Asher #2
A chuckle escapes as I imagine it, slipping under the covers on my side of the bed. The lights dim at the press of a button on my bedside table.
“Hey, Asher,” she whispers into the silence.
“Mmm?”
“Everyone’s going to think we slept together. They saw us leave together.”
“I’ll just tell them you came to your senses and shot me down. Trust me, they’ll believe it.”
She laughs and pinches my wrist. I jerk away with a yelp.
“Be serious,” she says.
“It’ll be fine, Joss. No one cares in the end.”
She hums. “I don’t think that’s true, but I’m too tired to care right now.”
“Go to sleep.”
We fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed.
We wake spooning, legs entwined, as close as two humans can be without being inside each other. At first, I’m not sure why
my body is so warm and relaxed. Or why the air I’m breathing carries a distinctly feminine scent. A Jocelyn scent.
Then something moves against me, and I become acutely aware of the slide of female skin across mine.
Wait.
Oh, god.
We jerk away from each other at the same time, darting to opposite sides of the bed. I squint at her, still trying to adjust
to the morning light.
Wild-eyed, she gestures toward my lap. “You have a situation.”
I glance down at myself and stare at the shameless tent beneath the blankets. Well, okay, then. I lift my knees to hide it.
“Did you really think I’m some mystical man who doesn’t get morning wood? This is why I pointed out we shouldn’t sleep in
the same bed.”
She shoves the covers to the end of the bed. “Well, I wasn’t expecting to get stabbed by . . . it.”
This I find hard to believe. “To be fair to me, you technically came to my house with the sole purpose of getting stabbed
by it.”
“Ugh.” She cringes. “Stabbed is such a violent word.”
I take a slow breath. “You used it first.”
We stare at each other. And we stare some more.
“Fine,” she says. “You were right. We shouldn’t have slept in the same bed. Are you happy?”
“And we won’t be making that mistake again,” I say, nodding my head to encourage her to agree.
“Duh. I’m not looking to get injured.”
“Huh?”
She waves both hands at my situation again. “How do you even use that thing? It has its own zip code.”
Um.
Is she serious right now?
Heat rises from my neck into my face.
“Is this where you get that big-dick energy?”
A laugh spills out of my mouth. “Shut up.”
“Does it have special accessories?” She perks up. “Like Batman’s utility belt. What do you call the bat boomerang things?
Cock-erangs?”
I let my face drop into my hands, still laughing. “I’m sure I’m being insulted, but I’m not sure how.”
“You could deep throat a girl from below.”
“Oh, my god.” I throw a pillow at her. “You’re purposely making this more cringe, aren’t you?” When I peek up at her, she’s
grinning madly.
“Yeah,” she says. “Are you dead from embarrassment yet?”
“Yes. Dead. I really hate you sometimes.”
Her grin warms, and like magic, the awkwardness clears. “I know.” She slides off the bed. A gasp rips through her chest as soon as her foot touches the floor. She falls back onto the mattress. “Fuck!”
I crawl closer. “What is it?”
“The fucking glass. Why didn’t we clean it up?”
“Um. Because we were drunk idiots. We thought it would be a good idea to sleep together. Does that not tell you all you need
to know about the level of bad decision-making we’d reached?” I peek over the edge of the bed. Her foot is dripping blood
onto my walnut floor. “Shit, Joss.”
“Fix it!” She whimpers as she fans her foot, like that will somehow stop the bleeding.
“What is that even doing? Are you going to aerate it to coagulation?”
“You’re a surgeon. Don’t you have . . . like . . . suture?”
I bury my face in the covers. Deep breath is scented of laundry detergent. Even that smells gross. The hangover that was drifting
at the periphery of my awareness snaps into focus as I stand. Waves of dizziness and nausea roll over me. Upright, my brain
expands with blood and throbs against my skull.
Don’t like it.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Alcohol is the worst. Look at the clusterfuck of fiascos it’s created this morning.
Wishing I had caffeine right now.
My house shoes sit at the edge of the bed, and I slip them on before scooping Joss into my arms and carrying her to the bathroom.
“You owe me, lollipop.”
“Thank you!”
“Holy—” I laugh and turn my face away. “I love you, girl, but your breath is straight up trash fire.”
She pats my chest. “Don’t be extra. Just fix my foot, Asher.”
I set her at the edge of the soaker tub I never use and hand her a bottle of mouthwash. She turns on the faucet as I leave to retrieve my kit of surgical supplies, kept neatly in a duckling-covered Easter basket. But first, a pit stop at her phone to mess with her autocorrect.
Tee-hee.
When I return, she wiggles in joy at the lidocaine in my hand. Typical anesthesiologist.
I brandish the needle in her direction. “Buck up, bunny boo. This is gonna hurt.”
She twists to give me the best angle, and I numb and close the gash in her foot with a few interrupted sutures.
“There.” I peck a kiss on the top of her foot. “Good as new.”
“Thanks. I think we can officially label this whole episode a total fucking disaster.”
At least she agrees.
I throw everything back into the basket and wash my hands. “You understand now why I don’t get involved with girls at work?
Same catastrophe every time.”
“You’ve been in this situation before?” She motions toward herself—stitched and disheveled in my bloodstained bathtub, still wearing the corgi-riding-T-rex
shirt.
Okay. Fair. Leave it to Jocelyn to take catastrophe to the next level.
“Not quite,” I say with a smile. “Though I’d argue this is better. I thought I was in love with the last one and found out
way too late that she was secretly in love with someone else. Then I was stuck seeing them every day for months, so that was
fun.”
Compared to that, I’d take Joss’s awkward boner jokes anytime.
She sucks in a breath like ouch and squirms out of the tub. “Yeah, I’d probably never date at work, either.”
“You don’t date, period.”
“True.” She tests her weight on her foot and winces.
I lean against the counter and cross my arms. “Why is that again?”
She shrugs. “Life’s short and everybody dies. Will you carry me to your living room?”
I sigh at her nonanswer. Always deflecting. “Such a whiny baby.”
With that, I scoop her into my arms and carry her out.
Frustrating woman.