14. Kneed Me

Kneed Me

Felix

A shrill sound pulls me from my sleep, and I slap at the alarm clock next to our bed. “Dex!” I yell, hoping he can reach it better. “Turn it off.”

The sound is relentless, and I squint at the snooze button on the alarm clock. I’m sure I hit the damn thing. It takes me a few moments as my brain turns on to realize it’s three in the afternoon and not the alarm clock making the noise. Stumbling from the bed and untangling my legs from the sheets bunched at my ankles, I amble toward the living room and the phone on the end table. The caller’s not giving up. The damn thing has been ringing for a couple minutes by the time I reach it.

“Felix,” I grunt instead of a normal greeting.

“F-Felix? It’s Nicole. ”

“Oh, hello.” I pinch my nose in irritation and put my hand on my hip. I swallow to keep my words in check. No use being mean to her because she woke me from a nap. It’s certainly not the first time I’ll play secretary for her and give a message to Dex. “Dex isn’t here. He’s at the studio.” My foggy brain whirls, and I put pieces together in my mind. “Wait, aren’t you with him at the studio? Did you not go to work today?”

“You need to come to Mercy General. He fell, and he’s being examined.” She sniffles as cold fear moves up my spine.

“What the hell do you mean he fell? Off a ladder or something?”

She sobs, and I wave my hands at the phone like I’m willing her to speak. “He was teaching a tango class. One of the ladies came out and said he fell while doing a turn. Can you just come down here, Felix? I don’t know what to do, and they won’t let me back there yet.”

My breathing is choppy, and I drop the phone on the floor as I sprint for the bedroom to grab some pants suitable for a hospital visit. I quickly run my hand through my hair, making it presentable enough for the public. I grab the keys off the hook and hear Nicole’s voice from far away, yelling for me. It’s only then that I realize I didn’t hang up the phone. I simply dropped it.

I run to the phone, pick it up, and hold it to my ear to listen to a sobbing Nicole. “I’m coming, Nic. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Just hang on and wait for me in the waiting room. ”

I hang it up this time and bolt out the door, only taking the time to lock the knob part. I chuckle to myself since I’m the guy who insists on the deadbolt being locked every time someone isn’t here. Dex would rib me if he was here to witness this.

I don’t wait for the elevator, and I sprint down the stairs as fast as my legs can take me. Thankfully, a cab has its light on outside the building, and I quickly get in and give the directions to the hospital. The man must hear the urgency in my voice because I’m at the hospital in eight minutes and shoving a wad of cash in his face, surely overtipping the man.

As soon as the doors to the emergency area open, I spot Nicole standing near the payphone and watching the door. Tears run down her face, smearing her mascara, and she shivers in the cold waiting room with only her tank top on. She straightens when she sees me and crosses the room in only a few strides. Without thinking much about it, I wrap her in my arms and pull her to my chest. “Shhh,” I coo. “What happened?”

“He twisted it when he did a turn. That’s what Betty Freeburg said,” she says. “He was in so much pain I could hardly talk to him to get his version. A couple of the stronger men got him in a cab, and I brought him here. Will they talk to you?”

I pull away from her but keep my hand on her back. “They’re actually more likely to talk to you in case you’re his girlfriend or wife.”

“But you’re his partn – Oh.”

I nod and smirk. “Welcome to our world. Did they even ask who you are to him?”

She shakes her head. “They said they’d check him and come out later.”

I roll my shoulders with annoyance at the situation. For the first time, I’m in the same room as Nicole and not annoyed at her. In fact, I’m glad she’s here. I’m relieved she was with Dex and took care of him. Will this be what it’s like if I ever accept her into our relationship – or accept anyone Dex and I decide to love together? Is this what teamwork in a relationship between more than two people feels like?

“When they come back, I’m his brother and you’re his wife. Got it?”

She nods. “I’ll lie.”

I can’t help it, I snort. “Yes, you can lie in this case.”

She blows out a breath and wraps her arms back around my waist. I’m too emotionally wrecked to think twice about it. Actually, her head feels good on my chest, like it’s holding my heart in my chest cavity. I prop my chin on her head and hug her back. When I look down, her eyes are closed like she’s sleeping.

“I’m sure he’ll be OK. When you said he fell, I imagined a head wound or something.”

“I’m sorry I scared you, Felix,” she says, wiping her nose.

I push my face into her hair because my body doesn’t know what else to do. “Thanks for calling me, and thanks for making sure he was safe before taking the time to dial. You did the right thing.”

“I’m looking for Dex Holden’s wife,” an older nurse with steel gray hair calls from the nurse’s station .

I pull away from Nicole and point at her. “Right here.”

“You can come back and see him now,” the nurse says, waving Nicole around the station entrance.

Nicole takes a few steps and stops. “Can his brother come back?” she asks, meeting my eyes.

“Only one person. Are you his wife? He said his wife was out here when we asked. If you’re not his wife, you’ll have to stay –

“Go ahead, Sis,” I say, interrupting the nurse. Dex obviously knew they wouldn’t let anyone but his spouse back, and that won’t be me any time soon. “My brother needs you.” I widen my eyes at Nicole, willing her to understand she should just go the hell back there. “I’ll get us some of those yummy-looking cups of hospital coffee. Nothing but the best for my favorite sister-in-law. I’ll be here when you get done.”

She gives a short nod and walks to the nurse’s station to listen to the directions of where she’s supposed to go. The woman who’s known Dex for all of a couple months walks away, looking back and waving once, as I slouch into a plastic chair and wait for the man I’ve known for years to be OK enough for me to see him.

***

“No!” I say, shaking my head. “Absolutely fucking not. No way. No how. Get it out of your head.”

Nicole is in the hall bathroom, and Dex has his leg propped on the coffee table, an ice pack on top of his bandaged knee. Crutches are nearby, and a prescription for a painkiller I’ve never heard of is scrawled on a doctor’s note nearby. Another piece of paper is under it, but I don’t want to talk about it or hear about it. I want all of this to go away.

“Felix, you’re my only hope here.” His voice is low. Defeated.

I pick up the prescription note, fold it, and shove it into my pants pocket. “I’ll go get this prescription filled, and when I come back, I expect you to have a different solution.” I whisper it, but it sounds like hissing. I don’t want Nicole to hear.

“Do it for me.”

God damn him and the words he knows work on me. He knows that requesting I do something for him will twist the knife and render me powerless.

His face scrunches in anguish, and his chin quivers. I cannot and will not watch this man cry unless it’s from intense knee pain. That’s the only acceptable crying I will allow at this point. He will not cry over that dance contest and the fact that the other paper in his hand is an order to not do anything requiring twisting or making sudden turns for six weeks.

The contest is in three.

Hell, he’ll be on crutches for the next two. Not only is he asking me to take over the contest, but I’m also going to have a full schedule at the studio when I pick up his classes. Dex is even making me teach Nicole the damn waltz so she can help with classes.

“I can’t do it,” I say.

“You’ll have to be a strong lead,” he says, his jaw set like he’s chastising a child.

“Why? Because she sucks?” I whisper, jerking my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the bathroom.

“She doesn’t suck. She has it down. She’ll only struggle with confidence. You have three weeks to practice. It’ll be enough. You know the routine. For fuck’s sake, you helped me choreograph it.”

I shake my head. “No. No. No. Then some more no. I do not want to spend three weeks training my partner’s insufferable girlfriend for a dance contest.”

He looks down and inhales. I know that sound. He does it when he’s annoyed with me and needs space. Tough. I’m not giving it to him.

“This is for all of us, Felix.,” he says. “We talked about this. I can hire more staff, and we can expand. I told you the current studio is yours once I get my own location. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to be able to buy the club after both locations take off?”

I bring my hands to my neck, clasping my fingers as I look at the ceiling. “I’d be spending hours with her a day. I’m not ready for that.”

“Why?”

“You can’t be serious.” I lean back a little to check to be sure Nicole isn’t listening in the hallway.

“Maybe if you spent time with her like I spend time with her, you’d like her more. ”

“Or I could hate her more.”

Dex laughs like he’s watching Carson. “It’s not possible to hate her. She’s too sweet. She may annoy you with her innocence, but you don’t hate her. Admit it.”

I roll my shoulders and purse my lips. I know I’m acting like a teenager, but he’s right. I don’t hate her. I just see her as a rival for Dex’s affection and someone I wouldn’t normally hang out with but have to hang out with on some level. But hours of dance training a day? Fuck off.

“Felix?” Dex chides.

“OK, I don’t hate her. She’s just an acquired taste for me, and I haven’t acquired her taste yet.”

“You made love to her like you meant it a few weeks ago.”

I walk closer to him, and he looks up at me from his seated position. I grip his hair roughly and won’t let him look away. “That was for you.”

“Bullshit. I saw the way you touched her. Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. You forget I know you. You can deny it all you want, but I see you, Felix. Put your pride aside for not being the one to pick her because, here’s the rub, I think you would have picked her if she had just been our secretary first and not my love interest.” He glares at me without blinking. “If she had come in off the street and worked for us as our sweet, innocent assistant, you would have eventually seen something in her, Felix.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And this would be for me, too. ”

“You’re calling in a lot of favors, Dex. When is it about me? When do I have a say?”

“Talking about me?” a voice asks.

Dex leans to look around my body and smiles. I cringe before turning around to face Nicole. “Yeah, we were. We were talking about the contest. Dex can’t do it. It’ll have to be me.” I run my hand through my hair in frustration, and a low growl comes from my chest. “Well, Dex wants it to be me.”

Nicole looks at Dex’s wrapped knee and takes a deep breath. “I kind of figured the contest was off.”

The damn clock Dex insists on keeping ticks in the corner, and I feel Dex’s eyes burning a hole in my back. His judgment burns my skin from behind. Even worse, I can practically smell the disappointment wafting from Nicole’s pores.

I hate it.

What the hell is wrong with me? If there’s no contest, she’s just Dex’s coworker and part-time lover. If he doesn’t have a reason to spend tons of time with her, maybe he won’t.

But I hate disappointing her, to say nothing of letting down Dex when he needs me.

This is my golden opportunity to get rid of her and be Dex’s hero again. If I don’t enter this contest with her, it’ll turn her into our simple secretary and coffee maker for our elderly students. Dex will get bored, I’ll demand more time with him, and she’ll slide out of his life soon enough.

So, why can’t I pull the trigger ?

She watches me with her bright green eyes, and my fingers flex because I have half a mind to cup her cheeks and take her to our room like Dex and I did a few weeks ago.

Is Dex right? Am I starting to like her or at least tolerate her?

She steps closer to me and puts her hand in the center of my chest just as my heart starts to pound harder. Can she feel it? If so, does she know the reaction is because she’s so close to me now?

“Felix, will you be my dance partner so we can win that contest for Dex?”

Dex makes a humming sound at the sweetness of her request. I haven’t seen a woman this vulnerable since Janice Meekum asked me to dance at the ninth-grade sock hop. Just like Janice, Nicole’s eyes are wide and the slightest bit watery, like she’s holding in tears. Her voice is low and unsure of itself, and I realize that’s what infuriates me the most about her. I demand she have confidence if I have to be around her. I want someone brazen enough to put me in my place and bold enough to be her own person. If she’s neither of those things, she won’t keep Dex’s interest, and I’m scared to get attached if she’s going to be gone soon anyway. I just don’t see any confidence from her yet.

I open my mouth to say so when Dex taps me on the butt. I roll my eyes, and I’m sure Nicole thinks I’m rolling them at her. “Ugh,” I say. Nicole steps back because she must think I’m growling at her. “Fine. We can start when I get back from filling King Dex’s prescription.”