37. Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
I dithered. On the one hand, I had never liked LeFleur, as I found him insufferably nosy and smarmy.
And Alexei had been giving me the cold shoulder ever since I unknowingly rejected his advances.
2 But with Tobago angry and so many of the men resenting me, it seemed foolish to reject an olive branch that was so clearly being extended.
“Where is everyone else?” I asked, venturing a small step toward them.
“Helping to store the toilet paper,” LeFleur answered. “Tobago got word there’s patrol out doing random stop searches on cargo, and if they stop us, we don’t want to be traced back to SuperVegas.”
I nodded, absorbing this. When I’d first come onboard, Tobago had shown me some of the compartments they used to hide contraband cargo, which were untraceable, even with radar equipment. “Won’t they need some help?” I asked.
“Too many cooks in the kitchen,” Alexei told me. “They sent us away.”
“Oh.” If everyone else was busy, and Ursa would be unconscious for the next few hours, there really wasn’t any reason why I shouldn’t play a game with some of the crew. And if it turned out the others needed more help, we could always stop what we were doing and go lend them a hand. “All right.”
The men exchanged another glance. Alexei stood and gathered all the darts while LeFleur guided me over to the board. “You ever played before?” he wanted to know, his hand lingering on the small of my back.
I stepped away from his touch. “No. But there can’t be much to it, can there? Just throw the pointy ends at the board, right?”
LeFleur laughed, much more than was warranted, honestly. It wasn’t a terribly funny joke. “Something like that. Here.” He plucked one of the darts out of Alexei’s hand as he approached. “You can have the first throw.”
I obligingly took the dart, squinting at the dartboard for a moment before doing my best to hit the red circle in the middle—
—and instead hitting a spot on the wall about two feet from the board altogether.
Alexei and LeFleur doubled over with laughter. Reluctantly, I joined them. My pride was deeply wounded, mind you, but I didn’t want to seem like a bad sport. And it was sort of funny, I supposed, that I’d been so overly confident, only to prove the game required more skill than it would seem.3
“Watch,” Alexei directed. With confidence, he shouldered in front of me, taking a moment to aim precisely before throwing the dart. It hit the bullseye directly.
I applauded, duly impressed. “Nicely done!” Tilting my head to the side, I studied his posture. “Will you show me again?”
Truthfully, I still didn’t care all that much about the game, but I was so very pleased they were including me without hostility that I thought I ought to give it my best effort.
It seemed to me that Alexei was squaring his shoulders toward the board and leaning his weight forward ever so slightly. Was that the trick?
He obediently threw another dart, this time landing it just outside the red bullseye circle. I thought that was still a very impressive shot, but his expression immediately darkened, and he cast me a quick, almost hostile glance, as though ascertaining what my reaction might be.
I made sure to keep my expression bright. He did not strike me as someone who liked to lose, and I’d already rejected the man once, so I was likely on thin ice already. “Very impressive!” I assured him. “You hit the board. That’s much better than what I managed.”
Alexei grunted and turned away from me. Too late, I realized that my words might have been misconstrued as being condescending. Drat. Before I could dwell on it too long, though, LeFleur spoke up behind me. “Wanna show him how it’s done?”
I jumped in surprise at how close he was standing behind me. Unnecessarily close, I thought. How had that happened? He must have slipped in unobtrusively while I was watching Alexei throw, and I’d been too preoccupied studying his posture to notice.
Uninvited, LeFleur placed his hands on both my shoulders, positioning me just so in front of the board before reaching forward to hand me another dart. His hand brushed my waist as he did so. “There. Try again.”
His overfamiliarity was making me uncomfortable, truth be told. Still, I tried to reason it away. Maybe the movements were more intricate than I thought, and he needed to be close to demonstrate them.
All the same, I leaned away, tensing as I waited to see if he’d follow. When he didn’t, I breathed a little sigh of relief. There, see? I was reading too much into things.
Steadying myself, I focused on the target and threw again. I didn’t get it, unfortunately, though this time I did strike the edge of the board. No points would be awarded for such a throw, but still, I hadn’t hit the wall. So, progress!
“Better,” LeFleur conceded. He’d somehow moved up behind me again, so close I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.
I jerked away. But when I turned back, I saw that LeFleur was moving away from me. What an embarrassing overreaction on my part. Hopefully no one had noticed.
“Alexei, you’re the pro.” LeFleur walked over to the counter to help himself to a mug of cider. “You show her how it’s done.”
I waited awkwardly as Alexei positioned himself behind me.
I thought he might take hold of my shoulders like LeFleur had, but instead he gripped me by my hips, pivoting my body toward the board and holding me in place.
Having his hands on me felt odd and invasive, but I’d overreacted a moment before with LeFleur and didn’t want to do it again, so I said nothing.
As he reached around to hand me one of the darts, he released his hold on me, and I tried to be subtle about how quickly I stepped away. “Any other tips?” I asked.
“Oh, I have a tip for you,” Alexei mumbled.
LeFleur choked on his cider.
I tried to look back at him questioningly, but one of Alexei’s hands grasped me by the hip again. “You move too much when you throw. Try to keep your center, here.” His other hand slid over my abdomen, holding me in place.
Instinctively, I tried to pull away from him, but he just held on tighter. Fear pulsed through me; I tried to tell myself I was only overreacting yet again. But I didn’t want to be touched, and it didn’t seem right I should have endure this just so I wouldn’t be called a bad sport.
It all seems rather ridiculous in hindsight, but I wasn’t being naive, not really. I just so badly wanted for him to be nice. “You can let go now,” I tried.
“You don’t like it when I touch you there?” To my relief, Alexei released his hold on my abdomen—just for a moment, until he started dipping lower, toward a place he had no business touching.
I instinctively bucked backward, flailing my limbs and throwing back my head.
He was too strong for me to simply pull away—terrifyingly strong, as it turned out.
I didn’t have a solid plan, I only wanted him to let me go, and when the top of my head made contact with his nose—a loud and satisfying crunch—he did.
I fell to the floor as Alexei released me. When I looked up at him, I saw him clutching at his face, blood spilling through his fingers. “You bitch!” he seethed.
From his seat at the counter, LeFleur continued to laugh, watching all of this like it was some amusing galaxy-net program.