and her landlord carried her possessions away. Jessalyn panhandled in the street outside, an infant car seat beside her, covered with a blanket. Then, in a flash, Nell was banging on the locked door of her dojang, and all the students and instructors inside ignored her because she had no money to pay for tournaments and training.
Then she woke, shaking and sobbing, to a moment of total disorientation at not being in her own bed — and not alone.
“Hey, now, it’s all right,” murmured a sleepy male voice in the dark. “Bad dream?”
Eamonn. His house, his bed.
She felt the mattress shift as he reached for the bedside lamp, and then it clicked on, with warm golden light that felt momentarily too bright after the darkness. I’m fine, she wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come.
“You want to tell me about it?” he asked.
“No.” She curled over on her side, away from him. And she wasn’t going to say anything more, but she found herself muttering, “They’ve taken everything away from me.”
“Have they?”
He didn’t ask who they were. His question was infuriating. “You wouldn’t understand,” she snarled, and was horrified to hear that her voice sounded close to tears.
“Wouldn’t I?” His quiet words were so laced with bitterness and hurt that she uncurled herself, flopping onto her back to look at him in surprise. He lay on his side, propped up on one elbow, looking down at her as though she hadn’t a clue. “You lost a job you hated.”
“Hate’s a waste of energy,” Nell said, even as she vividly remembered reciting I hate my job in her head and biting her lip to not react to yet another inane rule or requirement.
“Whatever you want to call it, then. You were fired by my ass of an uncle from a job you won’t miss, and you can find something better in a heartbeat.” He paused, as if deciding whether to keep talking. When he did continue, his voice was so low that she almost couldn’t hear the words. “I was kicked out of something I loved, my whole world, and it’s irreplaceable.”
How do I even respond to that? She took a breath. “But you—”
“Yes, I could find another band needing a bassist — or guitarist or keyboards — or start my own. Yes, I could easily get work as a session musician. But it wouldn’t be them; it wouldn’t be Smidge.” He clearly hadn’t meant to say so much, and fell silent.
She didn’t think he’d accept a hug, and she wasn’t the hugging kind anyway, but she laid a hand on his shoulder to offer some kind of comfort, suppressing a surge of sensual awareness at the skin-to-skin reminder that they were both naked under the covers. We have all night. “I bet they miss your talent. You couldn’t be easy to replace.”
He grimaced. “Depends. Maybe they wanted something new. Bass drives the whole sound of the band, deep down, so if you want to make a change…”
“Well, you’re right about one thing; I’m out of a crap job with unethical people. And I didn’t mean to compare that to… I’m just afraid of losing my apartment before I can find something new, and… I don’t know how I’ll pay for my training. But those are small things.”
“You teach martial arts, don’t you? Surely they pay you?”
She snorted. “Most of what I make from that goes to my own training fees and gear and tournaments. It’s not a cheap sport.” Even as she spoke, she realized that what she spent on her classes and competitions each month might seem like pocket change to him. Different worlds. And all at once, she’d had enough of this awkward conversation, half small talk and half deep feelings. She slid out of the bed, deliberately not looking for anything to cover herself. I’m no Barbie doll, but I earned these muscles. And he’s seen all I’ve got, anyway. “Be right back.” She could feel his eyes on her as she crossed the room.
Just as she was closing the door to the bathroom, she heard him say, “Spare toothbrushes are in the bottom right drawer. Help yourself. And there are clean towels in the cabinet.”
Well. She pulled open the bottom right drawer and found a handful of brightly-colored toothbrushes sealed in plastic sleeves, each one saying HAPPY SMILES WITH DR. BETRAN and a phone number, which gave her an inward chuckle of approval. He acts like such a rock star, but he trots off to the dentist for his checkup on the regular. It felt good to be able to clean her teeth properly — much better than rubbing toothpaste on with a fingertip. And because he’d mentioned clean towels, she decided to take a two-minute shower, even though it was the middle of the night.
She’d barely stepped into the hot spray when she heard a knock, and Eamonn called through the door, “You want company in that shower, babe? ’Cause I could use a wash too.”
“Shower sex is always a disaster,” Nell called back, but her body was already responding, eager for his company, sensitized for more than shower water.
“Not if you do it right,” he said, his voice loaded with promise.
“Oh, come in, then.”
Nell woke to an unfamiliar ringtone, then Eamonn’s voice answering his phone.
He lay behind her, big spoon to her little spoon, his warmth and scent enveloping her, one arm snuggled around her waist with his hand resting just under her breasts. And morning wood. Oh, very much so. She blinked, impressed despite herself. If she was counting right, he’d managed three more rounds after the first one, and she’d seen stars at least five times — maybe six, if the last time counted as two rather than one extended bout of ecstasy, peaking
