“Oh, you’re out,” Brody said, and I heard his voice abruptly cut off as he looked around and actually saw me. I shot him a sideways glance. He was staring at me with his mouth open.
Like, come on. He’d seen me with my shirt off before.
“Did you get that hangover cure?” I asked. Anything to stop the throbbing in my head, at least.
“Oh, yeah,” Brody said. He got up from where he was sitting – on the side of his bed – and rushed towards me with a glass in his hand. It sloshed towards the edge in a… well, not a completely liquid kind of way. I squinted suspiciously at it.
“What is this? And where did you get it?” I asked the two most pressing questions that came to mind.
“I went down to the kitchen and convinced them to make it for us,” he grinned. “Trust me. It’s super tasty.”
“The kitchen,” I repeated. “Not the bar?”
“It’s made with real fruit,” Brody said, lifting the glass towards me again encouragingly. “Go on. I already drank mine, and I feel great. No more headache.”
I was suspicious, but…
I did want to get rid of this throbbing in my head.
I sighed and took the glass, tilting my head back to drink as much of it as I could in one go in case it was disgusting.
“Oh,” I said, blinking as I lowered the glass. “It’s… really good.” The taste of real fruit was strong – tart, sweet, refreshing, and exotic, all at once. The texture was slightly thicker than the average soup, like it would drip rather than run from a spoon, but that only added to the impression that I was eating a whole fruit bowl in each mouthful.
“Right?” Brody grinned. I watched his eyes travel over my body again before flicking back up to my face. “You’ll feel better pretty quick, too.”
I cleared my throat and turned back to the closet, using my free hand to grab some clothes from the hangers. “Right. Shower’s free.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Brody said. He lingered for a second as if disappointed. I clenched my jaw and refused to turn around until he disappeared into the bathroom – and then I slumped when I heard the sound of the lock engaging.
I was doing my very best to put him off the idea of flirting with me. Looking at me with those eyes. Trying to kiss me again.
But now, alone in the room, a bitter taste in my mouth replaced the smoothie he’d had made for me.
Did I really want him to back off at all?
Ace
“It’s not that bad,” I said again, touching my ear gingerly. “Honestly. You can go back.”
I felt guilty. We’d left paintball early while everyone else was still playing – they had already paid for another round. All they had to do was switch paint colors to another set and carry on. But some idiot had to get himself knocked down and force Brody to leave and go back to the hotel to nursemaid him. I was the idiot, if that wasn’t clear.
“I don’t want to go back,” Brody said evenly, reaching for the room key from his pocket.
“It’s alright,” I insisted. “I’m actually fine. I think I’ll just wash the paint out of my hair and then wait for the others to get back.”
Brody made a noise deep in his throat that almost sounded like a growl. “You should rest.”
I sighed. I felt like an idiot. First, I’d been punched in the face by a jock hard enough to get a black eye. Now, I was probably going to have a… black ear? Whatever – an even bigger bruise on the side of my face. Brody probably thought I was some kind of accident-prone moron who needed watching constantly to avoid the smallest of injuries.
If we’d hung out more in years past, it might not have been so bad – but I was realizing now that, even though we’d been part of the same group of friends for a long time, I’d never actually made the effort to talk to him properly before this trip.
Maybe getting put in the same room as him was a blessing I didn’t recognize at the time.
“I’ll shower and then rest,” I said as Brody unlocked the door and opened it, motioning for me to go in first. “Resting and waiting are pretty similar, right? I don’t want to get red paint on the pillows.”
“Fine,” Brody said. He closed the door behind us and strode across the room, tossing the room card onto the side table. “But you have to actually relax. I’m not going to be able to watch you and make sure you do if I’m in the shower.”
“Oh, you need one, too?” I asked, looking up at him. He turned, showing me the side of his neck – paint had splattered up it and into the base of his hair, though it looked like his vest had taken the brunt of the actual impact.
