Chapter 16

They thought the radio silence was bad, but neither of them expected the sudden wave of texts that blew up their phones and it turned out to be even worse. It started around noon and the flow of messages and missed calls from William stayed steady until the unexpected happened and Mara snapped. Bottling up feelings is not good for you they say. Everything will come out all at once they say. Well they were right, and Mara has bottled up too much rage and exhaustion to keep it inside indefinitely.

But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here. First things first: they woke up, stayed in bed for a while, and had slow, lazy morning sex to seal their reconciliation.

Chris had started strewing kisses along Mara's jawline, earning soft moans and groans with each new one. She could feel his smile against her skin, and upon seeing her positive response to his advances he sneaked a hand under her shirt to grab a handful of her.

It honestly didn't matter where he put his hands because Mara was all delicious soft curves and warm tender skin. When she reached out for his neck and pulled him a little closer so she could end her torture and kiss him, she noticed Chris held his breath a millisecond before their lips connected. She wanted to be rough, she wanted to show him that she was still holding grudge against him for being a jerk yesterday but that she also needed him right now. However Chris was in too poor a state to be handled in any other way than gently. He had washed away the blood but it only made his wounds more visible.

There was a huge bruise on his right cheekbone, which was most likely fractured, a gash ran from his temple to his hairline, but it wasn't deep, it looked more like a scratch. Part of his left eyebrow was gone and a crust of blood replaced its extremity. A faint bruise was forming on his chin, as if someone punched him in the jaw from below.

For all these reasons, and despite it being widely out of character, whatever anger was left from yesterday's outburst vanished. Mara brushed Chris' hair out of his face to better look at him and the little smile along with the crinkles at the corner of his eyes finished to make her forgive him. For now. She could always get back at him when he'd be back in shape.

Mara took matters into her own hands this morning and demanded Chris stayed still and enjoyed the show while she stripped them of their clothes. The way he bit down on his lower lip and lustfully looked at her while she straddled him and rode him was a good enough indication that he was enjoying himself despite not being used to being inactive during sex.

"How do you like being bottom?" She smirked as she pulled him behind her and out of the guest room they had slept in.

"Not as boring as I thought it would be," he admitted, shrugging faintly. "Mara, I swear if you tell anyone you pinned me into the mattress, I'll sex starve you."

"Sex starve me?" She scoffed, unimpressed and not feeling threatened in the slightest. "That the best you got? You'll be the first one to give in!"

"Is that so? You think I have so little willpower?" He asked in a low chuckle as they entered the kitchen. "You'll be begging me before you know it."

"Is it a challenge?" Mara asked, ready to accept it.

She was only joking, but Chris didn't need to know that, she just wanted to see him freak out when he realised he fucked up and might be sex deprived for god knows how long because of a little too much teasing. The look of sudden panic in his eyes was priceless. Mara laughed, thus putting an end to his fright.

"Kiddin'," she said. "Proving you wrong is not worth denying myself some," Mara laughed.

The whole morning they acted as if nothing had happened at all – they weren't in denial and knew they would have to talk about it. But for now they needed a moment of carelessness and joyful teasing and bickering, no matter how domestic it felt. Mara forbade Chris from handling anything sharp on the ground that he was a masochistic ass who felt the constant need to endanger himself therefore she wouldn't allow him near a knife until he was fully healed. Then she stopped him from leaving the house when he tried to go to class. Go to class, can you believe that? The dude had his face broken, there wasn't a more legitimate reason to miss a few days of school than this one, and he wanted to go! The Yakuza must have hit him on the head too - and harder than she thought.

"No way!" Mara stood between Chris and the door, one hand each side of the wall to prevent his passage. "You're staying here, I'm not letting you out of my sight!"

"C'mon, Mara!" He groaned. "Don't be fucking dramatic, I'm fine! Look at me!"

"That's not an argument Chris, you always look fine as hell," she snickered, hoping flattery would help her win this argument. "But you're not, and if the teachers see you in this state, they'll call you dad."

She didn't know which of her arguments put an end to his obstinate protesting, but Chris dropped his backpack on the ground.

"You know if I wanted a babysitter I would've chosen another girlfriend than you," he replied.

"Too bad you're stuck with me now, huh?" Mara laughed, not even considering he could be serious. He was just a sore loser – like her.

Chris wrapped an arm around her frame and pulled her to his side as he said, "No idea how I deal with you."

It was a chaotic kind of happiness they felt this morning – a mixture of relief because their argument could have had worse consequences than simple bickering with a dash of sulking, and of apprehension of what might happen now.

Their postponed conversation was triggered by the sudden and simultaneous buzzing of both their phones. When they picked them up to check who on earth could text them both at the same time, their reaction was nothing short of pure shock.

"William," Chris said, gulping down and setting his phone back on the table, screen down.

He sent: Call me.

"Yes, William," Mara replied. "And... Noora?" She said.

A little notification told her she had added as a friend on facebook. Mara accepted the friendship request and suddenly she saw Noor typing a message.

"We're not answering," Chris stated, his decision final. Mara didn't say anything. She wanted to answer to her brother if only out of curiosity, but her pride – and Chris apparently – stood in the way.

"She's still typing-" Mara informed Chris, with a frown on her face.

He huffed and got off his chair, walking around the table to lean over Mara's shoulder and see what William's girlfriend had to say.

"Since when are you friends with her?" Chris asked while both of them contemplated the three little dots at the bottom on the screen.

"I'm- not really-" Mara hesitated. "We just talked yesterday, and then she introduced me to her friends. But I guess we've known each other for a while, indirectly."

As William's sister and girlfriend, they frequently heard him talk about each of them. It was like having a friend by proxy, in a sense.

"You think William has told her about you and I?" He asked her.

"I told her," Mara answered. "I mean, I told her we were dating – to silence the rumour about you being gay," she laughed. "She seemed surprised though, so I'm guessing Will forgot to tell her."

"Bragging about it already?" One of his eyebrows went up and he smirked down at her.

"You wish!"

Then Noora's message showed up in a little 'ding'. It said: I hope you and P-Chris are okay. Haven't seen you today and all the Penetrators showed up with bruises this morning. Nobody's heard from you, people are worried.

Another 'ding' was heard and a second message bubble appeared. And by 'people' I mean the girls and I.

"Looks like you have more friends than you thought," Chris said distractedly, still frowning at the messages. "See, they all went to school!"

"How many of them bled all over their floor after the fight though?" Mara asked purely rhetorically, clicking her tongue inside her cheek. "I'm keeping you locked in here whether you want it or not, at least until the end of the week."

It was Wednesday. Chris groaned but he knew better than to argue. He grabbed a chair and sat next to Mara, bringing the chair closer to hers in order to see her phone too. His phone began to buzz.

"Incoming call," he told her, not even looking at his phone. The personalized ring tone told him it was William. "What are you going to tell her?"

"The truth?" She said it like a question.

The two of them looked at each other for a few seconds and silently agreed on that. They were done with lies.

Hi! No need to worry, we're fine. Chris came home in pretty bad shape yesterday, he needs a few days to recover. You'll see us Monday, lookin' fresh and good!

"Now that's a little optimistic, even your black eye hasn't faded yet," Chris commented after reading the message Mara has typed.

"That's not the point, I don't want her or anyone else to worry and talk about us more than they already do," she sighed, putting the phone down after hitting send. "If we had gone today, we would have been a freak show."

"We would have been fucking heroes!" Chris protested. "We both still carry the scars the Yakuza gave us, but we kicked their asses. The boys talk about you, you know? They don't like it when strangers beat up one of theirs, especially not a girl."

"That's sexist," Mara said. "But I guess I understand your point. Do you want to be seen as a hero?"

It was a serious question, one that deserved a minute of pondering, but Chris already knew the answer.

"Not particularly, right?" Mara asked with an affectionate smile.

She knew him. Chris was no hero. He wasn't Superman – rather Batman, working in the dark, asking no reward for his good deeds, that is, when he did one.

"I just want to be left alone." He shrugged and looked away.

Getting the hint, Mara dropped the subject.

Alright, take care :) Tell me if you need anything. Btw William seems worried, I think you should call him. Noora sent.

"Fuck," Mara swore. "I knew this couldn't be a coincidence."

"What?" Chris questioned, leaning back on the table, his elbow against hers.

"That Noora and William write us at the same time! They're probably together right now, he must have asked her to talk to me since neither of us answer his texts – I've gotten four more since the first one."

"I don't think that's Noora's style," Chris said, shaking his head. "You should have seen how she put William back in his place when he disrespected her blond friend. She's taken feminism to a new level, I'm positive she's not texting you on his behalf and showing him your answers."

"A hundred percent sure?" She asked giving him a pointed look.

"Certain," Chris assured her.

"Al right. Then it's just a weird coincidence. It's noon, they are both having lunch, and they decided it was time to check on us."

"That's- plausible, but still weird," Chris frowned as though something was bothering him. "Will has been acting extra-petty yesterday, why would he want to reach us today? Why both of us?"

"Because he knows we're together, so reaching one of us means reaching the other too," Mara pointed out logically. "But it doesn't answer the first question."

No, it didn't, and Mara and Chris decided to leave the brain-melting issue aside and enjoy their day, because they have damn well deserved it. All the while their phones regularly buzzed, either because of a text or an incoming call, and all were from William. It was only fair that after days and days of being ignored they paid him back his own coin.

Neither Chris nor Mara were magnanimous enough to feel guilty about it, and they were sore losers who tended to undermine their opponent's victory in case they lost. Which didn't happen very often, but in this case they felt like they were the losers. William could stick it because if he thought that calling them insistently one after the other would be enough to get a reaction out of them, he was gravely mistaken, and needed to think again.

Which he did, apparently, because around 6pm the doorbell rang, and while Chris had dozed off on the couch in front of a movie, Mara stood up and opened it.

William stood there, hands in his pockets, looking exactly the same as the last time they talked, that is: without a single bruise, completely normal, and as though he hadn't turned their whole world upside down by turning his back on his best friend and his sister.

Mara punched him right in the face.