Ocean (Damage Control 5)

Oh, to hell with it. Taking a deep breath, I head to the bedroom and fingers crossed I’m not overstepping any boundaries.

***

The door is shut, but when I lean my hand on it, it slides open. It’s dark inside, but the light from the living room cuts a yellow rectangle on the floor and the bed.

He’s sitting there, hands buried in his hair. He turns to squint at me, his face a pale shape, his eyes glinting. “What?”

I flinch. “The soup is ready. Come and eat.”

“Not now, Kay.”

It’s obvious he shut his door on purpose. Maybe I should backtrack and leave him in peace. But his voice is hoarse, and it twists something inside me.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he whispers.

He always says that. I take a tentative step inside.

Maybe it’s a mistake, but I want to comfort him. Besides, friends do that all the time, right? Break the rules and worry about each other. Though I’m not sure about the kissing and making out part.

“You can talk to me,” I say. “Maybe I can help. I’d like that.”

“Help?” The word is sharp like a blade, and it stops me in my tracks. “How? By making more soup?”

My God. It was a mistake all right. Stung, I curl my hands into fists. “Maybe if you ate some, you’d be in a better mood.”

“A better mood?” He gives an incredulous bark of laughter. “Think you can fix what is wrong? Fix me? That what you thought?”

“Whatever I thought was obviously wrong,” I mutter, bitterness welling inside me. “I thought we were friends, and that you’d trust me to tell me what is bothering you.”

“Yeah, you were wrong,” he says, and his quiet voice somehow makes it worse.

Turning on my heel, I march out of his room. I barely have the presence of mind to grab my purse and coat from the back of a chair in his living room before I walk out of his apartment and into the night.

I’m so angry I’m shaking.

Was I just another girl on his trophy list? Was he relieved to scratch my name off? Was the soup a lame pretext to get me into his kitchen and feel me up?

Screw you, Ocean Storm. The cards were lying. You don’t need my help. It’s obvious you don’t need anybody but yourself.

***

“You don’t hate him,” Amber says, clicking thoughtfully through a series of pictures of my latest clothes line. She’s added my clothes to her already successful jewelry website, helping me sell enough to give up my previous jobs and focus on what I like doing best. “You’re just upset.”

“I want to wring his neck.” I’m holding my latest creation, a red skirt, putting the finishing touches—or attempting to put them, at least. I’m curled up on our couch,

and I can’t help remembering Jason on Ocean’s sofa and wondering if he’s better today. “Slowly.”

It’s toasty warm inside our apartment, though not as warm as inside Ocean’s. He likes it warm, he said. As if it’s a luxury for him and he can’t help himself.

And here I am, reading things into what he says. Again. You’d think by now I’d have learned my lesson, but no.

“You don’t mean that. I thought I hated JJ at first, but now I realize I was only scared. Scared of falling for him. Of not being what he wanted.”

“I’m not scared. Drink your tea,” I say, a bit more sharply than I intended. “Otherwise I can’t read the leaves.”

Amber snickers quietly, unfazed. Damn. She knows me far too well. “You read my tea leaves an hour ago. I don’t think my fate has changed so much already.”