12. Twelve
12
TWELVE
PETER DAVIS
CIA Headquarters, August 2022
“ W hat the hell happened to you on that mission?” Liam asked from behind me, spotting my chest presses in our spontaneous gym session this evening. Eliana had fallen asleep quickly after the morphine kicked in, and after watching her sleep like a creep for a few minutes, I decided to change into workout clothes and blow off some steam. I’d asked Liam to join me because we’d been gym buddies ever since he moved in a few months ago. Who would have thought that the nerdy hacker was having the strongest back squat I’ve ever seen?
“Nothing happened. She got hurt, I helped her back home, end of story,” I grunted in between reps of my warmup set.
“I don’t buy it.”
“And I don’t care,” I hissed through clenched teeth. I was here to forget about today and not analyze it together with him. Today was a rollercoaster of emotions. Not only the weird moments between Eliana and me, that made me crave more, but also getting to know that Lynn had been stabbed and lying in a coma for almost a week. Of course, now it made sense that we completely prepared for the operation with Jakob instead of Oliver, but it was still a shock that nobody even thought about letting us know. I had to meet Nate in the hallway on my way to the waiting area after they dropped off Eliana in one of the examination rooms. He was the first to explain to me what happened to Lynn. That I was shocked was the understatement of the year.
“If you wouldn’t care, we wouldn’t be here in the gym right now, but with a beer and popcorn in the communal kitchen, watching hockey,” Liam commented while we increased the weights for my next set.
“It’s…complicated,” I sighed. My back hit the bench underneath me and for a moment, I only focused on the metal bar on top of me. Liam didn’t say a word while I performed eight reps.
“It always is, bro. Life’s never easy. Especially not with women, they are hell of complicated.”
“And that’s why you’re still single, Liam.”
“You better shut your mouth or I won’t spot you for the next round.”
“I know you wouldn’t watch your gym buddy die under an iron bar, because you can’t stand working out alone. You need someone to kick your ass.”
“Touché,” Liam sighed and shot me a wide smile before he stepped into position to spot my presses.
“Let’s put another ten on each side,” I suggested, and saw Liam raise one eyebrow at me. I’ve never pressed that heavy when we did regular sets of eight to ten, but today my body urged me to do it.
“You sure?”
“Yes. I feel safe if you spot me.” I chuckled and Liam only rolled his eyes. The last few months had been amazing with him and I appreciated the friendship that had formed between us. My entire life has been a competition and a fight to become the best of the best. Wins and losses, and especially the latter, had influenced me more than I liked. With Liam, things were just easy. We had the same kind of humor, we enjoyed the same things, and he was a good listener to all my rants about Eliana. He’d become my best friend in such a short period of time that it scared me. I’ve never had close friends due to my extreme form of determination, so this was a refreshing occurrence.
“You know you can talk to me about anything. I’ve heard many stories about her already, so why’d you stop now?”
“Because maybe this time it’s about me and not her .”
His face was furrowed and I could practically see the gears turning in his head, but he stayed quiet while I prepared to bench press. Not gonna lie; this set was torture, but I pushed through and I was proud .
“Let’s gooooooo. That was your new PR, right?” Liam shouted after the last rep, but I kept my back on the bench and breathed a few times. My vision was a little blurry, a consequence of holding my breath too long during the reps. It was a rookie mistake, but nobody’s perfect.
“I don’t know why she hates me,” I blurted out, pushing myself off the bench to sit on the edge. Liam stepped in front of me and I saw confusion in his face.
“But I thought you were high school rivals?”
“Yes…but…I told you it’s complicated,” I sighed while I stood and marched around the empty gym to clear my thoughts. Liam’s gaze was on me, but he gave me time and space to open up if I wanted to. It was always like that with him. He never forced me to talk to him, but he always gave me a chance.
“You wanna talk about it or should we continue the workout?”
I didn’t know.
I wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t want to think about what was going on between me and Eliana. Today was the first day in, well, forever that we got along pretty well. Maybe it was her concussion or the pain she was in, but she was bearable today.
After another loud sigh, I turned around to Liam and looked at him, silently signaling that our workout session was over and the conversation would start now. He understood immediately, grabbed his towel to swing it around his neck, and took a seat on the bench. I sat down cross-legged on the mat in front of him after I had grabbed my hoodie to not freeze to death with the AC.
“During high school, it was more like a fun little competition, you know. Who’s having the better grades, who’ll be the graduation speaker, who’ll get the scholarships. It didn’t really take this as real hatred. She hung out with Mihaela, her best friend, most of the time, anyway. Shooting me a death glare here and there, but I was a damn teenager. I didn’t take it seriously.”
“But she did?”
“I guess so. We’ve never been mean to each other, despite the death glares from her side, but when we saw each other again in orientation week at the CIA Academy, she freaked out. Literally screamed at me in front of the others that I only joined because I knew she would root for becoming an agent. Which was absolutely ridiculous. The CIA Academy wasn’t even my plan A.” I closed my eyes, trying to recreate the moments in my head. Embarrassment flooded my body while thinking about the gazes of the others when they got to know that I failed the SEALs test. I remembered my pulse skyrocketing with embarrassment and anger at the same time and that Eliana didn’t even care because she was solely focused on her own misery of seeing me again.
As if I was that bad company.
I’m actually really good company, and if she’d given me one chance to prove it, she would have known it, too. We would have been a pretty good team throughout college.
The academy’s power couple.
I shook my head in disbelief of my usage of the word couple when it came to Eliana. She was absolutely beautiful from the moment puberty hit her in the right places, her face having the perfect symmetric shape, and her big eyes reminded me a lot of a baby deer. Although I never saw these eyes in their full beauty as they were always narrowed when she stared at me, shimmering with hatred.
Hatred I really didn’t deserve, but never fought against.
“Earth to Peter.” Liam’s voice entered my mind and I looked up to him in surprise. I totally forgot his presence when my mind drifted off to the memories of the short time Eliana and I spent together at the academy.
“S-Sorry, what did you say?”
Liam smirked at me, well knowing where my mind had wandered to, but he left it uncommented.
“I asked what changed on the mission today.”
I blinked once. Twice. Thrice.
“Well, that’s the one-million-dollar question,” I eventually sighed loudly, making Liam chuckle before giving me a bit too strong clap on my shoulder.
“You have it hard for her, man,” he commented, but my basic instinct let me scrunch up my face.
“That’s not true. She and I will never get along outside of work. We’re not meant to be anything else than this. ”
“Sure.” The sarcasm dripped from his tongue and I couldn’t help myself and rolled my eyes.
“You haven’t answered my question twice, Peter. Something between you and her happened today and you do everything you can to ignore it.”
He wasn’t wrong. Something did feel different on the mission today, and not only after she fell down the stairs and acted weirdly because of the concussion. Another loud sigh left my throat and I covered my face with my hands.
“Come on, man. If you didn’t want us to talk about it, you would have fled minutes ago. But you didn’t. You and I both know you want me to ask. You’re just not sure if you like the answers,” he added and I hated that he was right.
“Before she fell down the stairs we had a little…moment,” I admitted, raising my head to look at Liam. His eyes widened, his brows raising slowly as if he wanted to encourage me to continue. I knew why he was the best hacker in the world. Because he was the most curious little shit I’ve ever met, but I loved him with every fiber of my heart.
“What moment?”
“Just a moment.”
“Peter…” he growled with a warning tone, his curiosity stealing the best of him.
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“Everything. That’s what friends do when they discuss emotions and relationships. It doesn’t make you less of a man if you talk about your feelings, Peter. ”
I looked at him in shock. The audacity that he accused me of not wanting to talk about my feelings.
“I don’t feel less of a man when I talk to you about my feelings for…” I stopped my sentence then, looking at him while my jaw slowly touched the floor. Liam Thomas did manage to crawl under my skin in less than thirty seconds and I saw in his eyes how much it amused him.
“Fuck you.” I shot him the middle finger and he started to laugh as soon as he realized that he got me.
“So you have feelings for Eliana?” he asked after he celebrated his win for a little longer.
“I…I don’t know. I shouldn’t. But the way she looked at me…properly looked at me on that staircase. Right before she fell down. I would lie to myself if I say that there weren’t any sparks between us. And I’m sure she felt it, too.”
“Describe the moment to me.”
“We were…in said staircase and the air between us was so tense you could cut it with a knife. So I wanted to crack a joke, reminding her of being careful. The concrete staircase wasn’t in the best shape and I didn’t want her to fall down and break her neck. Pathetic thinking about the outcome of that mission, I know.”
But Liam didn’t laugh, he only kept looking at me and waited for the rest of the story, because he knew there was more to it than only my ridiculous little joke.
“I might have stepped over a line with that joke,” I admitted, averting Liam’s gaze while another wave of embarrassment flooded my body .
“What did you say?”
“I said that I wanted her to be careful because I wasn’t anticipating carrying her fat ass across the entire facility ,” I mumbled, contorting my face in a grimace.
“Holy shit. And you thought that would lighten the mood?”
“I didn’t think.”
“No, you didn’t, and that’s the problem with you, Peter. You carry your heart on your tongue and although you’re an amazing agent, you are not able to read a room. Not at all.”
My shoulder slumbered even more while every of his words were like a stab to my heart. He wasn’t wrong, though. But it still hurt to hear something like that about yourself. Reflecting your actions always hurts in the first place before you can grow out of it stronger.
“How did she react?” Liam asked.
“Hurt.”
“Obviously. And she had every right to be.”
“I know. I get it. I fucked up. I tried to save the situation, but she was triggered so much that I didn’t have a chance. She accused me of making her entire life miserable.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. But that’s not all. For the first time ever, I saw a flicker of vulnerability on her. Like this wasn’t only about my absolute idiotic joke that insulted her. There was so much depth in her eyes if that makes sense. ”
Liam just bluntly stared at me and I realized that it probably didn’t make sense to him. It was more than a feeling between Eliana and me. A vibe. As if the air between us had changed into something else within milliseconds.
“Then she looked at me with all this sadness and brokenness in her eyes, so that all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and make sure no one would hurt her again.”
“After you just had hurt her? That’s really pathetic.”
“I know,” I sighed again. Liam had never been the one to sugarcoat me and I was grateful for it. He never told me what I wanted to but what I needed to hear.
“But there was something between us. I touched her and…”
“You did what ?”
“I just grabbed her hand, calm down.”
Liam raised his brow at me as if he wasn’t sure if he should believe me or not.
“What I was saying…” I paused a moment, in anticipation of another comment from Liam, but it didn’t come. “I grabbed her hand and something changed in my body the moment I did. It’s hard to describe, but it just felt right . Like that was how it’s supposed to be; her hand in mine.”
“That still sounds very stalker-ish to me, bro.” I shot him a glare, slightly annoyed by his discouraging comments. He was only being honest and I appreciated this, but for Liam it was hard to understand that not everybody was opening up as easily as himself. Talking to him about this needed a lot of courage for me.
“She looked so broken at that moment, but she accepted my apology and I think she really meant it. I was surprised when she even shed a tear. I can’t remember ever seeing her cry once in all those years. And then I…I cradled her face with my hand and brushed the tears away, because I couldn’t stand seeing her so hurt.”
“You’re fucking head over heels for her, Peter.”
“I know…and it scares the living hell out of me.”
There it was. I said it out loud.
Feelings were awakened within me today, feelings I’ve never had towards someone else before. At least not to that extent. Today, Eliana Richards ignited my urge to protect her with everything I had. And I might be the one most confused about this.
“Don’t be scared. That’s part of life. Even someone as lame as you can fall in love one day. We shouldn’t be that surprised about it.” He laughed.
“Hold on. Why are you surprised?”
“Come on, Peter. You never mentioned someone important in your life. Not a relationship, situationship, or someone you only fuck. Nothing, nada, niete . I was really concerned about your sexuality.”
“My sexuality is all fine, thank you for your concerns.” I rolled my eyes at him before shaking my head.
Why was I even friends with this guy?
“Are you planning to make a move on her now?”
“On Eliana? ”
“No, my mom. Of course, Eliana. Who are we talking about for the past few minutes, idiot.”
“I don’t know. She just had a big surgery and I’m sure she’ll be grumpy as hell for not being able to work. Because that is something we do have in common; work is the center of our entire being.”
Now it was Liam’s part to roll his eyes and he scoffed, “Spare me the love story of you and the CIA.”
“She’s hurt and she’ll need help. That’s all I will do right now. And when she’s all healed we can see if there will ever be the chance of even making a move. She still hates me, don’t forget this.”
“Didn’t sound like hatred when you had your moment ,” he mocked me, using the exact awkward word I had before. The smirk on his face said it all, but despite his weird way of communicating, it actually felt good to open up to him.
I had admitted to myself that there was some sort of feeling towards Eliana that hadn’t been there before. And even if she didn’t want me to, I would protect her from now on. That was the least thing I could do after making her entire life miserable.