They stared at one another as all facts of their present reality struck them both with full force.
Jack was reclining on Sue's bed.
Sue's hand was on Jack's thigh just above his knee, where she'd let it rest after what had started as just a friendly pat.
Jack and Sue were temporarily living together. Under guise of being married.
They were, for all intents and purposes at this moment, a married couple sitting comfortably on their bed.
And until that moment when the air between them seemed to become both viscous and electrified, they had been comfortable. Quite comfortable. Sue very easily fell into taking care of him when he needed it, as she knew he would naturally do for her were the tables turned. Jack very easily fell into allowing her to, trusting her decisions so much that he never even questioned which medication she had just had him take. He could assume it was an over-the-counter NSAID, ibuprofen or naproxen most likely, to take down the swelling. But he hadn't asked, and he wasn't even worried that he hadn't asked. He knew she wouldn't give him anything that wasn't for his own good.
But comfort wasn't quite the right word anymore. Jack and Sue were together on the same bed. In their PJs.
Jack looked at Sue's PJs, which he had seen but not fully taken notice of before. He'd assumed when they had headed to bed that the comfortable lounge clothes she'd been wearing at the time were what she intended to sleep in, but instead she had changed to a dusky purple silk nightgown, modest enough and quite simple, but sexy still, if not for its very simplicity, then due to the woman beneath it.
Sue perused Jack's clothing likewise. He was still in the sweat pants and t-shirt he'd gone to his room in, and she found herself wondering whether he slept in that or whether he simply hadn't changed yet . . . or just . . . maybe he slept without his shirt, or just in boxers or . . . she quickly withdrew her hand and her gaze, standing up and moving away from the bed as she tried to clear her thoughts.
"Um, we should probably buddy-tape the toe, but I'm not sure whether we need to do that after icing it tonight, or not until morning."
Jack's gaze continued to follow her and he waited for her to look back at him before he answered, trying to regain some semblance of composure and comfort. When he did try to speak, he found he had to clear his throat twice before proper words would come out, though the fact that he did so was silly since she wouldn't have heard the difference in his voice.
"I think it would be good to leave it be for the night and see how it looks in the morning. It may just be a bit bruised but not actually broken. Either way, the swelling should probably have a chance to recede a bit before wrapping anything around it. Right? Or . . . am I remembering wrong from last time I took the Bureau's first aid refresher?"
"No, I think you're right," she replied, nodding maybe a little too quickly. In truth, neither of them wanted him to try to do it himself, but neither of them wanted her touching him again either.
"Okay, um . . . well, good night then," she said and started to leave.
"Wait, what?" Jack asked. From his doggie bed in the corner, Levi looked up at Sue and seemed to be asking that same question. Jack motioned after Sue, saying to Levi, "Get her for me?"
Levi complied, running up to Sue and nudging her with his nose and then reaching a paw up to rest on her leg. Sue looked down and patted his head. "No, buddy, your stuff is already all set up in here, you should just stay here with Jack tonight."
Levi looked back toward Jack, and only then did Sue catch that Jack was waving his hands trying to get her attention. "Oh! Sorry, did you need something else?"
"Yeah, an explanation," he responded. "Where are you going?"
"...to bed?"
"This is your bed. Mine is in there," he said, starting to get up.
"No, Jack," she responded, moving back toward him and putting a hand on his shoulder to halt his motion. "You got injured trying to move around in the dark. I'm already ready for bed, I can easily just get into the bed. I'll leave the door open so I have a bit of light from the hallway to help me see. Or maybe I'll even just turn on the light, how would anyone know it wasn't just one of us retrieving something from that room or something?"
"No, your idea of only having one bedroom light on makes perfect sense, and Dessa is too important to risk losing our lead to him because of a single light. But you are also important and I am not kicking you out of your bed."
She tried not to react too much to the sentiment, and instead brushed it off with a joke. "You'd better not be kicking anything, that won't help your toe."
He rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Sue . . . like I said, I can sleep anywhere, I'll just make up a bed on the floor."
"I'm not making an injured man sleep on the floor."
"It's just a stupid toe, I'm hardly an invalid!"
"Don't underestimate the long-term effects of not allowing injuries to the digits to heal correctly!"
He threw his hands up and huffed, then blew out another breath slowly before asking, "What do you suggest, then?"
"You already know what I suggest. I'm going to sleep in—"
"No, you're not."
"Excuse me?" she asked, folding her arms. "You can't tell me where I can choose to sleep!"
"No, I didn't mean . . . I just meant, it won't do for either of us to get hurt, or to do anything that might make neighbors question our . . . relationship. Look, they put a king-size bed in here. There's plenty of space for . . . for both of us without being anywhere near each other. And there are clearly plenty of pillows, we can even put a barrier between us if you want. Or have Levi lay between us, this bed is huge. But if we're both in the room where the light is, neither of us are getting injured."
Sue hesitated another moment, then said, "Okay, but let me just get something from the other room really fast."
"Fine, but turn the light on. If anyone is paying enough attention to wonder, we can honestly tell them you were just grabbing something from the room and then returning to your—to our room."
A strange look crossed her face when he said that and he immediately regretted it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean . . . I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable, I just . . . well, for all intents and purposes, however platonically, this will be our room if we're going with this plan . . . unless you can think of a better plan? I promise, I'm not trying to be inappropriate or—"
"No, it's not that," she interrupted. "I mean, it's not that I don't like calling it our room . . . ."
He waited for a moment before prodding, "What, then?"
Turning to head out of the room so she wouldn't have to face his reaction, she said so softly he barely heard her, "I might like it a little too much."
When Sue returned, more pillows from the guest room in hand, Jack had already put two pillows down the center of the bed, under the blankets, and settled himself down onto his only remaining pillow, having left two on the other side for her. He laughed when he saw the armload of even more extra pillows she carried. "Building a pillow fort?"
"No," she replied indignantly, dropping most of them and throwing one at his head. "Just making sure we're both comfortable. Now, do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?"
He eyed her carefully. "All of them at various points throughout the night, but I usually fall asleep on my side. Why?"
"Okay, roll into the position you'll probably fall asleep in."
Still uncertain what she intended, but always trusting her, he rolled to his right side, shifting and settling himself while trying not to catch his bad toe on the sheets or his other foot.
He shifted again for a moment, then, propping back up on an elbow and turning his head toward her so she could see his lips, but averting his eyes shyly, he asked, "Um, will it . . . would it make you uncomfortable if I took off my shirt? I just, um . . . I usually don't sleep with it on and—I mean, but I can if you would be uncomfortable, I don't want to make you feel weird or anything!"
Weird was not the predominant emotion Sue was experiencing at the concept of Jack without a shirt, but she tried to ignore her own feelings as she said, "Sure, whatever you need to be comfortable. Um, I'll just . . . ." She turned around, busying herself with straightening things on the dresser that didn't really need straightening as she said, "Levi, uh, tell me when he's all settled."
It was somehow both the longest and shortest few moments of her life before Levi nudged her and she turned back cautiously, to see that Jack was indeed settled under the covers, lying on his right side—away from what was to be her side of the bed, she noted with some semblance of wistful relief—with the blankets pulled up to his chin.
She cleared her throat. "All set?"
He nodded and she brought one of the several extra pillows back over to his side, swallowing when she saw that not only his shirt, but also his sweatpants, were on the floor beside the bed. Drawing a deep breath as she tried not to contemplate boxers or briefs? too hard, she lifted the blanket off his feet. He started to ask what she was doing but she only said, "Just hang on," and folded the end up over him, exposing his calves. Lifting his left foot off his right, she tucked the pillow between his feet, ensured he was comfortable, then slowly and trying not to run her hands along his skin as she did so, replaced the blanket.
Standing and looking more directly at his face, she softly explained, "It's important to keep it elevated. Even if you roll in your sleep, at least you can have it elevated for part of the night.
He nodded his thanks, and then with a soft smile responded, "It's been a long time since someone tucked me in."
She smiled back, but the comment he'd intended to relieve some of the tension only seemed to increase it instead. Sue moved over to her side—her side, they were sharing a bed, with a his side and a her side—and moved the final extra pillow to complete the barrier between them so it ran the full length of the bed. Then, sliding in and lying down, she whispered softly, "Good night," before reaching to turn off her light.
She assumed he probably responded in kind, but since he didn't turn toward her she couldn't be sure. She was still turned toward him, however, and thus saw when he sat up enough to reach out from under the blankets to turn off his own light. The blankets which then slid just enough so that the last thing burned into her mind before the room was dark, was the sight of his smooth, well-muscled, and very bare back.
The first sign of the morning that Sue was aware of was light filtering in through the windows. She flickered her eyelids open and shut a few times, acclimating her vision before she turned to check the time on her alarm clock . . . but for a moment she wondered if she was still asleep and dreaming, until her eyes and mind both cleared of sleep enough to process what she was seeing. She really was waking up with her face inches from the face that she'd so often dreamed would one day be the sight that would grace her mornings for the rest of her life.
Only at present, he wasn't that person yet. Not really. Just . . . as far as all the neighbors around them were concerned. In reality, he was the person who was supposed to be staying on the other side of the pillow barrier. Although their bodies were (thankfully) still separated by the wall of pillows, somehow, at some point in the night, they had both shifted their heads from their own pillows, to share the one at the top of the middle barrier.
She rolled as quickly as she could back to her own side and found her alarm clock, turning the alarm off before it could sound in another minute and result in either the noise or an eager Levi waking Jack. Moving as slowly and softly as she could, hoping that the floors and drawers weren't squeaky or otherwise loud, she got her jogging outfit from the dresser and left the room, heading to the bathroom to change. Levi roused as she was moving around the room, and sleepily plodded after her into the hall.
After morning ablutions and a quick coffee—making sure she made enough for Jack as well—Sue and Levi headed out for a morning walk. It was a beautiful morning, brisk enough to be bracing but still warm and sunny enough to not need a jacket over her sweats. She and Levi both enjoyed seeing the sights of their new surroundings, and to her surprise and delight, the walk ended with Betty Vanderwylen, who was checking the mail next door, introducing herself.
Heading back inside, Sue smiled to herself at how easy that was. She hadn't even had to initiate introductions!
"Morning!" she said brightly to Jack, who was sitting (thankfully back in his t-shirt and sweats) at the kitchen island.
He looked up somewhat groggily and appearing taken aback by her pep. "Hi. You always up this early?"
She shrugged lightly as she unhooked Levi's leash. "I'm kind of a morning person."
"Well, I'm kind of not," Jack responded, though he didn't seem in any way affronted by the knowledge that she was. If anything, he only seemed amused at the disparity.
"Yeah, my parents are like that too," Sue said pouring herself some orange juice. "Except the opposite. Mom is a go-getter, no question, but she would much rather be asleep in the mornings if she could choose. Dad was the one who wanted to be up and going first thing. He and I used to go for early morning walks together."
Jack smiled. "Come to think of it, my parents are the same way. Except like us—mom is the early bird, dad is the night owl."
"I think a lot of couples are like that," Sue said, already starting to cringe at the words before she had even finished the sentence. "Uh—I mean, um, so it won't, er, seem weird or—"
"Yeah, no," Jack agreed quickly. "It's reasonable. Should the neighbors take notice."
"Right. If the neighbors notice."
Sue sipped her orange juice, if only for something to do, and Jack looked down at his own drink, finding in it inspiration for a safer topic of conversation. "Thanks for making the coffee."
"You're welcome." She finished off her orange juice, then asked, "So, uh, how's the toe this morning?"
"It's . . . sore, but I think it'll be okay."
"Let me see." Her voice was kind, but it was still something more of a demand than a request. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and lifted his foot to the bar stool next to the one he sat on.
She looked at it and winced. "Jack, that is not okay. No human skin should be those three colors, much less at the same time. I'm going to buddy tape it for now, and when we get to the office to check in later you should really go have them take a look at the infirmary." At his look of reticence she persisted with, "I'm serious! My great aunt got a bone infection when they didn't get a broken finger taken care of, and it got much more serious!"
"That happens to people with, like, low bone density or diabetes, not people who are fit and healthy and young."
"Sure," she replied sarcastically, "and so do heart attacks, but you managed to have one of those."
He sighed. "Okay, okay, fine."
"I'll be right back."
True to her word, she returned moments later with the medical tape. As she worked, to distract herself and him from her ministrations, she said, "Oh, by the way, I just met Betty."
Jack glanced out the window incredulously. "The sun's barely up, how did you already meet Betty?"
"I was walking Levi. She seems very nice. She and Joseph would like to have us over tonight for a cookout."
He raised his eyebrows. "You met Joseph too?"
"Mm-mm, no, we'll meet him tonight." She finished wrapping the tape and snapped the case back around the roll of medical tape. Gathering the supplies to go put away, she said, "Um, enjoy your coffee. There are frozen waffles in the freezer if you want. I'm going to go take a shower."
He was nodding at her words, but at the mention of the shower, started to turn slightly red and averted his gaze. She should just leave. She should escape and make this easier for them both.
But she couldn't resist teasing him first. "I like your hair like that," she said before she had finished fully turning away. "Kind of that . . . ruffled, unassuming look." She darted off before he could object, but not before seeing the adorable amusement on his face.