Chapter 9: Not Alone
The walk home felt colder than anything I’d experienced since my first trip to the construction site. Lena had skipped that one. Lucky her. It had left me (and Donica) to deal with a real Colorado winter, though.
Lena was with me now, but I guess it would be appropriate to say I wasn’t with her.
Physically, I drifted a half dozen steps behind her. She kept glancing over her shoulder and slowing to let me catch up. Then, when I refused to pick up my pace, her impatience took over and she stomped ahead. Since she and Bernie were my main heat sources for the walk, their distance explained why I felt a chill.
Emotionally, I felt further from her than I had since Third Eye forced us both to take a long hard look at our problems and hash them out together. If you’d asked me at the time, I’d have told you that was why I found myself rubbing my arms and regretting the worn patches on my gloves.
Either way, in silence and cold, wrapped up in my thrift store parka and my own thoughts, I followed Lena home.
She opened the door and stepped through. She held it for me.
I accepted it from her, felt a rush of warmth, and shut the door tight to hold it in.
She glanced at me.
I flashed a wan smile.
She looked away and unlimbered Bernie’s harness from her back. She set him on the floor and hunched over him, petting his head. The sound of his steady breaths filled the apartment like the warmth of both their flames.
I walked past and thumbed the power button on my computer.
“You’re still mad at me,” Lena said.
“Lil’ bit.”
“You don’t want to go to the tournament, then?”
I glanced around my monitor.
Lena was still crouching on the floor with her back to me. In fairness, she’d gotten there before I started moving, so I supposed the fact we weren’t looking each other in the eye was my fault.
“It’s not about whether we go or not,” I said. “Although I’ve got plenty of questions about that.”
“Yeah, well,” she said. “You ever think maybe I’ve got answers?”
“If you had time to think of answers in advance, Lena, that doesn’t exactly make things better.”
She hunched forward and wrapped her arms around Bernie. “If you’re not mad because I went off half-cocked, then –”
“I’m mad because you sprang this on me in front of Erin.”
I felt the air in the apartment shift as Lena’s wings beat at it.
I pushed my computer chair away. I padded back across the apartment. I knelt beside her.
She slumped against me.
We stayed there in silence for a few minutes. Not comfortable, exactly, certainly not for me, maybe not for her, either, but companionable.
Wasn’t that good enough?
For tonight? Sure. Even if we dropped the subject here, I wouldn’t just get over it, I’d forget it. One meme, one smile, one kiss, whatever Lena wanted to share with me, it would wipe out the evening’s annoyance.
For a week? For a year?
For a lifetime, if I wanted to be optimistic and assume that was both in the cards, and a longer span of time than the two I’d just named?
No. It was not good enough.
I brushed my hand against Lena’s chin. She rubbed her skin on my fingers and it threatened to make me smile. Instead, gently as I could, I tilted her face to mine. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She flinched. “Would you believe I just got really excited when we started talking about it?”
“I don’t know.” I brushed a curl away from her forehead.
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She looked up at me.
“Am I going to find out,” I asked, “that you didn’t make any plans before dinner?”
She jerked back.
My hand fell away. “You really had the whole thing set up, huh?”
She managed to shrink in on herself even more. “I just didn’t want you to say no.”
I sighed. “You thought it would be better to ask for forgiveness than permission?”
“Was it?”
I didn’t answer.
Her fists balled. Heat flooded over me. “I think we got our wires crossed somewhere.”
I reached out again and touched her shoulder. “How do you figure?”
She twisted out of my grasp and surged to her feet. “I don’t need your permission to go to Florida, Cameron.”
“It’s just an expression, and you know it.” I spread my hands. Then I dropped them to my sides and lowered my eyes. “Sorry.”
Lena deflated. She sank back to the floor and crossed her legs. Bernie made a soft hiss; when I blinked, he was in Lena’s lap, and I knew if I looked through my phone, I’d see him curling around her, resting his neck against hers.
She ran her hand down his back a couple of times. She whispered, “I’m sorry, too.”
I scooted over and craned my neck so I was looking up at her downcast eyes. I smiled.
A matching one wavered on her lips. “What? That’s all you wanted?”
I lowered my voice as far as it would go. “Do not be sorry. Be better.”
She stared at me for just long enough that I wondered if she didn’t get the reference. Then she busted out laughing. She tumbled forward and wrapped her arms around me.
I drew myself up. “What? My Kratos isn’t that bad.”
“It really, really is.” She buried her face against my shoulder and tried, and failed, to stop laughing. “How do you even know that one? We don’t have a PS4.”
“Borrowed it from Miguel’s Steam library when it came out on PC. You?”
“I just watch a lot of YouTube,” she said.
I hugged her. “Must be why you’re so good at it.”
“Why we are, you mean.”
“It’s your channel. I’m just the lovely assistant.”
“Fortunately,” she said, “you’re extremely decorative.”
I grinned. “Seriously, though. Thank you for apologizing.”
“And thank you for having my back at the restaurant, even if I didn’t deserve it,” she said. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. If you really don’t want to go, I... well, I don’t understand, but I’ll deal.”
“I can’t say the tournament particularly appeals to me,” I said. “Apart from watching you, anyway. I’m sure you’ll be magnificent. It’s right there in your handle, after all.”
Lena introduced herself as “The Magnificent Ashbird” in our videos.
Right now, she squeezed my back. “Can’t disappoint our public, can I?”
“You never would,” I said. “The fact is, though, I think you’re right about going. If we can swing it, it’s our best chance to learn more about Third Eye. Maybe make some money, either from you winning or us getting more views. Maybe even find out something about Albie.”
She nodded. “I’m trying not to get my hopes up about that last one.”
“That makes two of us. It wasn’t going to the tournament that bugged me, though. It was that you planned it all out without talking to me.” I shifted. “Okay, and the money, a little bit.”
She looked up. “If I win –”
“And if you don’t?”
“As if that would ever happen.” She ran a finger down Bernie’s back. “It was a good idea, though, what you said about doing commentary. Even if they don’t let us do it officially, we can still put up videos. We can probably even talk to the wiki team about setting up a livestream.”
“Yeah. I expect we can recoup the costs, at worst,” I said. “It’s just a lot to spring on me out of nowhere. Have you checked how much two bus tickets to Tampa would run us?”
She perked up. “You are gonna come with me, then?”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s like we tell people in our videos. Wandering around solo is just asking to get invaded.”
Her eyebrow raised. “That’s the only reason, huh?”
“Why else would I do it?” I asked. “You think I want to spend a bunch of days on a bus with you, leaning our heads together so we can share the only pair of working earbuds we own? You think I want to spend a bunch of nights with the two of us crammed into one twin bed because that’s the only room we can afford in some dive motel in Tampal?”
“I think those are very detailed scenarios,” she said, “for things you totally don’t want to do.”
“What can I say?” I kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m prepared to make a few sacrifices.”
Freckles blossomed on her cheeks.
I kind of expected she would return my kiss.
Instead, she looked down at Bernie. She scratched the back of her neck. “I really should have talked to you about this in advance.”
“I agree, obviously,” I said. “Why do you say that now, though? I was kidding about the twin bed thing. If that’s not giving you enough space, in for a penny, in for a pound, right? We can spring for two beds.”
“What about the earbuds?”
“I’ve literally seen those for a dollar at WalMart. Unless I were to forget to buy another pair...”
“Such a manipulator.” She clicked her tongue. “It’s not that. I liked my plan, but your way of doing this actually sounds really nice.”
“What was yours? I guess we could fly there, but that still leaves the hotel.”
“No, I was going to take a bus. Just. Not all the way to Florida.”
I furrowed my brow. “Where were you going to stop?”
I realized as I asked what her answer would be. Hell. Now that I had context for our conversation this afternoon, she’d practically admitted it.
From anyone else, it would’ve sounded like madness, but from Lena, it made a kind of sense.
Sure enough, she said, “I was only going to take the bus as far as Kansas.”