by Teagan Kade
There are people everywhere, panels of lights beaming down from above. I thought the lighting in the hospital was bright, but this is like the Second Coming.
Abbey helps me down into a chair, people coming from nowhere to pull my hair back, apply makeup. They don’t introduce themselves or particularly acknowledge me. To say it’s overwhelming would be an understatement.
Instinctively, I reach out, relieved when Ethan takes up my hand, holding it tight.
It doesn’t go unnoticed by Abbey, eyes darting to the gesture before aligning themselves with me in the mirror ahead. “I just want you to relax, Sofia. There’s nothing to worry about here. We’re going to get your story out. We’re going to do it right.”
“Thank you,” I reply, unable to match her infinite level of intensity. “Could I perhaps have a glass of water?”
“Of course!” exclaims Abbey, shouting, “Can I get a glass of water over here?” She snaps her fingers in the air. “Now, please.”
Ten seconds later someone wearing a headset slides a glass of water into my hand.
I’ve got two women doing my hair, working around the shaved area, another glancing between my face and the mirror as she applies what seems like a truckload of foundation.
“You’re going to look beautiful,” says Abbey, holding her clipboard to her chest.
I can tell by the way Ethan’s fidgeting he doesn’t exactly feel comfortable either, which is pretty funny for someone who’s used to dealing with emergencies all day.
I let his hand drop when the chair’s taken away and I’m whisked towards the desk in the middle of the floor that every single light in the room seems to be directed at.
Seated, I almost have to squint it’s so bright. I can barely make out Ethan standing there. He’s more shadow than man.
Abbey settles into a chair opposite me, a fake ficus tree between us.
“Live in sixty!” someone shouts.
Abbey checks her clipboard one more time before someone else runs up and takes it away, the same woman who did my makeup returning to dab her brush at the area under my eyes.
“Thirty!” comes another shout.
Abbey smiles over to me. “Are you ready, Sofia?”
“I… think.”
“Great. I just want you to be yourself. That’s all you have to do.”
A tall order when you don’t know who you are.
“And five, four…”
The countdown goes silent, Abbey winks across at me and, suddenly, it’s on.
*
It’s over before I know it, a rapid-fire cascade of questions I did my best to answer, though Abbey seemed to be carrying me the whole way. As I step off the stage I’m not even entirely sure what happened.
Abbey herself is gone, vanished off into the network ether.
An intern arrives to see us out.
Ethan takes my hand. “You did great up there.”
“Did I?” I laugh, eager to get this makeup off. I feel like my face has been caked in whipped cream.
We step into the elevator, the intern reaching in to tap the appropriate floor.
The doors close and we’re alone.
“You did,” says Ethan, “which means the hard part is done. Now we wait.”
“Do you think anyone will call in?” I ask. “Really?”
Ethan considers it. “Between the locket and the details about the clothing you were wearing, I’m pretty sure someone out there is going to recognize you.”
I swallow hard. Do I even want to remember who I am? Maybe I was a nasty person, an evil person? Why would someone go out of their way to shoot me otherwise?
It’s something I’ve considered more than once. I don’t feel like I’m a criminal, could even do anything criminal, but it could be true. Anything’s possible. I could be a closet assassin.
Not a very good one if you ended up under a bridge with a bullet in your head, I consider.
The doors open and we step outside into the foyer, Ethan facing me. “Hungry? I know this great tapas bar across the park. Do you like tapas?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know, but I’d sure like to try it.”
“Come on.”
The park across the road is busy with runners and mother’s groups, schoolkids out on excursion. Umber leaves have been pushed to the sides of the pathway, the trees bare and barren above and the sky even starker.
“Here.”
Ethan takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders, his hands lingering longer than they should. “I can’t have my best patient catching a cold now, can I?”
“Oh, I’m your best patient now, am I?”
“You’re the best kind of patient.”
“What?” I laugh. “A patient with a hole in their head who doesn’t remember who they are?”
His nose does an adorable little twitch. “I don’t know what I’m saying, but I am happy to have you around. I want you to know that.”
“I do. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for all this, for everything you’ve done.”
He stops mid-step, looking at me. His white crew is blinding, but it’s his eyes I’m drawn to. “There’s no need, honestly.” He starts to walk again. “It’s refreshing, actually.”
“What’s that?”
“Being the one kicked out of my bed for once.”
I shove him in the shoulder. I don’t know why I do this exactly only that it feels natural in the moment. In fact, the more time I spend with Ethan the more comfortable I become. “Are you trying to suggest to me I’m not the first woman who’s been in your bed?”
He kind of chokes on that, stopping with a hand on his chest. “Jesus, Sofia. I’m starting to think you’re some kind of comedian? A designer comedian, if there’s such a thing.”
“I’m funny?”
He continues to walk, taking up my hand again. “Not intentionally, but yeah.” He nods to my head. “That gunshot wound’s going to give you plenty of material, trust me. Gives a new meaning to the term ‘airhead’.”
“Are you poking fun at me? Should I be enraged right about now?”
“Oh, you should definitely kick my ass, yes, but first,” he says, pointing to a restaurant across the road called La Taberna de los Sinverguenzas, “we eat.”
“What does it mean?” I ask. “The name?”
I believe it’s ‘The Scoundrels’ Tavern.’
I tilt my nose into the air. “Guess you’ll fit right in then.”
And yeah, maybe I really am a comedian.
The restaurant is like a cave inside, with arched ceilings and stony walls, nooks and booths separated by wood and red leather. It’s cozy, a sort of Spanish sports bar.
I place another piece of sausage into my mouth. “Mmmm.” I try to speak around it while I’m eating. “What did you say this was again?”
Ethan laughs. “Easy there, Chewbacca. It’s chorizo.”
I stab another piece. “It’s fantastico is what it is.”
“I don’t think that’s a real word.”
“And I don’t really give a damn,” I smile back.
Ethan pushes himself back from the table. “Wow, you’re really starting to find yourself, huh? Did you stumble across a bottle of sass this morning or something, watch a rerun of Mean Girls?”
I’m feeling oddly pleased with myself as I eat. “One thing’s for sure,” I tell Ethan, hunting around the table for the next plate, “is that this is a billion times better than hospital food.”
“Wait until I make you my secret apple pie. First bite and you’ll come right in your chair.”
“Come?” I ask, confused. “Come where? Where are we going and what does apple pie have to do with it?”
Ethan’s chuckling quietly to himself. “Sofia, Sofia, Sofia.”
I shovel up something I’m pretty sure the waiter called huevos rotos. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”
Ethan takes up his beer, sipping and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. For a b
rute, he’s surprisingly well mannered. “It’s good to see you like this.”
“Like what?” I mumble, my mouth full of food. Something is telling me I shouldn’t do that, but I’m so hungry I don’t give a darn.
“Lively, sitting over there kicking my ass. You know.”
I don’t, but I’m happy he’s happy.
Ethan looks past me. “Turn around, quick.”
I turn, surprised to see myself on the large TV screen mounted behind the bar. It’s hard to hear, but I don’t really need to given the fact I was the one there.
A few people look up to follow the story, others continuing on with their meal.
It’s so strange seeing myself there, in two dimensions, Abbey smiling.
The interview finishes and the next story follows on, something about a brawl at last night’s ice hockey game with the visiting Seattle Kraken.
“You looked great on there,” Ethan’s saying.
I snap back to him. “That was quick.”
“They don’t mess around,” he says. “I’ve dealt with plenty of reporters and news crews. If they’ve got the scoop on a story, you can be damn sure they’re airing it before the next guy, regardless of the facts.”
“Do you think they got the facts right?” I question.
He nods slowly, placing his beer down. “I do, but like I said, now we just have to be patient and wait.”
We finish our meal and head back across the park. As we do I notice the odd person staring in my direction, others pointing me out.
Ethan seems to have noticed it too. “You’re a celebrity,” he says.
A boy on his bike stops when he sees me, pointing and shouting. “Mom! Mom! It’s the lady from TV!”
She runs back to push him along, smiling quickly in my direction. “Yes, dear. Come on now.”
Ethan’s got his phone out.
Nervous excitement builds. “Anything?”
He scrolls before shaking his head. “Not yet. I’m sorry, but it’s only been an hour.”
I stare down at my feet, disheartened.
“Hey, hey,” Ethan says, jumping in front of me and holding my shoulders, “like I said, give it time.”
I do my best to smile back. “Okay.”
I don’t know why, but for some reason time feels like the one thing I don’t have.
CHAPTER NINE
ETHAN
“Everyone grab some rubbers!” says Coach Carr from the screen.
We’re watching the aforementioned Mean Girls, the first thing I could find on cable that didn’t involve guns or violence or someone’s head being torn off.
Sofia’s beside me watching, though I’m pretty sure her thoughts are far from Lindsay Lohan and her little posse. I think the lack of calls or activity on her story has really hit her hard, the idea that no one in this city, even after the news piece, knows who she is. Even the police, it seems, are at a loss.
I decided a movie would be a good idea to lift the melancholia. Perhaps it is helping, but she’s not giving much away sitting beside me on the sofa, her knees drawn to her chest, the bowl of corn chips going uneaten on the coffee table.
“Do you think I was a mean girl at school, one of the bullies?” she asks.
“No,” I reply, extremely conscious of how close we’re sitting, though the couch isn’t exactly a three-seater. I can feel the heat of her body, the change in fabric where her shirt meets mine, her arm brushing up against me. I half-expect Lindsay to point at me from the screen and announce, ‘Damn, look at the Woody Woodpecker this guy’s packing, girls!’
“I think you might have been popular,” I go on, “but a mean girl? No. I don’t think it’s in you.”
She mulls this over. “I don’t even know what nationality I am.”
I thought she had a European look about her at first, given her dark hair and brows, the high cheekbones, but I can’t be sure, so I reply, “American, I imagine.”
She shoves me with the side of her hip, smiling for the first time in hours.
She turns and kisses the crook of my neck.
If I wanted to put a stop to this, now would be the time, but even as I think it my head is turning sideways, my lips angling to meet hers.
Our mouths fuse. I abandon any idea of letting this go, reaching around to the back of her neck and drawing her into me, into the cloud of desire we’ve suddenly created.
I groan deep as she deepens the kiss, my superheated cock springing to attention. I slip my tongue between her lips and she jerks forward in response.
We’ve reached the point of no return. There will be no going back after this.
Her entire body succumbs to me. She breaks contact to breathe but still without pulling away. I take the opportunity to run my lips across her jawline and over to her ear, lightly tugging at her earlobe with my teeth. It sends a tremor of pleasure through her body.
I continue to explore her neck, licking and nipping, always moving.
She moans as I shift upwards, kissing her again, her mouth molten.
I turn sideways and grab her under the ass, lifting her off the sofa and walking us slowly towards the bedroom, her ankles locked at the small of my back.
The whole time my head’s inundated with information, protests and rebuttals. But it’s all just noise.
I lay her down carefully and can see the passion caught in the amber web of her eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, her back arching off the bed. A lot of women have been in her position, but none have had my heart beating as hard as it is now, none have had me so consumed with sexual hunger.
She reaches for me and I come over her, meeting her mouth, my hand taking the hem of her shirt and sliding it up her stomach.
She stills, but I press on. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“No,” she whispers back, her voice broken with need, “I want to. I’m just nervous.”
“I’ll go slow,” I respond, my words hoarse.
She’s hot below me, a physical heat radiating from her body. I press my lips to hers to quell any doubt, flattening my hand on her stomach. It spans almost her entire abdomen. She moans against my mouth and I hold her there, light pressure against her skin.
But if she was warm before, the moment my fingers find the underside of her bra, she damn near catches fire.
There is a small, alien sound in the back of my throat, my cock straining against my underwear to be released. Desire is coursing through my veins, but I have to keep myself under control, from simply tearing her clothes off and fucking her senseless. I want all of her, everything, now, but I have to be patient—for her sake more than mine.
I let myself fall on her, not enough to crush her, but enough so she can feel my weight. I press soft kisses against her eyelids and am met with a gentle expulsion of air from her lips.
“Are you alright?” I ask. “Do you want me to keep going?”
She nods and reaches up to thread her fingers through my hair.
I push her bra up, her breasts free. My hand slides up until it’s cupping one of the swollen domes completely. God, she’s incredible.
Her nipple is an arrowhead against the center of my palm, a gentle squeeze forcing her head to shift from side to side, her eyes tightly closed.
I love the way her fingers feel against my scalp, the way she seems to be reveling in me.
My cock gives a sharp jerk and the sheer sensations running through me begin to overwhelm my better senses.
Gentle, I remind myself, keeping the beast at bay.
I massage her breasts, cool air fanning the back of my neck. I kiss her again and she wriggles beneath me, wanting more, her hands leaving my hair placed on my jaw. I draw back and stare down at her, needing to see her face.
There’s just enough light coming through the window to make out her features, to see how deeply she wants this.
I rock against her. I want her to know how hard she’s making me, to feel every ridge and bump on my cock before it slides i
nside her.
She can’t look away either, completely captivated.
I hold her breast tighter. Her eyes close again, her head falling to the side as I roll a nipple between my fingers. Her hands had drifted away, clenching at the sheets, but now they reach up to grip my hips.
I drop to kiss her and in that small moment the universe stands still. The taste of her, the feel of her lips… My body stiffens and I know I won’t be able to keep this up much longer.
When she reaches for the button on my jeans, I know she’s ready, but I’m not going to let her go first.
I slide down her body, my lips fastening on a nipple. She arches upwards and cries aloud, her fingers digging into my sides.
I release it and continue south, tugging her jeans and panties off as one, yanking them off her ankles and almost losing my load when I can finally see the rounded lips of her sex compressed together between her thighs.
I have my shirt off in seconds, a button pinging away in my haste, my jeans suddenly feeling like they are made of molasses as I struggle out of them to drag Sofia to the edge of the bed and settle between her legs.
I run my hands across the top of her legs, fanning them out over her center before I find the welcome mounds of her breasts once more swollen and heavy.
“Ethan,” she whimpers, and I think for a moment I’ve gone too far.
“Yes.”
Her legs spread wider. “Kiss me.”
I smile, trailing a series of kisses up the soft skin of her inner thighs, conscious of the growing heat coming from her core, the wet arousal gathering there.
I smooth my hands over her pubis, surprised to find a light stubble there. I draw in a breath when I reach her sex, joining two fingers together and dipping them into her silky center.
She’s beyond wet. My fingers squelch inside her. I draw them out and run them into my mouth, desperate to taste her and not disappointed when I do.
“You taste so fucking good,” I groan, sliding them back inside her opening, her moaning and mewing filling the faded light.
I pump my fingers in and out, stretching and preparing her for me, but it’s when I remove my fingers and replace them with my mouth that she snaps forward to meet it fully.