Page 13 of Dirty As Puck
“Enjoying your research?” I ask, not bothering to hide the edge in my voice.
Rochelle doesn’t look up from her screen. “Just doing my job.”
“Your job involves psychoanalyzing people you’ve known for three days?”
“My job involves understanding the subjects I write about. If you have a problem with that, maybe you shouldn’t have agreed to the embedded coverage.”
I didn’t agree to anything. Management agreed for me.
“If I had a choice in this matter, we would never have met.”
She finally looks at me, those green eyes sharp with irritation. “Everyone has choices, Kai. You choose how to present yourself to the media. You choose how to respond to questions. You choose whether to cooperate or be hostile for no reason.”
“No reason? You’re sitting there writing about my psychological factors like I’m some kind of lab rat, and you think my hostility is unreasonable?”
“I think your hostility is exactly what makes you an interesting story.”
The way she says it––clinical, detached, like I’m nothing more than content for her article makes anger flare in my chest. She doesn’t see me as a person. She sees me as a puzzle to solve, a reputation to exploit, a career advancement opportunity.
Just like every other journalist.
Just then, the plane hits turbulence.
Not the gentle bump-and-sway of normal air currents, but the kind of sudden, violent drop that makes your stomach relocate to somewhere near your ass. The plane shudders and drops what feels like fifty feet in half a second, and several passengers let out startled gasps.
Including Rochelle.
I glance over and see her gripping the armrest so hard her knuckles are white, eyes squeezed shut like she’s trying to will the plane back to stable flight. Her laptop slides to the floor with a crash, but she doesn’t even seem to notice.
She’s terrified. Well, that’s what you get for prying.
“You okay?” I find myself asking even though I am her lab rat to inspect.
“Fine,” she whispers, but her voice is tight, and her breathing is too shallow. “Just not great with flying.”
Another bout of turbulence hits, worse than the first, and the plane drops and shakes like it’s being tossed around by giant hands. Rochelle gasps and instinctively grabs my arm, her nails digging into my forearm through my hoodie.
She’s really scared. Not just uncomfortable, actually frightened.
This is my chance to really scare her off this whole thing.
I may never get another opening.
Without thinking, I reach over and cup her face with my free hand, forcing her to look at me instead of the window where she can see the wing flexing with each gust of wind.
“Look at me, not the window,” I tell her. “The plane’s fine. Turbulence feels worse than it is.”
Her green eyes are wide and panicked, so now I can see every crevasse. They’re blown wide open, and it’s like staring at the moon, mountains, or the ocean. I don’t know but they’re beautiful, and I can feel her pulse racing where my thumb rests against her jaw. She’s trying to be tough, trying to hide her fear behind professional composure, but she can’t quite pull it off.
She’s not as tough as she pretends to be.
The plane lurches again, and Rochelle makes a small, involuntary sound of distress. Before I can think about what I’m doing, before I can consider the consequences or the professional boundaries or the fact that we’re surrounded by my teammates, I lean forward and kiss her.
Hard. Demanding. The kind of kiss that’s designed to drive everything else out of her head, including the fear of the plane falling out of the sky.
I admit I didn’t think about this.
I admit I’ve not really thought about anything logical since I saw Rochelle.
