Chapter 8 Mischa #2
“You really want to skip everything and get to the ‘I love yous’?”
“That is my suggestion. Or maybe just the waking-up-tangled-together bit?”
Austen raises his eyebrows. “Or… how about we take it one step further and jump over the honeymoon and go straight to the restraining order?”
“You could never do anything to make me want a restraining order.”
Austen shakes his head, and tries not to laugh. “I’m… I’m not attracted to you.”
Lies.
“Let’s be friends then.”
“I’ve never had friends.”
“Well,” I shrug, and run my hands down the sides of his arms to his elbows. “Better late than never.”
“Honestly, how do you do that?” he asks, looking at the gap between us, and my hands on his forearms.
“Always look on the bright side,” I shrug.
“No, I mean...” He smiles and searches my face, his eyes stopping at my Adam’s apple. “We can get on the elevator from any floor,” Austen suggests. “We might as well go see the top.”
We ascend the spiral stairs right up to the dome viewing deck.
From there it’s another dead end, and we find ourselves alone looking down on all reading desks and remaining students at windows taking photos.
I push the button for the lift. He looks over the ledge down the six stories, and so do I from the next balcony along.
His phone rings and he takes the call, explaining that he is fine.
“Your bodyguard calling?”
“It’s pretty overbearing,” he sighs. “But they mostly know to leave me alone.”
I zone out watching the view, with all the whispering library echoes and creaks, until I feel Austen’s eyes looking over at me. I stay still, and let him look.
The elevator arrives. The sound for the door chimes. We get in, and stare at each other in the steel doors when they close.
“Thank you,” he says. “You saved me from a crippling panic attack.”
“It was nothing,” I say.
On the next floor Austen’s golden-tanned, hot, gay, bodyguard gets in, and shoots me an almost jealous look.
He stands too close to Austen, touching his arms and searching his eyes, and with that, I worry there’s something between them.
It all feels very tender and intimate. I feel so uncomfortable as he pats Austen’s cheek.
“You okay, baby?” he says, in a barely audible whisper to Austen.
What THE FUCK did he just call Austen? I feel like my insides are being ripped out of me.
Austen’s smile reaches all the way to his eyes as they look at each other, and he nods and touches the bodyguard’s elbows like they want to hug but can’t.
Austen noiselessly assures him he’s fine, then looks past him, and the golden hottie goes back into gay-bodyguard mode, turns to face the door in front, like they don’t know each other, only Austen’s hands are at his waist. One more stop and more people get in until the elevator is packed full.
Austen is squished right in the corner behind him.
He makes the tip of his nose touch the back of his bodyguard’s head and it makes them both smile.
We reach the bottom, and everyone gets out slowly, as Austen and I wait at the back.
There’s a momentary pause when it’s our turn.
I don’t know if he’s waiting for me to go first like a gentleman, or for another reason, but it makes my heart pump incredibly fast. We turn to look at each other, and his face is trying to figure out how I feel while I do the same.
I press the door-close button, and he frowns in confusion, then I realize in horror what I’ve done. We both leap to catch the doors, and his gay-bodyguard-possible-lover turns around, but they close on us.
“Sorry,” I say. “Accident.” His eyes narrow at me, not believing my excuse. I flush with embarrassment. “We can just ride back down,” I shrug.
We find ourselves back up where we started.
We reach the second floor and a group of old ladies wait for us to get out so they can get in.
Reluctantly, we step back onto the viewing balcony, and the elevator again departs.
We both start to smile, but it’s cut short by Austen’s phone ringing.
He tells the caller he’s fine, again, only more exasperated.
“No,” he huffs into the phone. “Kane, do not call William for this.”
He grins as he listens to Kane talk, turning a deeper and deeper red, pressing his lips together like he is telling Austen something naughty.
The gay bodyguard I’m now planning to murder appears on the floor of the reading desks one floor below, and talks into his phone loud enough that I can hear all of it. Austen hangs back, out of view, while I look at Kane from a balcony. Some of the readers on the table nearby watch too.
“You want to tell him how much you mean to me?” Kane asks, all dewy-eyed, looking up at me. “How I love you, how I’ve loved you for years? How I would die for you? I’d fucking kill for you…”
“My love, I think he can hear you,” Austen says, and I turn to see him equally moonstruck.
I start watching them like tennis.
“This past month,” Kane looks at the floor. “I… we… you… you mean everything to me…”
He actually wipes away a fucking tear. Ugh. Kill me.
Austen’s eyes are welling too.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “We said all the things. We got it out of the way. We’re not tender people. We never have to be sentimental like this again.”
“Maybe Christmas and birthdays,” Kane agrees. “Although Christmas is tomorrow.”
“See you in a minute, Kane.”
“Sorry baby, what’s my name again?”
“Kane…” Austen whines, becoming bashful, and twists uncomfortably. “That’s too much… no… please no…”
“It’s Christmas,” Kane insists.
“Okay…” Austen whispers. “Bye… Buttercup. Love you.”
“That’s exactly right,” Kane hangs up, looking fucking smug about it.
I want to fucking crawl under a rock.
"Buttercup? I shake my head, pushing down all the murderous thoughts, trying to seem unbothered. “I feel like Sugar-Kane was right there.”
“Sugar-Kane?” Austen cackles. “Love that.”
This is the closest I’ve come to crying in a very long time. I know I won’t, that it will turn into rage at a more appropriate time and place, but even so, the next few minutes will be fucking painful.
“You guys are adorable,” I admit, and hold the back of my neck. “How long have you been together? He was in the bathhouse with you, right?”
They both tried it on with me. It's not a good omen for their own relationship.
Austen won’t look at me. He furrows his brow and shakes his head a little.
"Yeah, he’s only been my um… my bodyguard for a few weeks,” he says. “The 1980’s gig was the first time he… body-guarded me properly.”
“Oh,” I nod. “Right, yeah, that night.”
I lit the fuse. I came on strong and threw Austen into the arms of his protector. I am amazed that my heart actually hurts. I feel pain. Real pain. I wonder if I’m having an actual heart attack. Although that would be good, because I want to die.
“We’ve known him since we were kids,” Austen explains. “He’s been on-and-off with Lord Tyrannus for a couple years now—as a bodyguard. He’s driven him away then begged him to come back a couple times, but they had a fight last month and Kane walked out for good.”
“He seemed very cosy with William on the plane.”
“Yeah, they sorted it out,” Austen sighs.
“Does Will know?”
“He knows he’s my bodyguard,” Austen says after a pause. “It would not be good for him to find out that I really am...” he trails off. “It’s all been very awkward.”
"I’ll bet. I didn’t believe it, but you really are taken.”
“Oh,” Austen frowns. “Yeah.”
“What?”
“I’m still marrying my girlfriend.”
“Oh fuck off.”
“What?”
“Girlfriend?” I wince. “It gives me more hope to know you go with guys.”
“I don’t… I just go with… Kane, I guess.”
“But you’re marrying someone else?”
“Kane is not my boyfriend, he’s my bodyguard. That sorta comes with a physical and emotional component.” He hesitates, and shakes his head. “I’m just good with him, you know, touching me and stuff because he’s my bodyguard and he cares about me. Like my girlfriend.”
“Can I be your bodyguard for free then?”
He chuckles. "I’ll stick with Kane.”
“But not monogamous?” I blink a few times. “So there’s still a chance?”
He gapes at me, then rolls his eyes so hard he throws his head back. “Christ, I’m unsure if anything will scare you off.”
“Probably not.”
The crowds are gone, so we call the elevator. Kane arrives with it and we get in with him. He glowers like a fierce predator guarding its cub. He’s fuming mad and gets in my face to menace me.
“I will fucking murder you…” he growls.
Austen puts his arm around Kane. “Hey, stop,” he says, pulling him away. “I’m okay. He didn’t do anything.”
He pulls Kane by the jaw to make him look in his eyes.
"Baby this fucking guy...” Kane huffs, all worked up.
Austen kisses him, briefly, on the lips, trying to diffuse the tension. Kane snaps out of his anger in surprise, and smiles, mesmerized by Austen.
“I’m sorry,” I tell them. “I didn’t know.”
“Thank you, Mischa, for being so kind to me today,” Austen says.
His eyes fix on Kane, the electricity from their sexual chemistry zapping between them, while I watch in the reflecting door.
“It’s all good,” I tell them.
The lift has gone up, and people get in as it starts going back down. We three look at the floor like strangers. The door opens and we are in the basement gallery. I get out and they don’t move. I turn as they emerge with caution, watching me like an escaped mental patient.
I think it’s time for me to return to America.
“Sorry again,” I say, and I offer Kane my hand to shake. “I’ll leave you two alone. He deserves someone like you,” I smile, but it’s not a real smile. “If it were me, I’d be getting the better deal, and he’d always have the raw end of it.”