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She hadn’t had a fall like that in years and she’d hurt more than her pride. She lay flat on her stomach while everyone around her scrambled to their feet. She didn’t think anything was broken, but since even her teeth felt sore that wasn’t yet clear. A hand came down on her back: a medic asking if she was all right. He helped her sit, made her flex all her joints and looked in her eyes to check for concussion.
“Are you hurt, Kitty?”
She rolled her neck and rubbed her hip. She’d be bruised big time by the morning, but she was lucky it was only bruising and no broken bones. “Only my reputation.” She got to her feet and applause broke out. The DJ on the sound deck played her personal theme song, Gin Wigmore’s Black Sheep, cutting in at the chorus. She skated back onto the track to Gin singing about being a bad woman not here to please. She tested her ankles and knees while playing up to the crowd and making a determined effort not to look towards where she thought she saw Ant.
They reassembled for the next jam and she tried to centre her thoughts past the sting still in her hip, a pain in her elbow, and the burning need to know if she’d skittled spectators for the heck of it, or because he really was there. It would wait, she could ask Toni. It would wait, the whistle, winning the next jam and the bout was more important. She glanced to the side not expecting to be able to pick Ant out, but not being able to help herself looking.
There was a sea of faces and torsos sitting in the stands and one man standing, arms folded across his chest, staring her down. He shook his head at her, mouthed something she couldn’t pick that had a sweary look to it, and was enough to tell her the jig was up.
He knew.
The whistle went. She pushed off her toe and started forward, muscles complaining, heart thumping harder now than it had when she’d face-planted the track. When Toni’s hand came out she took it and was whipped forward. There was no time to think about anything but getting through the pack, becoming lead jammer, scoring and winning the bout. She blocked the tide of panic squeezing her lungs and focused on staying on her feet and keeping her head because when Monday rolled around doing both those things in front of Ant was in a whole new league.
When Monday did roll around, it was on squeaky wheels with rusty spokes and a stiff chain. Her body was thoroughly battered, though fortunately only from knee to shoulder, and she could cover all the purple and green patches and the waffle weave grid—the roller girl equivalent of gravel rash—blossoming on her hip, with a pants suit. What she couldn’t disguise so easily was the limp. One knee was so swollen it went on strike. She had to lie on the bed and stick her legs in the air to get her underwear on. But it wouldn’t be the first time she’d arrived in the office with more aches than enthusiasm for sitting for hours behind her desk. Thankfully she felt better than the time she’d bruised her tailbone and had to invent excuses for standing up for a week because sitting was too painful. That was the first time she’d noticed Ant could be a moody bugger. He’d taken it as a slight she’d chosen to stand instead of taking the last seat around a meeting table next to him.
If that could put him in a snit, what would the aftermath of rejecting his kisses and throwing her secret in his face bring out in him? She was going to find out, and sooner than she’d expected. She wasn’t the first person in the office. He was waiting for her. As she walked to her workstation, she tried to slow her gait so her waddle was less noticeable. He was across the room before she had a chance to put her bag down.
“Jesus, Bree, are you all right? Should you be here?” He wore a frown which was probably concern, but could as easily have been irritation. He was hovering like a mother hen and she didn’t know what to do about him.
“I’m fine. It’s just swelling and bruising. It’s nothing. It’s been seen to. You don’t need to worry.”
“You could’ve broken your neck.” He was definitely irritated; she could hear it in the crackling tinfoil quality of his voice.
She shook her head as much to demonstrate her neck still worked as to warn him off. “No. It wasn’t that bad a fall.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“Why did I need to tell you?” Why did she feel like she wanted to? That maybe behind his irritation was a more caring intention.
“Because I was genuinely concerned someone was hurting you and you were hiding it.”
And there he went again, ruining things with his ‘I know better’ routine. “So my word counted for nothing. I told you I was fine.”
“Bree, that’s what people who are being hurt say.” He said that so softly it was almost a caress. “Anyway, I get it now.”
“The bruises?”
“Yeah, and I think I get what happened Friday night.”
“What happened was...” How to tell him what happened was wonderful and terrible and not to be repeated, because he was a player and she was happy being alone, a rival who’d continue to compete with her, and a colleague she was meant to lead. Because despite what he said about understanding equal opportunity, he was still full of resentment and distrust. It was all too horribly complicated, like being soul crushed on the track.
“Wait.” Ant held a hand up and looked over his shoulder towards the main door. The lift let out a bunch of folk and they weren’t alone any more. He said, “Copier room,” and stalked off without checking to see if she’d follow.
She watched him go; attitude and expectation in a charcoal wool suit. He took the cool scent of the sea with him and her body screamed a new set of messages on top of the pain. Stay, go, stop, start, right, wrong. Want. She stood at her desk while colleagues filtered through the room to their workstations, exchanging casual comments about their weekends. She longed to be at ease enough with Ant to laugh about Kitty Caruso, to know he’d keep her secret. If she followed him, there’d be nothing easy about the exchange, but if she didn’t he was a wild card draw, she had no idea what he’d do next.
He’d disappeared inside the copier room before she started across the office. When she cleared the doorway, he shut the door and backed up against it.
“What are you doing?”
It was a small room with just the massive printer come copier and storage for paper and stationery. There wasn’t a lot of room for two people to manoeuvre, but she had no intention of being a prisoner.
“Making sure we have this conversation.”
“Get away from the door. I know how to hurt you if you don’t.”
He didn’t flinch, but judging by the way he settled his shoulders he was considering it. “I reckon you do.”
“I’m serious.”
