Page 49 of Kaine

Chapter Twenty-One

HER

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. Just keep walking straight ahead. Don’t turn around. As many times as I repeat it to myself, it’s not until I reach my office that I know I can do it. As soon as I get to my desk, I sink into the chair, throwing my bags onto the desk, bracing my hands on the stacks of papers piled high. They tremble, giving away the shake of my hands.

It had taken everything I had to walk away from Kaine. After a sleepless night of replaying his reaction to me seeing him the shower, I’d decided that the Kaine chapter of my life was over. It was a shock to run into him, but I’d spent the last eight hours telling myself to push him out of my mind. Whatever it was I thought I’d felt last night was just a result of the strangeness of our circumstances. Of course, I was going to harbor strong feelings for him, he’d been there for me in the most critical moment in my life. But that’s all it was. Gratitude borne from trauma. He obviously felt nothing but annoyance when it came to me, so I was going to give him what he wanted. Me, gone.

“Yay! You’re here!” Harriet says, as she steps into the office a few seconds later. She comes over to me and her expression immediately changes.

“Oh, honey. Are you alright? You look like shit,” she tells me, honestly.

“Er, thanks,” is all I can muster as a reply.

I don’t know what has affected me more, trying to avoid the mob, being back in the place I was attacked... or him.

Harriet kneels down in front of me, taking one of my hands in hers. “Hey,” she says, her voice soft, her eyes searching mine, concerned. “No, really, you don’t look so good. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just, I popped a few stitches last night.”

“What?” She jumps up to her feet.

“It’s fiiiine. It happens.”

“No. Something made it happen.”

“I... was, I was just in a bit of a rush to get out of ... there.”

“Superman’s apartment?”

“His name is Kaine and... yes.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not in the business of doing what you want.”

I sigh and she pushes her chair over to mine. She plops herself down and gives me a look that tells me neither of us are going anywhere until I talk.

“Ugh. Fine. Bossy britches.”

“I’m not a bitch!”

“I said, bossy britches!”

“Oh, yeah, okay, that I am. Go ahead.”

“So, he came home.”

She jumps out of her chair and onto her feet again, “What?”

“Yeah, you’re going to want to stop doing that every time I tell you something surprising, because... it’ll be quite the aerobic workout.”

She sits back down again, her eyes still as wide as plates.

“He came home. Late, mind you. My poor pork chops,” I sigh.

“Excuse me?”