I found him in his garage, doing what looked like some routine checks or maintenance on the new ambulance.
I attempted to greet him, but couldn’t, as my tongue had very helpfully decided to stop working. He heard me coming, though, and put down the small tool he’d been holding.
“How did you sleep?” He asked. He leaned his hip against the front of the ambulance and crossed his arms over his broad chest. His gaze was keen. Assessing.
“Um. Good, I think. Except for the, ah, location.” I twiddled my fingers together in front of myself. “I don’t really remember how I ended up in your bed.”
“You were feeling the effects of Rivven’s alcohol,” he said. “You mistakenly entered my room instead of yours and collapsed onto the bed. I tried to convince you to rise and go to your own room, but you would not.”
“Oh. Ha. Yikes. Sorry about that.”
“It is no great matter,” he said, picking up a new tool for the slicer. “There is no need to apologize.”
“I just feel bad I drunkenly stole your bed!” I said. Overall, though, I was relieved. Sounded like the worst thing I’d done was fall asleep in the wrong place. “Where did you sleep?”
“After you released my arm,” he said, “I slept on the kitchen floor.”
“You should have slept in my bed! Now I feel even worse! Wait.”
What he’d said before finally made it all the way through my liquor-soaked brain cells.
“Did you just say, ‘After I released your arm?’”
“Yes.” He gave some unseen bolt a torque check while I gaped at him. “You grasped my wrist with both your hands and would not permit me to leave.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Is that all I did?” I asked fretfully. “I didn’t try to, like, guide your hand anywhere weird after I grabbed it, did I?”
“Anywhere weird? Like where?” He seemed truly perplexed by my question. Sweet, innocent little virgin Warden Hallum.
Or big virgin Warden Hallum. No one could possibly call any part of that man little.
“Just…anywhere weird! Like…”
Like between my legs.
“You did not attempt to do anything with my arm besides hug it in your sleep,” he said.
That was something, at least. Still embarrassing. But not life-ending.
Ready to move on from this conversation, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Rivven told me about Xennet. About how you came here with him.”
Even though I hadn’t really meant to, I was glad I’d said it. I didn’t want him to not know that I knew.
“I told you this myself,” he said, giving another bolt a torque check. The tool clicked loudly. “It is no great secret.”
“You didn’t tell me it was Xennet.”
“Ah. No. I suppose I did not.”
“Rivven mentioned that it was common knowledge. He seemed to think Xennet wouldn’t mind me knowing.”
“Rivven is probably right. Xennet is a very open sort of person.”
“But you’re not.”
