Page 31 of Breakaway
"I'm not thinking."
"Your shoulders tighten when you're thinking and I can feel it from here." His voice is low and loose and his hand resumes the line it was drawing. "What?"
"I'm thinking about the ceviche from last night."
"You are not thinking about the ceviche from last night."
"Seven-one. Final answer."
"You're giving it a seven-one in bed. After we just had sex." He nudges me with his hand.
"The rating is not influenced by the setting."
"The rating is entirely influenced by the setting. You are compromised."
"You are the most stubborn person I have ever shared a bed with."
"Good. That means the competition was weak." He opens one eye and looks at me and the look has warmth in it that is not about the ceviche. I put my head back on his chest and close my eyes.
Three sharp beats on the door. Wes's hand stops moving on my back. My whole body goes still. I feel his ribs expand under my cheek, one slow breath, and then his arm slides out from behind me and he sits up.
"Yeah," he calls toward the door. "Hang on."
I am already moving. Off the bed, feet on the carpet, underwear from the floor, the bathroom door ten steps away. I pull it shut behind me and stand on the tile in the dark. My feet are bare and the tile is cold and the light is off because I didn't think to turn it on and now the gap under the door would show it if I did.
Through the wall I hear Wes open the door.
"Hey, Mercy. Sorry, man. You have a phone charger? I can't find mine."
Paulson. It's Paulson. His voice is easy and unbothered and he is standing six feet from the bed where I was lying thirty seconds ago.
"Yeah, hold on." Wes's voice is normal. Completely normal. I hear him cross back into the room, the drawer opening, something sliding across the nightstand surface.
"Thanks, brother. I'll get it back to you in the morning."
"No rush."
"You watching anything? Doyle's got the game on in his room if you want to come by."
"I'm good. Early night."
"Smart. See you at breakfast."
"Yeah. 'Night."
The door closes. The lock clicks. Silence.
I stand in the bathroom. My hand is on the edge of the counter and my knuckles are pressing into the marble. I feel the cold slab against my hand. The room is dark and I can't see my own face in the mirror.
The bathroom door opens. Wes stands opposite, lit from behind by the lamp beside the bed.
"Hey," he says. "He's gone."
I walk out.
"Well," I say. "That was close."
I try to make it land like a joke. The way we have laughed about close calls before. The elevator at the facility when the GM came around the corner. The parking garage when Wes's hand was on my back and a car pulled in. We laughed about those because we got away with it, this secret that lived between us in the team and hummed when no one else could hear it.
