The One That Got Away

Oliver was already walking past her, agitated and quick; at the sound of Monique’s voice he about-faced so fast Monique’s eyes couldn’t follow it, his eyes red and tired-looking. “Monique?” His hand knotted in the shoulder of Monique’s shirt, making Monique stumble forward a couple steps so Oliver had to catch her. “You okay?”

Monique nodded and was completely humiliated by the way her throat closed up at the sight of Oliver, here and worried. Worried about her. “Yeah. I’m good,” she said gruffly, pitching her voice low so it didn’t break. The aide who was following Oliver like a little pink mayfly threw up her hands with a wordless mhrph of exasperation and walked away.

He was behind her, so she couldn’t really see, but Monique felt Enzo step up into the curtained gap behind her and watched Oliver’s eyes skate past to take in the other man. All at once, Oliver’s hand loosened and though neither of them moved, there was suddenly all kinds of distance between them. “What…What happened?” Oliver’s gaze came back to her, still kind of in shock, now a little hurt.

Monique shrugged and shuffled a little. “It’s stupid. I fell down in my room and hit my head. A little bit of blood and I think the people who were in the room next door heard me cry out and called for a safety check.”

“She needs stitches,” Enzo said, sounding like a self-important little prick and Monique cringed.

Oliver looked at Enzo again and Monique saw the contempt that flickered lightning-fast across her husband’s face before he was manhandling her around to get a look at the seeping gash. Monique helpfully stood still and, facing Morgan, saw the slightly defiant hurt on his face. Ah, Jeez. Why do things have to get so fu*king complicated? “Hmmm,” Oliver said. “Not bad. Couple stitches, you’ll be right as rain. Concussion?”

Monique hunched a shoulder and turned around again. “Yeah, probably. I hit the porcelain bowl on my way down, I think.”

“Yeah, you got that loopy look.” He patted Monique lightly on the shoulder twice and then stepped back. “So…what? Do you want to come up to the suite and let me take care of that for you? You know I can.”

“Actually I was going to take her up to the room; we were thinking of heading home anyway,” Enzo said, stepping up next to Monique. His hand touched the small of Monique’s back lightly and Monique couldn’t help the way she danced away from it. It didn’t hurt that it put her a little closer to Oliver, either.

“Are you now?” Oliver asked and Monique could tell Oliver couldn’t quite make up his mind between irritated and amused. She hated that she felt the need to apologize for Enzo, for being seen with him and she really, really wanted to say, I’m not with him. He’s not with me. There’s nothing here for you to get upset about. Not that she was sure that Oliver was or would be upset by the sight of Monique with someone else. That was mostly just wishful thinking on her part. Because she wanted Oliver to be jealous. She wanted Oliver to care. “Momo?”

Enzo flinched and Monique felt another pinch of guilt. Enzo had called her Momo exactly once, as a joke, and Monique had blown up like Mount Vesuvius and then didn’t speak to him for a week.

Monique took a step forward, one hand making a conciliating gesture in Enzo’s direction. Now it was his turn to duck away. “Look, Enzo, I’m going to go with my husband here. You said yourself we needed closure.” Enzo’s face lightened a little at the word ‘closure’ and Monique could just fu*king kick herself for letting him think she was so certain about it being over with her and Oliver. She didn’t want to lie to him; he was still her friend. “He’s got a lot of experience with my dings and scrapes too, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, sure…” Enzo said, ducking his head and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, no problem. I just…I want you to be okay, Monique. Even if it had to be under…” Enzo grimaced comically, “under circumstances like these.”

“Yeah, you too,” Monique replied, trying to inject every ounce of sincerity she could into her tone. It’s not his fault she was acting like an asshole. But she was still kinda drunk, concussed and possibly flummoxed by the situation. People needed to cut her some slack!

Enzo flushed and Monique heard Oliver snark quietly. She took a half-step backwards and stomped on Oliver’s toe. Not hard enough to hurt; her Chucks were no competition for Oliver’s steel toes, but enough to get him to stop. “Well. Maybe…after you’re finished you can call me and we can make arrangements to leave or whatever.”

“Yeah, that sounds fine.” Monique said. It was such a lie. She has no idea what was going to happen here but she most definitely wasn’t ready to leave. Oliver’s possessive hand on her arm was giving her ideas she had no right to be thinking about. But it had been six hard years and here they still were. Maybe it meant something.

Oliver made a noncommittal humming noise and Enzo’s face stiffened, the flush deepening.

“Well, I think we should get going,” Monique said hastily, grabbing Oliver by one jacket sleeve and tugging him towards the doors marked with a bright green exit sign.

“But you didn’t sign out!” Enzo protested lamely and then they were gone.

Oliver’s vague air of amusement fell away like cracked plaster the moment they hit the outside doors and Monique’s stomach twisted a little. “Look, Oliver—”

“Why don’t we just save it for later?” Oliver said, hand still firmly around her arm, all brusque business now.

Monique nodded, bunching her hands in her front pockets and hunching her shoulders forward. “Okay…I just wanted to say that you didn’t have to come,” she said. “I had it handled.”

Oliver threw out a hand to stop Monique and stepped in front of her, angling Monique’s face into the weak sunlight and looking at her critically. He seemed to be studying her so intently, cataloging the changes, relearning her anatomy that he used to know so intimately. Monique stood and let him, already sliding back into that familiar space where she used to live before everything got so fu*ked up. Oliver nodded and stood back. Monique suppressed the impulse to bring her hand to her face and touch where Oliver’s fingertips indented and left warmth against her skin.

“I’ll take care of you and the bill,” Oliver said and turned towards the elevator, pressing the button for the penthouse without further ado.

“Oliver—”

Monique’s salary wasn’t that substantial with the army but her father was a doctor and she knew she could count on him to cover her medical bills if her insurance didn’t. She wasn’t too sure about how well Oliver was doing financially but the fact that he was staying in the penthouse might indicate that his little trust fund had grown. Chris had said something about a billionaire…if he was friends with Oliver, probably all of them were staying with this billionaire in the penthouse.

“I’ll take care of it,” Oliver said again, sharper, and Monique floundered between wanting to argue about it but not so much that Oliver bailed on her. She realized now that he was here…she didn’t want him not to be here. She didn’t know what that meant though. Were they ready to talk about things? Did he even care anymore?

“I’ll pay you back,” she offered, uncomfortably aware that she had no idea where her income was to come from, from now on. Could she even realistically make that sort of promise?

Oliver shook his head as he watched the numbers on the elevator rise to the penthouse. Monique couldn’t see his face. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “I’m still your husband; it’s still my job.”

“I’ll pay you back.” Monique squashed against the glass wall, watching people below as they flew up to the top floor, the familiar scent of Oliver’s aftershave wafted all around helping her stomach settle a bit, smooth some of the tension out of her neck and shoulders. Oliver folded his arms, eyes on the elevator’s progress and studiously not on her. Monique looked back down to the ground floor to see Enzo standing near the doors of the clinic post, looking lost and sort of soft, squinting up at the rising elevator.

“So who was that dude?” Oliver asked and Monique wasn’t at all fooled by his tone. Monique’s fingers tensed on her thigh and she was torn between elation and smacking herself in the head with her own cell phone and concussing herself some more.

“No one,” she answered, equally casual. “He’s just a friend.”