Page 33 of Come As You Are
Vee paused and shifted slightly so he could see my face. “Do you like him?” he asked.
The question surprised me, and I let go of him to step back, realizing as soon as I did that Vee wasn’t steady enough—nor had I given him warning enough—to stand on his own. I reached for him at the same moment he stumbled, and we crashed together against the wall. Vee grunted as I fell against his chest, and his arms came around me to keep me from knocking theboth of us to the ground. We steadied each other, but then I ended up staring into Vee’s eyes and couldn’t bring myself to move away.
“It was a simple question,” Vee said softly.
His breath was sweet and smelled faintly of cinnamon, and I realized he must have brushed his teeth.
“Not so simple,” I said and willed myself to step out of Vee’s arms, but my body and brain had chosen this moment to go on strike.
“Why?” Vee asked. Again, his soft breath caressed my face as he spoke.
“Because…” I shook my head. All the arguments I’d been making suddenly seemed irrelevant. Except one. “I’m his boss.”
“But if he likes you, and you like him, why wouldn’t that be okay?”
“And what about you?” The words were out before I knew I was saying them, and as much as I might wish to pull the vibrations of their syllables out of the air, what was done was done.
“What about me?” Vee asked, a tease in his voice.
I shook my head again, and this time I did push away from him. “I think it’s time for me to go. Let’s get you back to the couch.”
Vee didn’t say anything until he was sitting again with his foot propped up. I got him the heating pad and asked if there was anything else he needed before I left.
“Olivia, I’m sorry if I was out of line. I was just—”
“The thing you have to realize,” I said, interrupting him. “Is that this is complicated for me for so many reasons. I’m happy for you and Sebastian. You’ve brought something out in him in only a few days that is…beautiful to see, but I’m not…” I let my words trail off unsure what I’d been intending to say. “I’m going to go. I’ll let you know when I’ll be by to take you to the doctor.”
And with that, I got myself out of Sebastian and Vee’s apartment. I should have gone back to the club, but the thought of seeing Sebastian while my mind was in such a tangle made my heart race. I couldn’t do it. Instead, I headed home, crawled into the comfiest clothes I owned and poured myself a glass of wine. Then I sat down on my own couch and stared out my window at the city.
The irony of it didn’t escape me, and I could almost hear Antonio asking me when I was going to stop watching the world from behind glass and get myself out there to live in it.
Sebastian
Up until the momentthe customer put his hands on Vee, I’d thought the expression “seeing red” was just that: an expression. What I learned at that moment was it was a literal state of mind brought on by a surge of possessiveness and need to protect I’d never experienced before. I didn’t remember going over the bar top to get to Vee, but Toby assured me that’s exactly what I’d done.
“Hurdled it like an Olympian,” he said after I returned from putting Vee in Olivia’s car. “Never seen anything like it.” And then he sent me to decompress in the break room for ten minutes because I was still keyed up and completely botched the first three drinks I tried to make.
In the break room, I stared at my phone the whole time wanting to text Vee and find out how he was doing. Only the knowledge that I was being ridiculous, that Vee was in Olivia’svery capable hands, and that there was no way they could have gotten to my place and inside kept me from sending anything.
It took me longer than ten minutes to finally get myself under control, but my reward was a text from Vee letting me know he’d made it home and Olivia was staying with him for a bit. Then I had the distraction of thinking about him and Olivia together and wondering what they were talking about, what they were doing. Vee had said she was ordering supplies, which automatically made my mind go…well,there, even though I knew nothing would happen between the two of them. And that launched me into a whole other spiral because I’d felt the spark between all three of us while we were in Olivia’s office. The same as it had been when we’d comforted Vee before.
All these thoughts kept rabbiting about in my head, which meant my bartending was total shit for the rest of the night. I gave anything complicated to Toby along with a good portion of my tips at the end of the evening to make up for being so out of it. At the end of the evening, I was completely worn out and had never been so grateful to see the house lights come up. Despite how desperate I was to get home, I still closed up the bar and carefully took note of the various liquors that seemed to be the object of our thief’s shopping list.
I finished the inventory and loaded the final glasses into the dishwasher, making sure everything was set up for tomorrow since I’d be off, then made my way to the staff room to collect my jacket and keys. Mal was right behind me, and I braced myself for an unkind comment about Vee or criticism about my performance behind the bar. Instead, Mal asked me to tell Vee he hoped Vee was doing better and would be back at work soon. I told him I would, too shocked to say anything else.
Vee was dozing on the couch when I got home, his foot wrapped in an ACE bandage and elevated on a pillow. I found the remnants of a Chinese dinner in the refrigerator and fellon it gratefully, eating it right out of the containers rather than bothering with a plate. Both plates were in the drainboard, I noticed, which meant that Olivia had probably stayed long enough to order the food and eat with Vee. I wondered what they’d talked about and felt a prick of jealousy that they’d been here without me.
“Bast?” Vee called from the living room.
“Hey,” I said as I exited the kitchen. “I was trying not to wake you.” I sat down as gently as I could on the couch and nodded at his foot. “How does that feel?”
“Not too bad. I’ve had worse. Olivia is going to take me to a doctor to get it checked out.” He shrugged. “At least it doesn’t seem like she’ll let me go if I can’t work.”
“That’s not how Olivia operates.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
Vee looked down at his hands, rubbing at his cuticles, and I got the feeling there was something he wanted to talk about. Truth be told, I was dead tired, and all I could think about was brushing my teeth and crawling into bed. Right on cue, a yawn cracked my jaw, and I knew a conversation about anything other than the most mundane of topics was not going to be possible.
