I am either concussed as fuck, or Ella Rujkowski just asked me to “deflower” her.
Baby Rookie asked me to put my penis in her vagina, stood up, rinsed her bowl, told me to think about it, and waltzed into her room as casually as if she’d asked me for a ride to work.
Which, what the fuck. She should not be taking the bus to that part of town in the dark.
My brain throbs, and the blood circles my crotch as I try to make sense of the world right now. Should I go wake up Jason and tell him what I probably hallucinated?
I want you to deflower me.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and try to think about literally anything else—forechecking strategy. Penalty kill rotations. The trajectory of a puck off the—nope, I'm thinking about Ella's mouth forming the word "deflower" again.
Here's the thing: every instinct I have says yes. I've wanted her since the airport, when I didn't even know it was her. I was hard against her this morning, and I'm half hard now on this stupid couch just from the memory of her voice, steady and clinical, laying out her proposition between bites of Gianna's meatballs.
But she said it like it would be a task. Like picking up dry cleaning. Like I'm a service provider, and she's got a coupon.
And that—I shift on the couch, staring at the ceiling where the streetlights paint long yellow streaks—that's what's messing with me. The reality of Ella’s situation lines up for me like coach’s notes on the whiteboard.
Nobody helps her with anything. Ever.
She’s fresh out of college in a new city, taking the damn bus to work at nightmare o’clock in the morning in January. How did she even know what bus to take? I have no clue how to ride the bus, now that I think about it.
Does Jason know any of this? Or is he too busy monitoring his lucky shoulder pads?
It dawns on me that Ella Rujkowski has been solving her own problems in the margins of other people's lives since she was a kid in the back of that SUV.
I told her I owe her, and maybe I owe her more than I thought when I said it.
I'm standing in the kitchen with my keys in my hand when she comes out of my bedroom in scrubs, hair pulled back, badge clipped to her pocket. She's got a bag over one shoulder, and she's moving quietly, clearly trying not to wake anyone.
She stops when she sees me.
"What are you doing?"
"Driving you to work."
"Bernard, you don't have to?—"
"Get in the car, Ella."
She stares at me for a second. I watch her run the calculation—argue with me, or get a warm ride to work instead of standing at a bus stop in the dark. Practicality wins.
The G-Wagon is freezing when we climb in, but I started it remotely from across the parking garage, so the heated seats are already cooking by the time we get inside. Ella sinks into the leather and lets out a tiny, involuntary sigh of satisfaction that goes straight through me like a blade. I grip the steering wheel and focus on backing out of the parking spot.
We drive in silence for a few blocks. The city is dark and empty, just us and delivery trucks and the occasional bus lumbering along its route. The one she'd be standing in the cold waiting for right now.
She doesn't bring up “the question.” I don't either. But the air in the car is different—heavier, charged—and I'm aware of her in the passenger seat the way you're aware of a bruised rib when you’re sitting still.
She's got no makeup on. Her scrubs are Oxford blue. She looks like someone who saves lives for a living, because she does, and I have no business being this attracted to a woman in hospital-issued polyester.
I pull up to the entrance at Mercy, and she unclips her seatbelt. "Thank you, Bernard."
"I'll pick you up after your shift. What time?"
“That’s not necess?—“
"What time, Ella?"
She presses her lips together. I think she's trying not to smile. "Seven-thirty.”
