Friends Without Benefits

“Because I knew something was wrong. It was a chance to speak privately. You’re working all night, I have to leave, and I’m going to miss you!”

“You were reckless.”

He stood and walked to me. “Don’t you understand that I can’t stand the fact that I’ve put you in danger? Don’t you know that I’m going crazy, thinking about what you went through? You couldn’t even take a minute to call me? To tell me about it until hours later?”

“I’m not worried about me—”

“Well I’m worried about you!”

“You’re not listening.”

“Fine. Why do you think we’re fighting?”

“Don’t you get it?” I forced myself to lower my voice. “I wasn’t thinking about me, I was thinking about you!” Because I couldn’t both control the volume of my words and keep from hitting him, I hit him. But once I started I couldn’t stop, I backed him into the wall and gripped his arms as I unloaded my fear. “What if she did come back? What if she was there when the elevator opened on the fourth floor? All I could think was that this was it, that your fancy stalker has a gun or a flame thrower or a bomb strapped to her chest and that I was going to lose you. That she was going to—”

“Hey, hey.” He grabbed my wrists, stilled my flailing hands, and tugged me against his chest. “Not going to happen. You’re not going to lose me.”

I pulled out of his grip, my hands still shaking, and moved beyond his reach. “You don’t know that! Especially when you insist on acting irresponsibly and taking stupid chances with your safety.”

“If you’d told me about what happened—”

“This is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to do this, but you kept pushing me, and pressuring me and now you—”

“We rode together in an elevator, alone, one time. Which, I wouldn’t have done if you’d called me and told me what was going on.”

“All it takes is one time. I don’t—” I shook my head, growled a little, stalked away from him and whisper-yelled. “I don’t want to do this!”

A thick silence followed my outburst.

“Do what?” When Nico spoke it made me jump; I could tell his temper reaching critical mass by the sharp edge to his voice.

“I don’t want to worry about you, about losing you, about getting a call from the police one day because you decided to ditch your security team.”

We stared at each other for a long moment. Unlike our previous staring contests which usually ended in lustful eye sex, this one ended with me closing my eyes in frustration; an errant tear escaping and fleeing down my cheek.

I stood in his room, exhausted, wondering why I didn’t just strip na**d and invite him to bed instead of arguing about something that could have waited until morning. The answer came to me swiftly: because you’re terrified.

It was true. I was terrified. I was terrified that he would be hurt or I’d lose him to some nut. Happiness, love, and relationships were impermanent, fleeting. My mother was gone. Garrett was gone. I felt like I was losing Janie in almost every way that mattered.

Therefore, eventually Nico would be gone too. Likely high falutin and experiencing a very satisfying happily ever after with the—suddenly omnipresent in my brain—girl C.

Gah! I was a mess! And I needed more sleep.

The sound of nondescript rustling and zippers pulled me out of my depressing manifesto. I glanced at Nico; his back was to me. He was stuffing a book into the bag on the bed.

The half-packed bag on the bed.

My adrenaline spiked.

I stomped to him, stood at his elbow as he put a folder on top of the book. “What are you doing?” I already knew the answer before he responded.

“My flight leaves at six.”

I stared at him; I knew my eyes were about to full-on leak floods of tears any second. “You’re leaving? Now? But I thought you didn’t have to leave until this afternoon?”

“Now seems like a good time. I think I need to stop pushing you and let you make up your mind on your own.”

I glanced between him and the bag. He walked around me, not making eye contact, and retrieved his laptop from where he’d left it on the chair.

“Nico, you’re not pushing—I mean, you did, but that’s not what this is about.”

“Yes. Me pushing you is exactly what this is about.”

“I feel like you’re purposefully misunderstanding everything that I say.”

“I’m not. I understand you perfectly. You don’t know what you want and I’m trying to give you the space to figure it out. Maybe we need a little distance to figure this out.”

“I don’t want distance.”

“Well, you’re getting it. Whether you want it or not, you’re getting it.”

He sounded so resolute, so stubborn, pushing again, but in the opposite direction. Like he’d made up his mind hours ago and discussion was pointless. I watched his back as he walked from one side of the room to the other.

“Please don’t leave.” My voice sounded so small. I was pleading with him, and I didn’t care.

He paused; he shook his head. “I can’t stay.”

I swiftly moved to his position, forced him to face me and filled his arms. I kissed his chest, his neck, his face. “Stay, with me. Forget I said anything. Just don’t leave.”

“Elizabeth . . .” He groaned, nuzzled his nose against my neck. “I have to go, I have to let you go at some point.”

I pulled away, felt like he’d just sucker punched me in the stomach. “What do you mean, let me go? We haven’t—we just—”

“I have to step back. I’ve been crowding you, pressuring you. I have to know that you and I want the same thing and that you’re not just . . . not just giving in.”

I frowned at him, sadfaced him. I didn’t trust myself to speak without begging even more or saying something spiteful so I said nothing. He searched my eyes, heaved a giant sigh and turned away from me again, pulled completely out of my grasp.

“I’ll be back next week. We can try each other out for a while. See if it works. We’ll take it one day at a time.” He shrugged as he spoke.

Try each other out.

See if it works.

Take it one day at a time.

WHAT THE HELL?

I sat on the bed, willed myself not to cry.

My head was spinning. Everything was happening too fast. One minute we’re tearing each other’s clothes off in an elevator, then bringing up marriage, then he’s leaving me for a week and basically telling me not to contact him.

I kept thinking that he wasn’t being fair. He pushed me into this relationship, and now he was pushing me out of it. He was leaving, and I had absolutely no say in the matter. I didn’t understand how I’d let this happen, how or when I’d given him so much power over me.

I sat silent, still, staring at nothing for a long while, and he packed his small bag. When he finished he crossed to me and held out his hand. I didn’t take it. I couldn’t even look at it.

He sighed. “Listen, I’ll . . . I might be hard to get in touch with this week. We’ll catch up when I get back, okay?”

I couldn’t talk, and if I met his gaze I would burst into tears. Therefore, I didn’t move. After a long moment he reached down and pulled me up by the shoulders, lifted my chin and pressed a devastating kiss on my mouth. He was warm and soft and wet and just delicious. His hands moved down my sides, his thumbs grazed against my br**sts, and my body responded to him, to his petting, without the permission of my mind.

Then he broke the kiss and turned away.

I wanted to scream, throw things, threaten, issue ultimatums. I wanted to shake him and ask him why he suddenly felt it necessary to rip out my heart. Instead I watched him walk out the door.

Walk away from me, from us. Then, like the watering pot that I’d become, I cried.

~*~

The rest of Saturday was a terrible day. I stayed up long enough to administer Angelica’s infusion then I went to sleep. And, yes, I slept in Nico’s bed because it smelled like him, his cologne. I woke up in the afternoon just long enough to administer Angelica’s next dose then went back to bed.

Rose chased me back into Nico’s room and plied me with food. To my utter mystification, she didn’t seem curious about why my eyes were puffy or why Nico had left so early. This lack of needling threw me for a loop, and I ended up blurting out—

“Nico and I had a fight!”

Rose’s mouth hooked to the side. She gazed at me through her black lashes. “L'amore non è bello se non è litigarello[34].”

“Please, Rose, what does that mean?”

“It means, you both have passion for each other, and you have love for each other too. You should expect fights, fights are good for the soul and the body.”

I studied her, nonplussed. “My training tells me stress is bad for the body, how can fights be good for the body?”

“Because after a fight there is always the making up. . .”

My eyes popped out of my head, my jaw fell open, and—despite or because of my heartbreak—I laughed. I laughed with the hysteria that accompanies helplessness. It felt good to laugh because it wasn’t crying.