.”
“Oh my God!” I jumped up as Mark wobbled on his legs. Moving his weight from one foot to the other. His arms were reaching out for something to grab onto as he started to topple over.
“GOT YOU!” I yelled, rushing up to him, grabbing him around the waist. But he was heavy, and his body was sinking and . . .” Okaaaay, maybe I don’t quite have you,” I said, heaving and breathing loudly as I tried to hold him up. But his weight was pulling me down and I couldn’t fight it. My legs were doing the splits dangerously as we both sort of slithered down to the floor slowly.
“Oh crap!” We were both on the floor now. Mark on top of me, me with my legs wide open, him in between. So inappropriate! #AwksAF
Why was I making hashtags in my head? #wtf
“Um . . .” I mumbled, against his chest. “You okay?”
I felt him take a big breath, and then heard him clear his throat as he peeled himself off me and into a sitting position. I quickly closed my very open legs.
“Fine. Sorry. Fine,” Mark said, looking embarrassed. His once white cheeks were now flushed a bright shade of red, and he still had a little bit of blood trickling from his nose. I still couldn’t tell if he hadn’t realized he was naked, or if he just didn’t care. But he was making no effort to cover the thing. I tried not to look. But it was hard. Wait . . . it wasn’t hard. He wasn’t hard, well, I hoped not. What I mean is, it was hard not to look. Not . . . Oh crap, why couldn’t I stop saying the word “hard” in my head?
And that’s when it looked like he finally, finally got it. Because there was such a fast scurry happening now, I could see it out of the corner of my eye. There was jumping, and cushions went flying and a blanket flapped in the air before he wrapped it around himself. Once the activity was all over, a deathly silence settled between us. It went on for ages, until he finally broke it.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, sounding angry and accusatory.
“Mmmm,” I mumbled, “that’s kind of complicated.”
I finally turned and looked at him. He was looking at his watch. “Two a.m. complicated?” He raised his eyebrows at me and I didn’t know what to say. I opted for the truth.
“Harun stole my phone and then he ran all the way here. Which he shouldn’t have done, because of the surgery. I had to follow him in my car and that’s why I’m here. To get my phone . . .” I bent down and picked it up and then slipped it into the pocket in my gown. More silence between us. I hoped this explanation was vaguely believable, because when I heard it coming out of my mouth I barely believed it myself. It was right up there with “Sorry, ma’am, an alien stole my assignment.”
We both looked over at Harun at the same time and I wished I knew what Mark was thinking. Whether he believed my story, or thought I was a complete creep. And then his eyes moved back to me and I stood up straight and uncomfortable as he flicked them up and down my body.
What was he looking at?
“Oh,” I said flatly when I looked down. I was in my nightie and a thin satin gown. “I was in a hurry,” I added defensively, just in case he thought I’d come here to seduce him. Not that I was wearing red lace or anything, but still.
“You sleep naked!” I snapped, trying to move the focus away from what I was wearing to what he was not wearing.
“It’s not like I was expecting company!” he retorted.
“Still, you shouldn’t sleep like that,” I said. “Not here.”
“It’s my home. I can sleep naked if I want.”
I gestured around us. “In case you hadn’t noticed, your house is in the middle of the desert. Dangerous. No fences. Snakes, possibly jackals. And I would imagine that if you had to run away from a hungry predator, that thing,” I pointed a little south of his belly button, “flapping about and all, it might attract . . . you know. They might think it was an animal running, a mouse or something—”
“MOUSE?!” He choked on the word and I realized my faux pas.
“You know