Joan turned to go. “Are you coming?” she asked.
Orchid faced her boss. “Not yet, you go ahead,” she said.
Dex escorted Joan out.
Slipping her Fort Knox bag off her shoulder and onto the ground by her feet, Orchid stepped towards Phoenix. Liv took a position in front of him, blocking her access.Move, wench. Liv’s lips pressed into a tight line as if she could read Orchid’s thoughts.
“How’d you enjoy the show?” Phoenix asked, his speaking to her like honey to her ears.
She tumbled head first into his deep blue gaze. “Show?” she asked, still addled.
“Dolce?” he reminded her, his voice cool.
“I wasn’t feeling well. I had to leave early,” she said, truthfully, remembering her roiling stomach over the thought that Phoenix would soon be married. “How’s Tish?”
“I haven’t talked to her since then. She’s probably running around with last minute stuff for her wedding.”Herwedding.
Orchid nodded and took a step to the left, trying to skirt Liv. The persistent assistant parried well, mirroring her movements so she could get no closer to Phoenix.
“Are you okay? What happened?” she asked. Suddenly, she wanted to touch him, comfort him, because she could feel his pain. Perhaps her overreaction to trauma wasn’t just her own demon. She was experiencing empathy. She stepped closer, drawn to smooth away the hurt she could see in his eyes. She wanted to do so for him, and for herself.
He glanced down at himself, as if he’d forgotten what might cause her to ask.
Liv looked from Phoenix’s ducked head and tight lines around his eyes to Orchid slipping closer. A flush of pink rose from her neck over her cheeks until it reached her hairline. She stretched her petite stature taller, growing rigid, hands balled, and then exploded.
“You have some nerve!” she shouted, stomping the two steps to reach Orchid, fists jabbing with every word.
Instinctively, Orchid stumbled back, avoiding the child-sized knuckles. “Hey, I didn’t do—”
She’d forgotten her computer lay in the bulky bag on the ground. The heel of her shoe caught on the metal grommets and her ankle twisted on the Fort Knox of purses, toppling. She slammed to the right, one shoulder crashing against the delicate case along the transparent wall. With a sharp sound like crystal chandeliers in a windstorm, she broke through the fragile surface.
Shards exploded and stabbed her hair and skin.
Phoenix and Liv stared at her, frozen with surprise, then horror.
She swayed, fighting to right herself against the frame of the case.
“Oh, my God.” Phoenix sprinted to Orchid’s side, glass crunching below his feet. He yelled at Liv. “Call an ambulance!”
Liv fled.
“No, no hospitals,” Orchid said, clawing against a strange heaviness to stagger to her feet. “I’m okay,” she reassured him. She didn’t understand why her vision blurred and her legs buckled.
Muscular arms supported her torso and slowed her slump to the ground. She held him too. She inhaled his scent that had only echoed in her imagination these past six months.
“What happened to you? Are you okay?”
Phoenix looked her all over, then whipped the shirt out from under his waistband and pressed it against her forehead.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, “let’s focus on you right now.”
Cradled against his crouched stance, she followed the path his eyes took to see her white outfit spattered with red streaks, new rivulets crossing old ones to form a kaleidoscope of ever-changing streams. Feeling faint, her eyes closed.
“Orchid,” he said, voice tight, “you stick with me, you hear me?”
She looked up at him. “No doctors.”
He pressed harder at the source of the red river. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. His tone was compassionate in contrast to his prior aloofness.
