Chapter 11

She hated herself when she woke up. Her head felt like her forehead had been reattached to the rest of her skull with rusty nails punched in by a toddler. Every vein in her head throbbed out a beat. She was sure it would just blow its top off and that would be that—no more skull, no more brain, and sweet release of the pressure there. The rest of her ached as she tried to move it, joints practically screeching as she moved to sit up. Her throat was sore, scratchy, dry. She needed water. Cold, ice-cold water. That would soothe her throat and end the unrelenting headache boiling up and over, underneath the hair thickness of her skull.

Getting up and moving only made the world spin, however, and nausea took over in her stomach like a whirlpool. She took a glance at her phone to see the time was nearly noon and she had several texts from Erik and a missed call between when she saw him last and this morning—well, afternoon now that the clock ticked five minutes past midday. She rarely slept this long and she felt like she should go back into bed and sleep even longer. But first, she needed a total ice bath, just complete submersion in a tub full of ice cubes and frozen water. She wanted to dunk her head in a freezer to make the throbbing go away.

Since that wasn’t an option, she fumbled for Tylenol in her cabinet instead and poured out water from her Brita filter into a tall glass and threw it back like it was a shot. The water hit her throat like it was the elixir of life itself; she hastily moved to refill the filter and try it all over again. Coffee. She needed coffee. Strong, black coffee. She was out though; she’d been meaning to get coffee this weekend and now she hated herself for being so stupid as to not think to get it before now. She hated past Alessia for her procrastination.

“Fuck. Me,” she hissed to herself, knocking her head against the stainless steel of the fridge and instantly regretting it.

And then, like the universe answered all her prayers, someone knocked at the door. She considered just ignoring it, thinking it was the Steve guy from down the hall who was always experimenting with food creation in his kitchen and constantly asked her for salt. But, for the sake of just seeing if the cosmos felt kind, she walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. There stood Dr. Tekkin, in the same clothes he’d been in last night, holding a tray of coffee in front of him. He looked tired and a little anxious. She could see that he was nervously tapping his foot against the hardwood of the hallway. It seemed like there was a god, a god with a sense of humor. Of course, they would deliver her coffee in the form of him, but she wouldn’t be a chooser when sweet salvation was so close. She opened the door and he looked completely shocked at the turn of events.

“Oh.”

It was not often she got to see him speechless. It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon but she didn’t have time to appreciate it when she could smell the coffee right there, her eyes darting to it.

“Is that for me?”

“Uh, yeah. I thought you might need it,” he said, sticking it out in the no man’s land between them.

She took the entire tray and moved back into her apartment, leaving the door open as invitation for him to follow her in.

“Who did you con to let you into the building?” she asked, taking a deep sip from the first cup she grabbed, not caring that the temperature was just a little too hot to be comfortable against her throat and lips.

She heard him step in behind her and shut the door. “I may have given a coffee to the security guard.”

“Good to know they’re so easily bribed.”

She didn’t care. All that mattered was that coffee sat in her hand right now and she needed to get as much of it as possible into her mouth and down her throat before she exploded.

“These all for me?” she asked, pointing to the other two cups in the tray.

He shrugged. “I figured you could use all the medication you could get.”

He seemed so much younger now, like whatever he effected in class or on campus was gone when he walked into her apartment. It was like some truth veil waited at the threshold of her front door and it stripped away all his masks and false attitudes. He stood there, looking small for the first time since she’d first seen him. His hands were shoved into his pockets and his head was down towards the ground. He seemed tired and nervous, and wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and her.

“So, last night was fun,” she said, wincing as she remembered it in full force. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m just glad you got home safe.”

“Erik wouldn’t have tried anything, you know. He said so himself.”

“Well, I had to be sure.”

She wondered if this would become a habit of his, coming to her rescue, wanting to defend her. She wasn’t a damsel or some naïve maiden, but she always didn’t mind the way he seemed to appear out of every corner to glare at whatever enemies stared her down. She took another sip of her coffee to fill the silence. He watched her sip at it.

“Well, thank you,” she said.

There was more silence, painfully awkward silence. And there was only so much coffee her stomach could take at once before it decided to throw back up the contents. Especially with the way it churned on empty.

“Listen, we’re on all sorts of wrong feet,” he said. “That’s obvious I think.”

“Yes, because you were an asshole.”

She had a certain amount of bravery in speaking with him when it was outside the lecture hall. They were in her arena now and she’d be willing to say what she wanted to, what she needed to. She didn’t care at that point; she already had a pounding headache.

“My opinions still stand,” he said. “But yeah, I could have been nicer about it. I’ll admit.”

“And there was the whole kidnapping.”

“You weren’t kidnapped. You got knocked unconscious and we carried you to safety.”

“It’s interesting how people can remember events so differently.”

He glared. That became a very common look for him, she almost forgot what it looked like when he smiled. If he ever did smile more than once in one day.

“So, in the spirit of the feet being wrong,” he said. “Why don’t we get dinner or something, huh?”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah. I’ll buy, you pick. We could even just get appetizers or something. I would say we could just go for a beer, but I’m sure you don’t even want to think about alcohol after last night.” There it was. The smile, the rare sight for the day. “We’re stuck together the rest of the semester; we might as well try to make the most of it.”

He had a point. Well, he had more than a point. He was right. Nothing would get solved by tiptoeing around each other and avoiding glances. They had to get control of this if they were to make any part of this relationship work and any part of class work. It might have been the throbbing headache that caused her quick acceptance, but she nodded.

“That wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” she sighed.

“Tell me how you really feel.”

He smiled some more. Twice in one day. What a strange week she was having.

#

She didn’t know much about the restaurants in the area so she did an alarming amount of research before she gave Dr. Tekkin her answer. This felt like a power play or, at the very least, she wasn’t about to be ousted in any way. Whatever strange game he was playing, she couldn’t let him win. He already had the upper hand on her in several ways. A date wasn’t something she would let him monopolize—

Date?

He did say he’d pay. But that was also because he was trying to make up for the fact that she’d been the victim of kidnapping by his own political faction. It was an odd sort of situation. But it wasn’t a date… was it? She was never good at figuring things like this out. Apparently, all the banter she’d had with Erik over the past few weeks was tantamount to flirting in his eyes. Was she flirting with Dr. Tekkin? Did he see it that way? He seemed like such a machine, totally incapable of flirting; she hadn’t even considered it to be a possibility.

In a panic, she picked a Mexican restaurant in town; she figured she would need tequila to get through this and Mexican restaurants didn’t exactly scream romantic first date. She went on taco Tuesday with her friends or got a group together to see if she could demolish the nacho plate. It sent a clear message—

Right?

She was going nuts and for absolutely no reason. Dr. Tekkin may not even have thought that way. Though she was certain at this point he had no spouse or girlfriend to speak of, that didn’t mean he actively sought to fill the gap in his life. What’s more, even if he was, it probably wouldn’t be with her. He’d made no secret of how unintelligent, uninspiring, and completely unprepared he considered her in virtually all aspects of life. She didn’t exactly make a good match for a dragon shifter trying to change the world one lecture and underground protest at a time.

“You could wear sweatpants, that’ll send a message,” Trish said. Alessia had her open on Skype to help her pick out clothes the night of the dinner.

“I’m not wearing sweatpants,” she said, rummaging through her tiny closet, each time wishing something new would appear like a kid who continually opened the fridge hoping for a new snack.

“Why? You want to ward this guy off. That’s one surefire way to say ‘absolutely no sex appeal to see here,’” Trish said. “Unless you don’t want to ward him off?”

“It’s not that either,” Alessia snapped, her face going red quickly from neck to ears. “I just don’t want to dip into one extreme too far. I don’t want to dress like some skank hoping to get lucky and I don’t want to dress like I’m going out for a dinner with my best friend or something.”

“So just put on some damn clothes and call it a night,” Trish said. “It’s not that complicated. Dress like you’re going to class or something.”

“I don’t know…”

“You’re absolutely ridiculous and always have been,” Trish huffed. “Your weird desire to constantly exert your power in the form of the clothes you wear has only ever led to us being late for dinner reservations and you know it.”

Alessia narrowed her eyes but went into the closet and told herself she would wear the first thing she pulled out. Turns out it was a red-and-black sundress. Not exactly the casual she was hoping for, but she could turn into something else by throwing a cardigan over it. That certainly sent a no-touching message.

“Just remember the safe word in case he tries to kidnap you… again,” Trish said.

“I’ll be sure to work ‘pickle’ into a text conversation as casually as humanly possible,” Alessia said, giving Trish a small salute.

“Otherwise, text me on the other side. I need details,” Trish said.

“Will do.”

They signed off. She was not alone in the fray. That was the one unfortunate thing, Trish could help her get ready. She could talk her up. They could plan a safe word to keep her from getting abducted in some sneak attack from his group. But she couldn’t go on the date with her. Even when it was just about college boys and not professors with ties to dangerous political entities, Alessia had never been much good at this part. Trish was a natural and she wished desperately she could bring her along. But that’s not the way life and adulthood worked.

So, there she was, staring in the mirror, trying to think of all the interpretations her outfit could encourage, all the ways she could make a run for it if this turned out to be a trap. One thing was for sure, this wouldn’t be a boring night.