“And this amusement at you falling down is the most promising opening you’ve had with her yet?” Veikko asks.
Sheesh. Whenheputs itthatway, itreallydoesn’t seem hopeful.
“Seems so,” I repeat, more glumly this time.
Carmen’s still standing in front of the administrative building, looking at something on her phone.
She glances up as the three of us get closer to where she’s standing. Her eyes find me. My heart clenches.
“Well, if nothing else is working,” I hear Veikko say in a musing tone next to me.
Then, my eyes aren’t on Carmen anymore. Because Veikko sticks his leg out, my foot snags on it as I step forward, and once again in Carmen’s presence, I crash to the ground.
It feels like I fall through a panel of thin, weak glass when my frame crushes into the frosted surface of cold, week-old snow.
Somehow, I feel like if I look up and see Carmen laughing at me this time, it won’t feel quite as uplifting.
When I do lift my head, I see Carmen. But she’s not laughing. She’s marching across the snow, a fiery look in her eyes with her brow pinched tight and her lips a thin, hostile slash across her face.
“What the hell was that!” she demands, her strident voice sending a rattle of dread up my spine even though it’s not directed at me.
It’s directed at Veikko.
Veikko is usually unshakeable. I’ve never seen him look worried or concerned. But his eyes snap open at Carmen’s words, culpability radiating from him like he’s a schoolboy receiving a well-deserved reprimand.
“I, well, umm …” Veikko stammers, taken aback and looking guilty.
Carmen doesn’t let up. Thinking nothing of the fact that Veikko’s about three times bigger than her, she sets her features even harder and steps toward him, her shoulders square and her gaze sharp.
It’s like there’s a blaze of fire around her. She tilts her chin up, self-assurance and protectiveness pulsing off her in waves.
Protectiveness for … me?
“You tripped him!” Her brow lowers even more. “Are you trying to deny it?”
“No,” Veikko answers.
My jaw hangs open. I’m too focused on Carmen’s small, feisty form as she dresses down my gargantuan teammate to even think of getting up.
She straightens her tiny index finger and jabs it into Veikko’s massive slab of a chest. “Don’t do it again.”
Veikko blinks, dumbfounded. “I won’t.”
Carmen turns to me. Her expression softens. My chest softens, too.
“Jamie, are you okay?”
A smile crawls over my face. “Never better.”
That’s the truth. Carmen laughed when she saw me fall on my own—only after she knew I was okay. When she saw someone trip me, she was almost ready to rip their head off.
Maybe she just has a crusader’s mentality. Maybe it has nothing to do with me at all. But it does show she’s not totally indifferent to my existence.
Some of the fire seeps out of her eyes, along with some of the steel in her demeanor.
Carmen looks down with a curious expression at my stupid smile, then glances at Veikko and Sebastian.
She huffs. “Men,” she grumbles with a roll of her eyes, before turning around and walking off.
