Page 26 of Take What Hurts

Elliott’s head shot up, and her eyes widened for a moment before she registered what Mackenzie had said, and then she rolled her eyes, hands holding the hangers dropping to her sides. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

Mackenzie poked her tongue out and crossed her arms across her chest. “So, I have something that I think you’ll wet yourself over, but what do you have for me? Presumably something, given you have drastically exceeded the allotted time. I thought you were good at taking instruction?” Mackenzie looked up through her lashes at Elliott, whose cheeks went faintly pink.

Elliott cleared her throat. “I—I lost track of time.” She dropped her eyes to the frayed, almost threadbare Persian rug covering the tarmac of the road. “Sorry, it happens a lot,” she mumbled.

Mackenzie frowned and peered up at Elliott’s down-turned face, realizing far too late that she’d hit a nerve. The regret boiled up fast and hot, and she placed a hand gently on Elliott’s wrist. “Hey, it’s okay.” She squeezed her wrist, and after a long moment, Elliott dragged her eyes back up to Mackenzie. “I was only messing around. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t make jokes. They’re rarely funny.” Mackenzie gave a small, humorless laugh.

Elliott’s mouth pulled into a soft, sweet smile. “I don’t think that’s true.”

Mackenzie shrugged. “Do you want to show me what you have there?”

And Elliott was back, a big grin replacing the tightness that had plagued her only seconds before. “Okay. Okay—so I could go with what I know you like.” The words rushed out as she held up a Blink-182 T-shirt straight out of the early 2000s, and Mackenzie’s stomached swooped at the fact Elliott had remembered that detail from the grocery store. For a moment, Mackenzie let herself believe that perhaps she wasn’t the only one paying more attention than she should to her opposing counsel. Adopting a serene, studious expression, she listened as the rest of Elliott’s rationale spilled out. “Or, as a recovering emo kid myself, I could guess that My Chemical Romance was also in your CD collection and that this would be high on your list of choices.” Grinning, she lifted the Black Parade tour T-shirt on its hanger and shook it gently, the shirt swaying and threatening to slide off.

Mackenzie hummed, studying the two shirts. “And what have you decided?”

Elliott bit her lip, and Mackenzie tried to ignore the way it made her clench below her waistband. “MCR. Definitely.”

Elliott looked hopefully at Mackenzie, who remained stoic and studious for one more moment before she broke into a laugh, fisting the shirt and pulling it to her chest. “I begged my mom to let me go to their Oakland concert for this tour. It’s my favorite album of theirs.”

Elliott smiled, pulling the shirt off the hanger for her. “I bet it was an amazing concert.”

Mackenzie studied the black-and-white graphic on the shirt, and her smile tightened. “I wasn’t allowed to go.” She shrugged. “But now I have the T-shirt.” She looked up and caught the sad smile clouding Elliott’s dark eyes. “Thank you. Really.” She was breathless with the memory—of arguing with her mother about it, of pleading, of the crushing disappointment. Her chest tightened as she forced the memory away before it took hold and gripped her.

Elliott placed the Blink T-shirt back on the rack. “I’m glad I found that shirt, then.” Seemingly sensing that this wasn’t the moment to ask Mackenzie more about that concert, the corner of her mouth ticked up and she raised a brow. “Can I see what you found for me?”

Mackenzie’s stomach tingled with anticipation as she pulled the bottle green cap out of the oversize pocket of her coat. “I know it’s not a Storm hat⁠—”

“No way!” Elliott gasped, grabbing for it. “My dad had a hat exactly like this, and I stole it all the time, until he lost it skiing one day. One gust of wind, and, poof”—she waved her hand—“it was gone.”

Mackenzie relished the way Elliott’s eyes widened with glee, and she took a tentative step toward her. She held Elliott’s gaze, almost seeking permission as she took the cap gently out of Elliott’s hands. Elliott’s eyes sparkled in the low light of the afternoon, and she took a step of her own until the curve of their chests were not an inch from each other. Mackenzie’s heart rammed against her ribs hard enough to bruise as she reached up and gently brushed Elliott’s curls out of her face. She heard the hitch in Elliott’s breath and, in the cold air between them, saw her exhale mist, which floated across the narrow void and caressed Mackenzie’s forehead.

Mackenzie’s stomach clenched, and heat flooded into the space between her thighs. The noise of the market outside the stall faded to a low buzz in her ears, and vaguely, Mackenzie was aware of the thought looping in her brain. Bad idea. Bad. Bad. Bad idea. She bit the inside of her cheek and pushed on, lifting up onto her tiptoes and gently pulling the Sonics cap down over Elliott’s curls until it sat just above her ears, Elliott’s warm breath fluttering shallowly against Mackenzie’s lips. Mackenzie’s lungs worked to shudder in a burning breath as she watched the slow movement of Elliott’s eyes drifting down and down and down to settle on Mackenzie’s lips. Mackenzie swallowed. “There,” she whispered. “It’s yours.”

Elliott’s pupils were huge and dark and filled with something Mackenzie would not—could not—acknowledge if she wanted to keep the surging tide of want and desire and attraction from spilling over the levy. Her body screamed at her to give in. To luxuriate in Elliott’s company. She wanted to spoil herself with it and take as much of Elliott’s time as she wanted to give her. But she couldn’t, because how would she ever survive discovering more about this person than she already had? How could she survive knowing that perhaps Elliott was struggling with whatever was between them as much as Mackenzie was? Knowing how attentive and sensitive she was? How she liked silly games and appreciated a terrible sense of humor as much as Mackenzie did?

Swallowing hard, Mackenzie accepted that it all needed to remain locked in the box she’d constructed on-site in that damned conference room. She took a deliberate step back and forced her face into a smile. “Thank you for this,” she murmured, lifting the shirt clutched in white-knuckled hands. Gasping in a breath of cold, clarifying air, she managed to get the rest out. “I really should be getting home, though. You know, to get ready for the week.”

Disappointment flashed across Elliott’s features before it was gone, replaced with a dimpled smile. “I suppose I should do that too.” Head tilting toward the counter, Elliott led them there and tapped her card. They spilled out onto the street and into the crowd and stood, facing each other, people moving around them like they were stones in a river. Neither of them took any notice as their eyes found each other once more, before Elliott’s darted away. Mackenzie’s arms ached to wrap themselves around Elliott and just… hold her. Her heart galloped in her chest as she watched Elliott deliberate for a moment, hesitation creasing her face, mouth opening and closing before she lifted her eyes, and Mackenzie found them full of apology. “I guess—” She frowned. “I’ll talk to you when I… talk to you?”

Mackenzie nodded, steeling herself against the ragged disappointment that tore through her. “When I talk to you, then.”

“Right. Okay.” Elliott let out a laugh that was just loud enough to carry to Mackenzie’s ears over the chatter of the people moving around them. “Bye, Mackenzie.”

Mackenzie clutched the T-shirt that nobody, least of all Elliott, should have known to choose for her. It was coincidence. Nothing more. She knew that, logically. But in the deepest recesses of her brain and the most tender place in her heart, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was something bigger than that. She shook her head as she watched Elliott turn and walk away, returning the thought to where it belonged and shoving her hands into her pockets, heading toward her car and home.

FOURTEEN

ELLIOTT

Elliott clutched the gift bag to her chest, running up the short path to the covered porch on the cute salmon pink Craftsman to get out of the teeming rain. She almost laughed out loud because of course Mattias would live in a salmon pink house. She huffed out a breath and, leaning against the white-painted column, inspected the gift for any sign of damage. Satisfied her body and coat had been a successful shield for the bag that held the thirty-year-old bottle of whiskey, she ran a hand through her damp hair and turned her attention to the doorbell.

Soon footsteps thudded on a hardwood floor, the heavyset oak front door opened, and there was Mattias—the “birthday boy,” according to the giant pin-on button affixed to his flamingo-covered Hawaiian shirt. The bubble of warmth that usually accompanied her interactions with Mattias rose in her chest.

A boomer by birth, Mattias had enough sense and empathy for other people to understand that not everybody was the same and that was okay. It helped that he had a gay son; had thrown a very gay, luxurious wedding for said son; had worn a rainbow tuxedo to said wedding; and took his son, his husband, and their twin girls every year to the Seattle Pride festival, where he wore far too much glitter even for the gays and carried the largest LGBTQIA+ flag Seattle Pride had ever seen.

“You made it.” The booming voice was apparently not reserved for the office. Filled with calming “dad vibes,” it eased some of the ache that had been tearing Elliott apart for the past week. Because last Sunday, at the market, she had let her attraction for Mackenzie out from where she kept it hidden deep in her chest. She’d had the soft skin of Mackenzie’s palm in hers. Again. And it fucking hurt to put all of that back in the box.

Add to that the anxiety that was growing like a fucking weed as another week passed without any renewed offer from Anna, and Elliott was halfway to handing in her resignation.