“I know that expression.” He nods to my face.
Beckman knows nothing of my real life, so I don’t care or listen when he doles out advice; like when he scanned me in the locker room my first day and blurted, “If you are here to escape abuse you came to the wrong place with that face.”
Yet, for the first time he has deciphered my feelings and emotions before I can even properly sort them. I dofeelsomething, and it is more than happiness that Kalyan is safe and that I will get information from Sims. It’s something close to awe.
Beckman is still shaking his head at the snow scene when Sims appears behind us. They both look as stunned as I feel. “Where did you find him?” Sims asks me.
I didn’t find him so much as he was ordered to follow me here. I can’t say that, though. “Doesn’t matter. You got a good show out of it.”
Sims grunts in agreement.
“Now, let’s talk payment.”
Fifteen minutes I wait in Jaya’s solitary closet of a room nursing my shoulder. After that, I succumb to the dread that Jaya might not return. Officially ditched after winning for her and her mission? Gods, that’s rough. I contemplate going home or wandering around like a lost dog to make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble, but that sounds pathetic and a little too much like the stalker fan Sims first believed I was.
Then she appears in the doorway.
“Hey.” I jerk upright, sending a wrenching spasm down my back.
Jaya straddles the bench beside me. “It feel as bad as it looks?”
I swing my leg over the bench so I’m facing her. “No.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She looks at me expectantly, like I’m suddenly going to admit it does hurt, that my jaw feels as if it unhinged and smashed onto the floor or my shoulder is about to tear off. But her presence makes me lighter, happier. I wasn’t forgotten or abandoned.
Jaya sighs. “You did well.”
“Because I didn’t die or because I won?”
“Because you didn’t die.” She laughs and rests one hand on my hurt shoulder. I look at it, then her. The world pauses and my breath hitches. She is very close.
“Jaya—” She gently squeezes my shoulder and I wince and jerk at the throbbing pain. “What the—”
“You were just going to sit here talking to me with a tear in your rotator cuff?”
“I…” The truth is I had already sent some pink magic in to fix it the moment I stepped out of the ring, but I can’t say that. “How did you know?”
“Can do pink magic, remember?” She points at herself.
“Oh,” I say dumbly. But how could she tell? What kind of spell is that, to diagnose me from meters away or through a light touch of her hand.
She tilts her head. “Does Raja Jatin know you are here?”
Oh Gods, she knows I lied. She can sense the pink magic I used to try to reduce the pain in my shoulder. “He, well, he…” I suck in a large breath. “Yes, he knows.”
She doesn’t seem to like the answer, but accepts it with a hard nod. Then she reaches into a nearby locker and brings out an orb of pink goo. “Okay, then I don’t have to do a complete conceal job.”
“What?”
“You can’t do healing magic, right? I’m not going to leave you like this.” She gestures to me like I’m broken. “I have to clean myself up all the time.” She points at her lips. Again, she makes me focus on them, and I get a little more aroused. I almost wish she would stop doing it. Almost…
“Ax busted up my lower lip earlier and now it’s good. Proof I know what I’m doing,” she clarifies.
“I didn’t doubt that.”
“Okay.” She waits uneasily. “It’s easier without your kurta.”
I raise my eyebrows, and the right side of my mouth twitches upward on its own.
