“Just…” She hunched her shoulders up. “The consequences of my own actions making themselves heard.”
Tightening her core, she pushed up more carefully this time. Josh caught her elbow and braced his other hand in the small of her back.
I don’t want to love you. I definitely still want to fuck you.
She shouldn’t think about that. It was said in the heat of a moment, and that moment had passed.
He found her pills and brought her a glass of water. He set it on the table, then helped her ease into a chair.
“Thanks. I’m more sore than I was this morning, oh my God.”
“Hopefully this is the worst of it, then.” He stepped back, giving her space, but his gaze lingered on her shoulders. “Would a shoulder rub help?”
She made a face.
He laughed.
“No laughing,” she muttered, her sides hurting.
He sobered up immediately. “I promise to make it as clinical as humanly possible.”
She shook her head slightly. Just a little, because any more would twinge too much. “Thank you, but I’m okay.”
“You look okay. Really comfortable.” He gave her another worried look, then returned to cooking.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Stew.”
“It smells good. Can I help?”
“You can sit there and wait for the painkillers to kick in.”
Which took almost exactly as long as it took for him to finish adding stuff to the stew.
As he put a lid on the pot and turned to say, “I’ll let that simmer for an hour,” she rolled her neck and said, “I think the good stuff just started working again.”
He gave her a relieved smile. “Good.”
And then his phone, which was sitting on the table near her, started playing a song about Saturday night. Loudly.
“Sorry,” he muttered, snatching it and stabbing at the screen. “That’s my hockey alarm.”
“It’s Sunday night,” she teased.
“Saturday night vibes can happen on Sunday sometimes, too.” He tapped on the screen. “Just gotta tell the group chat that I’m not watching tonight.”
As he was typing, the lights flickered, then the power cut out. The light coming in through the window was dim, but enough to illuminate the room softly.
Josh cursed under his breath. “I was waiting for that to happen.”
Monica glanced around. Without the hum of the fridge or the tick of his electric stove, the apartment was suddenly very quiet.
“I have a generator,” he said. “It’ll kick on automatically in a minute.”
Sure enough, after a few seconds of silence, the generator outside started up with a low hum, and the lights flickered back to life.
Josh went around and turned them all off, leaving only the stove and the fridge drawing power.
