Anticipation (22 page)

He went in search of Blue. She wasn’t in any of the workrooms, so he doubled back to check the supply room. Sure enough, she was busy selecting inks for her morning job, consulting an elaborate sketch she’d obviously been working to for some time, judging from its dog-eared corners.

She glanced over her shoulder as he entered, a frown creasing her forehead when he pushed the door closed.

“What’s up?” she asked, turning to face him, her expression wary.

“I want to talk,” he said. Suddenly his stomach was churning with nervousness.

This moment felt important.

“About work?” Blue asked.

“About Friday night.”

Her expression became distant. “There’s nothing to talk about. It happened. It was a mistake, but we can’t undo it. End of story.” She shrugged.

“I don’t think it was a mistake,” he said.

Jesus, he felt exposed. Her body language was so closed off, and the way she was looking at him… As though he was attacking her instead of initiating a conversation they had to have.

“That’s because you had a good time and you’re thinking with your dick right now,” Blue said.

“And you didn’t have a good time?”

“You know I did. I just don’t think it’s worth screwing everything up for. You’re my best friend, Eddie. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Why can’t we have both?” he said, taking a step toward her.

“God, Eddie. Why are you making this so hard?” she said, frustration rich in her voice. “You want us to wind up hating each other?”

“I don’t think that could ever happen.”

She gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah, well, you are clearly on some really great drugs right now, because that’s not the way I see it.”

“I think there’s something here, something special. I think we’d be crazy to let it go. Give me one weekend. We’ll go away somewhere, just the two of us. I’ll prove to you how good it could be between us.”

“I don’t want you to prove anything to me. I’m happy with the way things are right now. I’m not fucking up one of the best things in my life for something I can get almost anywhere. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a client.”

She grabbed the tray she’d been filling with inks and other supplies and waited for him to get out of the way, her chin at a belligerent angle.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “What happened between us on Friday night isn’t something you can get anywhere else.”

“It was just sex, Eddie. That’s all. Just sex.”

She forced the issue then, walking forward so he had to step aside or risk her trying to bulldoze her way through. Knowing Blue, that was exactly what she’d do, too. He got out of her way, and she marched past him without so much as the flicker of an eyelid.

He ground his teeth as she left the room, angry with himself for not finding the one good, clear thing to say that would convince her, and angry with Blue for being so damned closed off.

Sure, his track record sucked, but there was no way he’d even consider trying to make something happen between them if he didn’t think he had it in him to make her happy.

He kicked the nearest box, but the small act of violence didn’t make him feel any better, and it certainly didn’t change the situation.

Nothing he could think of right now was going to do that. He wanted something to happen, and Blue didn’t. She couldn’t have been any clearer — which meant he needed to let this go.

Shit.

He hung his head for a moment, absorbing the truth of his own realization. Then he went to find something to distract him from the sick feeling in his gut.

Blue clutched her supplies in a white-knuckle grip to stop her hands from shaking on the way to her workroom. Only when the door was shut did she let her shoulders drop.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

This was so much worse than anything she’d imagined. So much worse.

Give me one weekend. We’ll go away somewhere, just the two of us. I’ll prove to you how good it could be between us
.

Blue felt a lurch of fear as she remembered Eddie’s words and the way he’d looked when he’d said them. So gorgeous, so sincere.The urge to give in, to believe, had been so powerful she’d actually felt her throat tense to say the words. Only the knowledge that that way lay the end of their friendship had stopped her from speaking.

And this was just Day One. She’d spent the weekend hoping that, after a bit of thought, Eddie would come around to her way of thinking vis-à-vis their relationship, although deep inside she’d guessed he’d try again. But she hadn’t imagined he’d come at her with all guns blazing.

The thing was, Friday night
had
been special. She couldn’t blame him for wanting a repeat performance. She couldn’t even blame him for thinking that great sex combined with their friendship might make for a beautiful thing — but she refused to become one of the women who bought a ticket on the Eddie Express and lived to rue the day. Unlike those other women, she
knew
Eddie. She’d seen it all. Only an idiot would voluntarily set herself up for that kind of catastrophic hurt. And Blue was not an idiot. She refused, utterly, to lose a friendship that meant so much to her because of a few hours of madness.

Aware that Steffi or Hans would be buzzing her any second now to let her know her client was here — a regular she’d been working with for a while now, completing a full chest tattoo — she concentrated on setting up her workstation. The familiarity of the routine helped ease the trembling in her hands and steady her racing heart.

She simply had to stick to her guns. Eddie would let it go. He’d have to. She simply had to hold the line long enough for him to be distracted by a pair of long legs. Or something like that.

Somehow she got through the rest of the day, mostly because she avoided any place where Eddie might be. She went out for lunch and didn’t linger in the staff room or reception and by the time it was six o’clock, she was quietly disgusted with her own cowardice but also hugely relieved.

She felt as though she’d run a marathon when she let herself in the door of her apartment, and she stuck a frozen meal in the microwave before helping herself to a beer.

Leaning against the cool metal of the fridge, she allowed herself to imagine a better day tomorrow, one where she didn’t get panicky and aroused every time Eddie entered the same room. One where he decided she was right and let the issue go.

Yeah. That would be pretty awesome. What were the odds of it actually happening, though?

Eddie could be pretty damn determined when he got it in his head that he wanted something. She’d seen him lock on and pursue it till there was no other option but for him to win.

A shiver ran down her spine. He couldn’t be like that about them. She wouldn’t let him, because it would kill her to keep saying no to him — and she was pretty sure it would slowly destroy their friendship, too. How ironic that in acting to save ten years of mutual respect and affection she might wind up at exactly same place anyway.

You can’t afford to think like that
.

She couldn’t, otherwise she would be reduced to being a deer in the car headlights. She’d never been a passive bystander in her own life, and she refused to start now.

Leaving the frozen meal whirring in the microwave, she crossed to the couch and flopped onto the cushions, automatically propping her injured right leg on the coffee table. Her bone might be healed, but it still ached sometimes at the end of the day and she’d discovered that a few minutes’ elevation often seemed to settle it down. Once she was comfortably ensconced, she reached for her laptop. Maybe there was a new movie she could download to distract herself before she could legitimately take herself to bed and call this day done and dusted.

The first thing to flash up on the screen was a notification that Lena had tried to Skype her ten minutes ago. Blue sat up a little straighter. She hadn’t heard from her friend for a couple a weeks, but a virtual face-to-face catch-up would go a long way toward making her feel better.

She checked to see if Lena was still online, and when Blue saw she was, hit the call button.

“Yo, yo, what’s up?” Lena asked as the call connected, the screen filling with her image. She was sitting cross-legged in bed, a pile of pillows behind her, her deep brown eyes huge in her pale face. It took Blue a full second to understand why.

“What the hell have you done to your hair?” she blurted, leaning forward to confirm what she was seeing — which was that Lena was now all but bald, her gorgeous dark hair shorn down to a bare quarter of an inch of peach fuzz on Lena’s skull.

“Thanks, I’m really great. How about you?” Lena said pointedly.

“Tell me you didn’t do that on purpose,” Blue said.

She was the last person to call anyone out for a crazy hairstyle, but Lena’s hair had been gorgeous — long and lustrous with just the right amount of wave. Why on earth would she shear it off for the world’s most utilitarian haircut?

“It’s part of an experiment I’m conducting.”

“On what? Self-mutilation?”

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Lena said defiantly.

It was only when Blue caught the uncertainty in Lena’s eyes that she realized that her friend wasn’t as happy with her dramatic decision as she pretended to be.

“This is about the guy, isn’t it?” Blue asked suddenly, remembering the conversation they’d had at the beach house. It had been in the back of her mind ever since, gnawing away, making her worry about her friend.

Lena frowned. “No.”

She was lying, but Blue didn’t call her on it. Lena was clearly working her way through some mixed-up stuff, something Blue could relate to far too easily.

“When did you do it?” Blue asked instead.

“A couple of weeks ago.”

“You mean it was even shorter than this?”

Lena’s smile was slightly wobbly. “Yep.”

“Isn’t it almost winter over there?”

“Yep.”

“You must be freaking freezing.”

“Let’s just say my timing could have been better, seasonally speaking,” Lena conceded.

“You idiot,” Blue said gently.

Lena blinked rapidly, then lifted a hand to her face and brushed away the few tears trembling on the ends of her eyelashes.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?” Lena said.

Blue thought over her own recent history. “I know that feeling.”

Lena sniffed inelegantly, then passed a hand over her head. “What’s up, anyway? How are things at your end?”

Blue stared at her friend, trying to work out what to do. Lena had always been impulsive and big-hearted. Blue hated the idea that she was struggling through something difficult thousands of miles away from friends and family.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked. “Should I get on a plane and come rescue you?”

Lena smiled, then took a swipe at yet more tears with the back of her hand. “I’m okay. But thanks for the offer. It’s appreciated.”

“I really wish I could hug you right now.”

“Me, too. But seriously, I know I look like I’ve been attacked by a leaf mulcher and I’m sitting here crying like a big baby, but I’m really doing all right. Holding my own, anyway.”

“What did your boss say when you turned up at work like this?” Blue asked.

Lena had told her enough about her boss, a flamboyant, high profile hair stylist and salon owner, to know that that he would definitely have had some kind of reaction.

“He’s making me wear a wig to work until it grows out a bit,” Lena admitted.

“Jesus. What a wanker.”

“Yeah. But it’s not like that’s news, right?” Lena squared her shoulders and smiled into the camera. “Seriously now, tell me about you. How’s the leg? How’s everything else?”

Lena was so determined to soldier on, Blue didn’t have the heart to keep pushing her. Instead, she did her best to be entertaining and amusing, then Lena caught sight of the time and reluctantly decided she should at least try to get a few hours’ sleep before work the next day.

“You are such a freaking night owl. I swear you were a vampire in a former life,” Blue said in admiration.

Lena had always been able to operate on only a few hours’ sleep, which meant she was consistently the last one to quit a party or a good time.

“Anything is possible. Speak soon?” Lena asked.

“Yeah, let’s try to connect before the weekend.” Blue blew a kiss to her friend, then frowned as a thought hit her. “Tell me something — did your experiment work?”

Lena’s smile faded. “No. Not really.”

She looked so haunted for a second that Blue’s chest ached in sympathy. She knew exactly how horrible it felt to feel trapped between a rock and a hard place. Or, more accurately, a rock and a hard man.

“Keep that fuzzy melon warm,” Blue said. “And stay away from the clippers, okay?”

“That’s a promise I won’t have trouble keeping,” Lena said. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The screen went blank as Lena ended the call. Blue sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking about the conversation. Worrying. If Lena and Raf hadn’t broken up, Lena would be safe here in Australia, surrounded by friends. She and Raf might even be married by now.