Page 32 of Take What Hurts

Mackenzie’s brain finally caught up. Finally ground hard enough into gear to understand. Elliott hadn’t thought Mackenzie wanted her. Hadn’t recognized the way Mackenzie’s body radiated desire and want and heat whenever she laid eyes on her. Hadn’t seen the awkward attempts to initiate conversation, to prolong conversation. None of it. Mackenzie could have laughed. The hope that had bloomed in her chest was stubbornly rooted there now, and Mackenzie’s stomach lurched at the thought of how much it would hurt to pull it up.

“Elliott. Stop. You are exceptional. In every way.” She was breathless with the admission. Lightheaded with relief. “And I want you. Very much. So much that holding it in was becoming a distraction, you know?” Then her stomach dropped out of her body. Because what if she was reading this whole thing wrong? What if Elliott was not only not on the same page, but not anywhere near the same book? Throat thick with impending embarrassment, she continued quickly, “Unless⁠—”

“I know,” Elliott murmured, eyes warm, pupils huge. And, fuck. The space behind Mackenzie’s eyes prickled.

Elliott’s dark eyes reflected the glow of the streetlamp, and Mackenzie swallowed around the growing lump in her throat. “You—you know?”

Elliott stepped closer again until they were less than an inch from each other. “I know. How you feel.” Mackenzie saw the slight twitch of Elliott’s hand. Like it was fighting to reach out and touch.

Mackenzie wasn’t clear on why her body was having such an emotional reaction. Maybe it was the relief that came with the understanding that maybe she wasn’t broken, and it wasn’t her, and she wasn’t unwantable. Or maybe it was because she knew, without a doubt, that no matter what they said to each other right now, they couldn’t have each other. Elliott’s slender, twitching hand, the hand that Mackenzie had watched shred napkins and coasters on the high-top table all night, that she’d desperately wanted to reach out and still, won the battle and moved toward Mackenzie. Slowly, hesitantly. Like her body was actively warring with her mind and the slow movement was consuming all her effort, because the desire for the movement itself took no effort at all.

When Elliott’s soft palm finally, finally, landed on Mackenzie’s cheek, the spark of connection crackled in Mackenzie’s bones and the goose bumps erupted on every inch of her skin. Her knees went weak, and she leaned into the touch like she would die if it went away. When Elliott’s thumb stroked gently across the soft skin under her eye, Mackenzie felt more than heard the soft “hmm” leave the back of her throat.

“I know because I feel the same way.” Elliott’s voice was barely even a whisper, but Mackenzie caught every word and clutched hold of each one like it was a lifeline. Mackenzie lifted her own hand to cover Elliott’s, running her fingers over the swell of her knuckles. She lifted her eyes to Elliott’s before they dropped, not entirely involuntarily, to her mouth. Because Mackenzie wanted. The gap between them was so small, and for a moment Mackenzie contemplated just… eliminating it. Consequences be damned.

But before she could, Elliott squeezed her eyes closed and pulled her hand away, and Mackenzie’s legs wobbled with the loss of contact. “But, Mackenzie, we can’t. You know we can’t.”

The words exited Elliott’s mouth and landed like a bomb. They eviscerated any trace of hope in Mackenzie’s body, and she worried she’d collapse with it. A hot wave rose in her raw throat and burned like she’d swallowed jet fuel. Swallowing around the aftertaste of rejection, she sucked in a breath and, with effort, took a step back. “I know. You’re right. We can’t.”

The silence was viscous, and as it threatened to suffocate, Mackenzie saw something give in Elliott’s face, and that tentative bloom of hope grew inside her like a fucking phoenix. “But this matter… it won’t last forever, you know?” Elliott asked.

Mackenzie wanted to believe her. She did. But Anna was already making noises about revoking her latest offer. Already talking about putting everyone through another useless roundtable conference. She couldn’t say any of that to opposing counsel on the street, in the middle of the night, when they’d just confessed they wanted each other. So instead, she said: “Yeah, you’re right.”

Elliott nodded, a plastic grin that Mackenzie hated to see in place of her loose, easy smile, there but not reaching her eyes. “So until it’s over, I feel like we could, maybe, hang out. As friends? Do friend stuff? Opposing counsel can be friends. It’s encouraged, even.”

Yes. Every atom in her body screamed the word, and Mackenzie’s eyes shuttered closed, the relief that she could talk freely to Elliott—text her, see her, hang out with her, and that this wouldn’t just… be gone—dizzying. A cheek-aching smile spread across Mackenzie’s face, and when she opened her eyes, that loose, easy grin that made Mackenzie’s skin run hot was back in its rightful place, plastered across Elliott’s face. Finally, she managed to get the words out. “I’d like that.”

And she would. Because for now, until this file was finished, she could have the best of both worlds. She could still get the best result for her client and make partner. She could still have Elliott in her orbit. Now she needed to get her shit together, because she could not, under any circumstances, let Elliott learn what a disaster she was behind the curtain.

SEVENTEEN

ELLIOTT

Elliott wasn’t sure what had come over her that evening two weeks ago, but when she’d reached out and touched the soft skin of Mackenzie’s cheek, cold in the dead of the Seattle night, she’d learned the touch was an intravenous drug, and it had warmed Elliott all the way to her marrow. It was a high that stemmed from Mackenzie wanting her. And not as a person to mentor, or as a colleague, or… whatever. Mackenzie wanted her the way Elliott wanted Mackenzie. And it was thrilling in that it was so unusual.

Figured that the first person she’d met organically that she was attracted to, who was attracted to her, and who, Elliott thought, was interested in more than just a good fuck, was someone who was so entirely off the table she might as well have been in a different galaxy.

Which was a pity, she thought, as Mackenzie climbed out of the passenger side of Elliott’s Subaru, because she was the most radiant person Elliott had ever seen, in her dark, slim-leg sweatpants and Stanford Law sweater. Elliott had to physically stop herself from reaching out to run her hand down the fishtail braids Mackenzie had her hair in and play with the strands that had escaped.

Since their impromptu night at Anthony’s, they had texted. Almost nonstop. About absolutely nothing, and everything. They asked each other about their days, speaking in the vague manner lawyers often did with others about the cases they were working on, giving suggestions where they could. They never crossed the line and spoke about their matter in common, and there wasn’t anything to discuss anyway, with Matilda still considering the offer. Otherwise, they talked about the music they liked—both big fans of Taylor Swift, Fletcher, and G Flip, as well as the emo-punk bands that characterized their youth—and their favorite movies and weekend activities outside of skiing.

Elliott’s heart had fluttered every time her phone alerted her to a new message from Mackenzie, and she’d resorted to stuffing it in a drawer during the workday and resolutely ignoring each vibrating alert until she couldn’t take the itching and twitching in her fingers anymore. Then she would pull the phone out, smiling like a fool as she devoured Mackenzie’s words on the screen.

On Thursday night, Elliott’s body aching for any proximity to Mackenzie outside a phone screen and warring with her mind—which told her to stop making herself a glutton for punishment—Elliott’s body had won and she had texted Mackenzie.

Elliott 7:08PM

You up for a ski weekend? I was thinking about going up to the Pass tomorrow evening.

Mackenzie 7:09PM

I’m in. When do you want to leave?

Elliott 7:09PM

Was thinking I’d work the day and head out around 4:30. Try and beat the traffic out of town. Work for you?

I’ll drive?