Page 64 of Hazard a Guest
She gothim back to the room with some effort.
Freddy wasn’t the towering beast that Beck was, but he was still a fair sight larger than Ember, and he enjoyed being supported like a wounded war hero entirely too much.
“My room is closer,” she’d moaned twice, only to have him moan louder in response, barely able to stifle his own amusement with his theatrics.
When she reached the door, she’d jerked him past it just out of sheer pettiness, and tossed him bodily in through Joe’s entryway instead.
“Oh, stop complaining,” she sang at him, “the rooms are joined, aren’t they?”
This, of course, meant that Joe would be pulled into their chaos. A happy consequence of her choices.
“What in mercy’s name?” came the puzzled, clearly alarmed voice she’d wanted from the washroom as Joe came stumbling out, his tails still half on, his hair covered in droplets of water. “What happened?!”
“Freddy got slapped,” Ember said. “It was my fault.”
“It was actually mine,” Freddy argued proudly. “Do I have a black eye, Donnelly? Is it dashing?”
“Freddy, you have a fat cheek like a chipmunk,” she told him quietly, seeing him propped up against the foot of Joe’s bed, his legs splayed out in front of him like he’d fallen off the roof. “We’ll get you something cold.”
She looked up at Joe, a plea in her eyes, and he nodded immediately. “Won’t be a tick.” He sighed, obviously aware he would be several.
“Thank you, my own,” she said softly as he passed, warmed by the way he glanced back at the title, even in the wake of the open and shut of the door.
She sighed, collapsing next to Freddy with a shake of her head. “That was well stupid, Freddy.”
“Well,” he said with a shrug, “so am I.”
She cut her eyes to him, torn between agreeing and telling him to never say that again. Instead, she just deflated a little, dropped her head on his shoulder, and let herself breathe again. “Thank you,” she said, “my friend.”
He draped an arm over her shoulder, letting out his own sigh, and they sat there like that for a time, listening to the gentle patter of rain tapping at the windows.
“I was wondering something,” Freddy said softly. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
He took a breath, pulling the words into his lungs. “Why … hm,” he cut himself off, shaking his head.
She pulled back, watching him. “Why what?”
There was a self-conscious shrug, half a chuckle, an attempt almost to escape it, but when she didn’t look away, he turned to meet her eye. “Why didn’t you tell Jones what I did? You didn’t, did you? If you had, he wouldn’t have been happy to see me at all.”
She frowned. She wanted to say something glib, but the truth was that she wasn’t quite sure why she hadn’t told Jones. It wasn’t because she was embarrassed about what had happened, about her own weakness when Freddy had snapped, though that would have been the easiest answer.
Freddy understood shame, didn’t he?
“Because it was no one’s business,” she decided, chewing on her lip. “I didn’t want to tell anyone, ever. I knew that wasn’t you.”
“You told Dot,” he reminded her without any rebuke, just a soft acknowledgement of a thing.
She nodded. “I told Dot and Claire and Millie,” she confirmed, “because they’d seen it too, one way or another. They understood. And because I was so hurt that I wanted to get you back, to make you feel it. I thought maybe you hadn’t felt it, Freddy. I thought maybe you walked away from the ruin you made and didn’t feel any sadness about it. About me.”
He didn’t move for a moment, like it took all the muscles in his body to listen to her answer. He nodded. “I felt a lot of sadness about it,” he said quietly.
“I know that, fool,” she said with a sniffle, shaking away the urge, yet again, to dredge up a bunch of useless, hot tears. “I know that.”
“I … yes, I know you do,” he said with a little laugh and then a wince at the way it bent his face. “But Ember, I just want you to hear me say it, all right? I am sorry.”
“Damnation and spoils, Freddy,” she snapped, reaching up to palm away the tears that had started to escape now. “I know you are. I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.”
