8. Eight
8
EIGHT
ELIANA RICHARDS
CIA Headquarter, August 2022
I was sweating like hell.
Not because of the high temperatures outside, but because I just came out of a draining lower body session down in the gym. Evening sessions were always my favorite, not only because it helped me to sleep like a baby. Also, because I often had to share the gym with Peter and Liam, which allowed me to mock both of them for bad form or when they decided to play it safe and don’t up their weights.
I've been here for one and a half months now and I have to admit that I got used to being around Peter. He was not as bad as I thought he was, and even though I would never be his biggest fan, the deal we had allowed me to actually enjoy my time at the CIA. Eavesdropping on the boys' conversations while wearing my huge headphones and pretending to listen to music helped me to get to know both of them a bit better.
You need to know who you’re dealing with.
It’s survival tactics.
Not me being interested in them.
Before I’d leave for my well-deserved shower, I decided for a quick stop at the communal kitchen on the second floor to grab a diet Coke. I never spent money for beverages because I was fine with drinking water, but as this was all paid by the CIA and I enjoyed having a different taste, I got myself a Coke from time to time.
But I already regretted my decision when I heard loud voices coming out of the communal kitchen.
Wonderful, one of the couples was potentially having a date night or some sort of shit. I figured the relationship status around here pretty quickly, mainly because Sheppard and Dr. Summers were pretty obvious, and McGreen and Gómez had heart eyes whenever they looked at each other. And they still thought they were hiding it well.
Love drunk idiots.
I didn’t know the CIA was so easy when it came to relationships within the Agency, especially along the hierarchy. Maybe that’s why Gómez and McGreen were still hiding it. Maybe it wasn’t as tolerated as I thought.
Anyway, I would never mind their business, so I just let them be and do whatever they want as long as it didn’t affect me or our work. And it never did. Neither did the friendship between Sheppard and McGreen, although I still didn’t fully understand the love the two shared. It looked more than only comradeship, but everyone is making such a big mystery around Sheppard that I don’t give up getting to know more.
To my surprise, it was none of the lovebirds, it was actually Peter and Liam sitting on the couch while watching an ice hockey match.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted any kind of interaction tonight, but some banter never hurt.
“Hey, big guys, I missed you down in the gym. But it looks like you decided to watch sports instead of actually doing some.”
Both heads spun around to look who was talking to them, and even over the distance, I could see Peter rolling his eyes at me. Liam had this sort of amused grin on his lips that I see a lot on him. This man was trouble.
“Sorry that you weren’t able to hear us grunting loudly, because I know this is what you think about when you’re alone in bed every night, Richards.”
“Peter Davis, why don’t you act like your hairline and step back a bit,” I groaned, annoyed.
Liam, who had watched our banter with an amused grin, suddenly spit his mouth full of beer onto Peter before he started to laugh out loud.
“Shit!” Peter exclaimed, jumped to his feet, and looked at his soaked, sticky shirt. With one quick movement, he grabbed the hem and pulled it over his head, revealing the sculptured body I was expecting him to have, but never saw before. I’d only see the biceps raking out of his shirt and he always trained with a shirt on. I don’t dare to add an unfortunately to the previous sentence.
I watched him get the rest of the beer off his upper body with the fabric now in his fist, my eyes wandering along his shoulders, down towards his chest—that was shaved, by the way—and lower, but before I could check for a potential six pack, I could see Liam’s face popping up in my peripheral.
I was shamelessly checking out Peter Davis.
Holy fuck.
And Liam had caught me in the act.
To hide my shame of being caught, I started to whistle slightly which made Peter raise his head towards me. I could literally see the gears turning behind his beautiful emerald eyes until he finally realized that he had just stripped for us. In a panicked movement, he unfolded the shirt again and held it in front of his core, covering little to none of his muscles.
“Good for you, Eliana. Normally he takes a shit ton of money until you have him shirtless,” Liam snorted before taking a new sip of his beer, as if he hadn’t just spit it all over his best friend.
“I am…honored, I guess?”
Gosh I hope my body was not betraying me, because my cheeks were so warm, I swear they must have had the color of cherries by now. Why was a shirtless Peter Davis turning me on that much? It was probably a hormones thing. Maybe I was ovulating. That’d explain it.
“I need to take a shower,” Peter grumbled.
“Yeah, me too. Leg day is always sweaty,” I added.
“You could share a shower. I mean, just for convenience reasons. Save some water,” Liam said with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
Peter and I groaned in unison, turning around to leave the communal kitchen to head for our rooms.
“Don’t let me hear any rumors,” Liam shouted after us.
“And he’s really your friend?” I asked Peter with a slight laugh and a shake of my head.
“Unfortunately.”
“You never had a great choice of friends, anyway.”
“Should I remind you that you liked that one friend of mine a lot our senior year?”
“Gregory?”
“Yeah.”
“I only dated him until I got to know he’s your friend, then broke up with him.”
“Ouch. That was a mean one.”
“You wanted me to be honest, Peter. I’m just following the rules here.”
We had reached our rooms and he only turned his head towards me to give it an exaggerated shake before he held his ID card in front of the lock .
“You know, I wanted to ask if you’d like to watch hockey with us. There are still two thirds left. But as you showed me your nice side again, I don’t think I want your company anymore.”
“Sorry for you because I’m excellent company!”
I couldn’t deny that I did interpret his statement as some sort of rejection and nobody likes to be rejected. The look in his eyes reminded me a lot of Dad.
Disappointment.
I tried to hide the stab into my heart with a fake smile, hoping he’d buy it. But it’s Peter. He bought my fake behavior our entire lives.
“You could still ask me to let you stay around.” He winked at me.
That fucking asshole.
“How old are we? Ten?”
“Is it so hard to jump over your shadow and ask for something you want? I know you’re a hockey fan.”
“You just want to hear me beg.”
His cheeks blushed after my last statement and it caught me totally off guard. Did Peter Davis just blush because I referred to begging? What was going on?
And why the hell did I think he looked cute when he blushed?
“Join us or leave it. Your choice, Eliana.”
Did he just invite me without actually inviting me? Clever boy. Chapeaux.
“See you in a bit then,” I answered and entered my room. The moment the door was shut close, I leaned against the wood, needing a moment to breathe. Whatever was going with my hormones today, was a little too much. I couldn’t be attracted to Peter Davis. There was no fucking way.
Twenty minutes later, I fought my hair into a loose, high bun, jumped into some black sweatpants, and the CIA team shirt they gave me five duplicates of when I started. What do they think? That I don’t own my own clothes?
I checked myself one more time in the mirror and approved the look before heading down to the communal kitchen. I wasn’t here to impress someone. My goal was to watch a hockey match and maybe even have a normal conversation with Peter and Liam.
Look at me, trying to make friends. Or at least getting accepted by my colleagues.
Mom would be proud.
“That’s definitely a game penalty, that was an open ice check, Liam.”
“They should check his genitals if he’s having a penis or a vagina. The way he’s whining like a soccer player. Ridiculous. ”
“Liam, you can’t say stuff like that in 2022,” Peter said, obviously shocked about his friend.
“As much as I hate to admit it, but Peter’s right here. You can’t use having a vagina as an argument for being a whiny bitch anymore. Let me tell you that as someone with a vagina. We’re surviving hormonal chaos, stomach cramps, and fucking bleeding every single month as if it was nothing. People with vaginas are fucking badass.”
I had crossed the entire communal kitchen after getting my diet Coke from the fridge, plus crashed down on the second couch during my monologue.
Liam just rolled his eyes, mumbling something that he didn’t mean it as an insult for females, but I ignored him. Sports was still full of cliches and old white boomers thinking they understood the world better than anyone else. The little computer nerd was none of that with his caramel skin, the fluffy bed hair, and an intelligence of half of the hockey stadium combined.
And still he sat here and said things like that.
Peter, on the other hand, gave me a smile and a nod as some sort of welcoming gesture, and I even shot him a smile back. I was in a good mood.
The replay of the check was shown on the screen and all three of us watched it curiously.
“It was an open ice check, but he saw him coming. Make it a five-minute penalty, but never a full game,” I added to the conversation that was running before we had changed topic to cliches and insulting full groups of people .
“That’s what I said as well. Thank you, Eliana. Peter’s always a bit protective when it comes to checks.”
“Because we have to make sure none of them get hurt badly.
“It’s ice hockey, Peter. No one expects to get through a career without losing teeth or at least one concussion. It’s part of the job,” I answered before Liam could.
“Listen to the woman if you refuse to listen to me. She knows what she is talking about,” he added, leaned over to me to cheer his beer bottle against my diet Coke.
I think I was part of the gang now.
Sports actually did bring people together. Even two who wouldn’t really get along in other circumstances.
The referee on the screen gave the five-minute penalty and Liam and I cheered loudly. Peter decided to stop pouting about us building alliances and decided to watch the dynamic shift with a smile on his lips.
He was cute when he smiled. Something I had watched from afar my entire life, but he never smiled at me. There was never a reason for that.
“What is this even? USA versus Croatia?”
“Hockey World Championship,” Liam answered.
“Since when are we interested in that?” I raised an eyebrow while looking at Peter and Liam for an answer.
“Since there is no other hockey at the moment and we refuse to watch baseball,” Peter answered this time, his eyes locked on the screen. I saw the small movements in them while he followed the puck around the rink.
“What’s wrong with baseball?” I asked.
“You like baseball, too?” Liam had completely stopped watching the game, his body leaned forward towards me as if he was ready to continue that conversation forever.
“That’s not what I said.” I smiled at him.
“Baseball is absolutely boring to watch and it takes forever. No fucking way,” Peter commented.
I knew a lot of people who loved baseball, although I never actually found myself being interested in it. Thankfully, there were so many sports out there that everyone could have a favorite.
“What about football? You were always pretty good at that,” I added. He actually was. He was a fullback back in high school and one of the best in the league. It brought him a lot of interest from the girls, but I barely saw him dating. He focused too much on fulfilling his own expectations with good grades and being a top athlete. Looking back at it nowadays, I had my full respect for him for getting this done. I would never tell him, though. Not supporting his ego. Not happening.
“Football?” Liam asked.
Oh, it looked like that was a part of his past that Peter hadn’t shared with his best friend yet. Now, this was about to become funny.
“Offseason as well,” Peter only said, but I could see him giving me a short, side eye that I couldn’t interpret.
“No, no, no, no, Peter. That’s not how you get out of this. You played football? How come this is the first time I ever heard of that?” Liam now shook Peter’s shoulder to get his attention.
“Oops,” I said in a high-pitched voice. This was so amusing.
Peter groaned, his hand covering his face when he finally stopped watching the match on the TV.
“Are you just here to embarrass me?” he asked in my direction now, his eyes shining with something I’d seen my entire life: hate.
My defense mechanism kicked in immediately and I sat up straighter, in case I needed to fight.
“She couldn’t know that you didn’t tell me, Peter. Why would she embarrass you on purpose?” Liam asked, trying to calm the situation that got tensed pretty quickly. I was normally not a woman to lose the ability to speak, but the shine in Peter’s eyes reminded me of the way my father always looked at me before he started to beat some brain into me as he always liked to say. I’d always deserve it, though, because I had disappointed him.
“Because it’s her, Liam. I really tried to give her a chance tonight, but all she does is try to ruin our evening.” He had turned towards Liam now as if I wasn’t in the room with them. His words stung once again, same as earlier in the hallway. He claims me to be the one embarrassing him, but he’s the one hurting me. I didn’t want to embarrass him. And how could I, because he was a fantastic football player. I never understood why he stopped at college. He would have gotten scholarships to make his life easier. Because yes, even the CIAU had a football team. We’re America.
“It’s a chapter of my past I don’t want to talk about, okay?” Peter added, and I was so stuck in my mind with the memories of my angry father that I didn’t even hear what Liam had said. My eyes were locked with my slightly shaking hands and I focused on breathing to not make the two others realize what state I was currently in.
I tried to remind myself that I was in control of my body. Not the other way around.
“Okay. But one day you have to tell me this story.” Liam laughed and shifted back to watch the game.
“Excuse me,” I breathed out, stood from the couch, and practically ran out of the communal kitchen. I needed to get out of here because I couldn’t fucking breathe. I’m 100% convinced Peter would never beat me, but the look in his eyes… It was all I could focus on, and even now, I saw his eyes when I closed mine. Until they blurred over into the eyes of my father, how I saw him looking at me hundred times since mom died.
Hate. Disapproval. Disappointment. Regret.
Some of these days I wished I had died instead of her, so Dad wouldn’t have to deal with me and would still be happy. Her death broke him. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t repair his heart. Quite the opposite, I broke him even further with every bad grade and every expectation I didn’t meet .
I finally reached my room and let myself collapse on the bed while tears streamed down my face.
All I wanted was an evening with two guys that potentially could become my friends. But of course, I ruined it again. I’m sure they’ll never want to spend any minute with me.
I fucking ruined it.
Mom would be disappointed in me.