Page 18 of Fighter
Her eyes widened to an alarming size. She shook her head more urgently now. “Fair,” I said as flashes of Dr. Jekyll Talmage flashed through my mind. “Sometimes it's hard to talk about bad days.”
She nodded again, then turned her attention to testing the corn. Like the potatoes, she dove in with gusto. Just as my phone buzzed with a text, a shuffle came from the far side of the room. A voice followed it.
“Ava? Sorry, I'm off the pho—Oh. Hey.”
My heart raced as Benjamin appeared, carrying a box. His startled expression was a little bit relieved. I forced a smile. Halfway across the room, he slowed. His eyes locked onto something. Maybe it was my posture. Maybe the bruising that had surely intensified on my face. My head throbbed like a wild thing as the adrenalin left me and I might be in a perma-grimace. Suddenly, I felt weak as a rag doll and gripped the cool counter beneath my hand.
Whatever clued him in, he'd taken full notice now.
“Sera?” he murmured quietly. His voice was thick with a question, and I saw a flash of the rage that had been there when he first saw my fat lip. I tilted my head slightly to Ava, then shook my head. He closed the last few steps between us and set the box aside.
His nostrils flared as he regarded me up close, but he reluctantly nodded a quiet assent to not talk about it yet. His gaze lingered on my cheek.
“Ava's had a rough day,” I said, “so I told her that if she had some dinner, she could have brownies.” My voice caught and I felt stupid for the rush of emotion that followed. Carefully, I swallowed it back. “Brownies fix every bad day,” I finished in a small voice.
Ava had another chomp of chicken, her feet swinging on the edge of the counter as she hummed to herself.
If possible, Benjamin's expression hardened even more.
“Of course they do,” he murmured in a silky voice. He didn't take his eyes off of me. “And how wasyourday?”
“Here.” I reached into my back pocket and handed him a folded pile of papers from the deputy that took Talmage away, as well as the initial receipt from the hotel. “This will answer most of your questions.”
Without question, he shuffled through them. The tension in his neck ebbed slightly. Ava had another dainty bite of potatoes, then stuck the spoon back in the container and brushed her hands off.
“All done!”
Benjamin spoke before I could. “Why don't you take your brownie to the window and eat it?”
“Can I have my tablet?” She clasped her hands together. “Pleeeease?”
His gaze flickered to the clock. “Fine. You haven't had it all today. You have one hour, all right?”
With a squeal, she snatched a brownie from the open box replete with colorful sprinkles and disappeared under the desk. So therewasa sanctuary there. Benjamin turned to me then, eyes full of concern. I shuffled to change my position a bit, winced, and his gaze narrowed further.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
I swallowed and repeated the most minimal details necessary to get the story across, and avoided descriptions of the actual blows that landed. I ended with what I hoped was an easy, “I'm staying at a hotel while we sort all this out. I won't go back there,” I added quickly. “Not even to check on him. My parents will probably come to town now and try to reason with him. Maybe talk with his doctor. But I'm . . . pretty much out of the Talmage picture for the time being.”
“Good.”
He said it with all the inflection of a rock. I swallowed and motioned to the food. “I brought you dinner.”
He frowned. “You still brought this after all that?”
“I promised that I would and Ava needed it,” I said quietly. “Maybe I did too.”
His stark expression shook me. “Yeah,” he finally murmured. “I get that.”
We lapsed into an eternal silence that had all my nerve endings firing. He stared off in space, his jaw tight. Meanwhile, I wandered into the deep quagmire of doubt I should have visited a while ago, perhaps before I came here.
Why was I here? Had this been a mistake? Benjamin saw me as that strange person that kept dropping off food. The waitress who joked with his brother about tattoos. And what did I see him as?
A safe place, maybe?
Was this some sort of subconscious attempt for me to feel safe after all that had happened? I should be laying in bed, watching stupid TV shows on ancient cable while sleeping this awful day off. Instead, I stood here trying to act like I wasn't in pain. Like I didn't want his comfort when I did want it. In fact, I wanted it so desperately tears burned my eyes. So why didn't I call my parents? Why didn't I call Dagny? They would comfort me.
Heck, even watching a funny show would comfort me.
