"I’m not on break, I was looking for you."
"Am I the only sap in this building who takes a break when she’s supposed to?"
"I’m pretty sure you are," she agreed with a laugh, ignoring the dirty look from Puldra. "Don’t worry about me this weekend, I’ll be fine. I promise to call Silva if something happens, she can make bunny squeaks through the phone at whoever is threatening me, I’m sure that will work. Have fun at mudball."
She left the breakroom to the sound of Lurielle’s snort, turning over her friend’s words.A weekend entrée is exactly what you need. And if you can’t find one, then you just relax. And then on Monday, we start the fuck buddy plus search. It’s a perfect plan.
♥ ♥ ♥
Silva
"Fuckmmmmgggghhh"
Silva paused at the unintelligible curse he yelped into the pillow, easing up the pressure of her elbow as it ground into the base of his neck. The long, gentle strokes she’d made against his skin with her oil-slickened hands had not pulled any reaction from him, while the application of her thumbs had at least shed some clarity on the topography of knots and bunched muscles she was working with, the physical evidence of the appalling care he took of himself Monday through Friday when she wasn’t around.. Her hands weren’t strong enough to dig into his knotted muscles and she knew better than to tell him he ought to see a professional, so she’d stripped off the sorority hoodie she’d worn on her drive and dug into his back with knuckles and elbows, pressing her weight into each target until he’d begun to curse in both Elvish and Common, which she decided was a sign her efforts were yielding the necessary result. She’d discovered that pressing into the vertebrae at the base of his neck at an angle, as she’d just done, made his entire body twitch, and she was certain it was the source of a significant amount of his pain.
"Too much pressure? Are you okay?"
Tate weakly lifted his head from the pillow, squinting in the lamplight.
"Oh, I’m grand, dove. You can get one of the heavy-duty bin bags from the stockroom tomorrow morning. Just push me down the stairs and drag me to the alley. Trash pick-up is Tuesday." He settled his face into the pillow once more as she laughed, his voice muffled as he continued. "Do that bit again, I felt that in my toes."
Silva huffed, leaning forward to press her lips to the back of his long neck, inhaling a deep lungful of the wild forest smell of his skin, still warm from the scalding hot shower he’d stood under a short while earlier. He groaned when she dug her elbow into the same spot, digging in from the side with a firm, rolling pressure, and was unable to hold back her self-satisfied grin. Despite the weekend’s inauspicious start, everything was going exactly to plan, the makings of her very own perfect romance unfolding in the apartment above the Plundered Pixie.
There had been a panicked moment shortly after her arrival that evening, when she’d beamed down from the landing at the top of the stairs where she’d been sitting, her smile freezing and fading at Tate’s stricken look.He forgot you were coming. He doesn’t want you here. He probably already made plans.It had been a little over two months since the weekend she’d rode shotgun with Lurielle, returning to the resort town for the first time since the girls’ weekend trip. Silva knew that she was likely in the way on the weekends she came to visit him, feared her presence was a hindrance to his productivity and that he probably breathed a sigh of relief when she left on Sunday afternoons. Even if her suspicions were true, Tate did a quality job of hiding it week after week.
His mischievous smile would stretch the moment she met his gaze from across the bar, a long-fingered hand dragging down her spine when she would raise up on her toes to kiss him in greeting after she’d pushed through the press of huge patrons. More than that, Silva had noted over the past weeks, his eyes would light like a child’s on solstice morning, a shine they would hold until she departed, kissing her softly at her car window, urging her to drive carefully and have a good week. "Fly away, little dove," he would whisper against her lips; would stand in the alley and watch her departure, his silhouette shrinking in her rearview mirror until she turned back onto the road. He washappyto see her on the weeks she made the drive to the resort town, even if she was in his way, she was certain of it.
The look on his face that evening, as he’d gazed up from the bottom of the Pixie’s staircase, had been anything but happy. His expression had been pinched, his posture tight and uncharacteristically inelegant, and his eyes, rather than lighting at the sight of her, only looked tired.
"Dove." His voice was a croak, absent the lilting ring it normally held, and he’d hesitated, glancing back at something she was unable to see, his body seeming to fight with itself on which direction it wanted to move. For the briefest moment, she’d thought he was going to turn his back on her, choosing whatever was behind. The moment passed and he groaned, beginning the ascent up the narrow staircase with a wince. Silva struggled to her feet, her self-pitying internal monologue halting as she remembered her raison d'être for the weekend. He’d not had a day off in ages, was exhausted and aggravated and in desperate need of rest, even though the wordsweekend offhad initially conjured images of romantic candlelit dinners and nights spent panting and tangled in his sheets, the notion of playing nursemaid for the weekend made her positively giddy.Caretaker trope!
"I’m not going to be particularly good company this weekend, Silva." Another grunt once he’d reached the top of the landing, swaying as he fished for his keys, not protesting when she pulled them from his clumsy hands.
"You don’t need to be good company because all we’re doing is resting, remember? Jammies. Breakfast in bed. Bad television. That’s it, mister. I brought dinner from the club for tonight and tomorrow, and I'll pick up take-out for lunch. You’re not doing anything but getting into bed. Are you sick?" He grunted in response, an unintelligible grumble in response to her question, hardly the warm response she’d been hoping for.
"Not sick, I never get sick . . . but my cunting spine has the fucking audacity to beOrcish." He raised an accusing finger, glaring down at her with another wince as she unlocked the door. "Donottell me to go see a doctor. I’ve always had a bad back, this isn’t anything new. There’s nothing some know-nothing troll scoff out of med school three minutes will be able to tell me I don’t already know. I just need to be off my feet for more than a few hours. Resting sounds perfect." He staggered over the threshold as she gathered up her bags, raising her head to see his wrinkled nose as he considered her words. "But no eating in bed, that’s disgusting. Crumbs will get in the sheets, that’s how you wind up with brownies."
