Breaking the Ice

Chapter 25

25

Samantha’s eyes fluttered open as she emerged from a deep, dreamless sleep to the sound of Nick’s voice which was low and sexy and made her eggs sigh contentedly. His calm brown eyes smiled down at her, two steaming mugs in his hands.

“Time to get up, sleepyhead.”

Slightly disorientated, she thought back to last night, to her last conscious thought. I’ll just shut my eyes for a second while Nick’s making the tea . And she’d snuggled into the couch which had resided in Birdie’s shop until Nick had renovated it and still smelled of old books and peppermint.

It had been so familiar, so like Birdie, who had been a real presence last night knitting the protest group together and breathing an old-fashioned solidarity into their cause.

“Sorry, I fell asleep.”

“You did,” he agreed with a grin as he crouched down to place the mug on the table, their gazes now level.

Her eyes drifted to the fascinating cleft in his chin and the even more fascinating stubble and remembered how good it had felt scratching against her breasts and belly and thighs. He looked a little rumpled and bleary-eyed and she thought how nice it would be to wake up to his face every morning.

They were sharing a moment. Another moment. They were doing that quite a bit lately. Since her birthday. Well, no. Since before then. It had started with the alley and gotten worse after the vibrator and more so after the elevator.

Her birthday had just been the icing on the cake. So to speak.

They had to stop sharing moments. The last moment had ended in disaster. And right now they had a job to do. Something good. Something great. She needed to focus on that.

As if he knew it too, he pushed out of the crouch and Samantha felt able to breathe again as she sat, swinging her feet to the floor. “I guess the week caught up with me.”

He shrugged as he took the armchair opposite. “It’s a comfy couch.”

It really was. “What time is it?” There was just the faintest glow of sunrise coming through the bank of double-hung windows.

“Four-thirty.”

“ Ugh! ”

He chuckled and it was such a lovely sound, Samantha realized that she went to work each day just to hear it and she would miss it when she left.

When she left .

With everything that had happened in the last little while she’d forgotten that her job was only temporary.

“Not a morning person?”

Samantha pulled her thoughts back from the brink. “Not a dawn person.”

Nick grinned. “Best time of the day.”

“ Ugh ,” she repeated.

“I rang Kelly,” he said, wrapping his hands around his mug. “She said their numbers have been swelling through the night.”

The news perked Samantha up. “That’s great.”

“Apparently some professional protestors have showed up so I hope things don’t get ugly.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s hardly an anti-war demonstration.”

“These things can get out of hand quickly. We don’t want to have the purpose of this march lost because a few hotheads couldn’t keep a lid on it. As long as they’re on their best behavior and leave their super glue and joints behind, I suppose it’ll be okay.”

Samantha almost choked on her tea. “There’s going to be marijuana?”

“Maybe.”

“Cool. I’ve never done that.” And it was legal now. “Do you think I’m too old to smoke pot?”

“No. I think you’re too smart. You seriously didn’t smoke a joint at school?”

“No. We lived in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t any drugs.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Of course there were. People in the middle of nowhere need them the most.”

“How come I never got offered any?”

“You probably didn’t hang around in those circles. Where’d you spend your lunchbreaks?”

“At the library.”

“I rest my case. Library geeks aren’t generally known for their substance abuse.”

Samantha sighed. Yep, that was what she’d been. A library geek. One look at Nick told her he’d been one of the in crowd. The it crowd. He would have hung with the cool kids.

Hell, he was the cool kid.

And everyone knew the cool boy did not look twice at the geeky girl…

Fifteen minutes later, Samantha was showered and dressed in an A-line corduroy skirt and T-shirt with Save Martha’s stamped across the front. She had her hair in a ponytail and Keds on her feet. Nick shoved another hot drink in a takeout cup at her as he met her outside the bookshop and, with the sky a soft dawn-blue they walked the ten minutes to the picket line outside the heavy wooden doors of Tetworth’s oldest teahouse.

She tried really hard not to think about how nice it had been waking up to Nick as they walked. Or how her eggs had sighed happily at the sound of his voice. Or how there’d been a strange warm feeling in the center of her chest. Waking up at Nick’s had only felt so right because it reminded her of Birdie.

That was all.

The group gathered outside Martha’s was heartening but it wasn’t until they’d marched through the city and arrived at city square that the full impact of their protest efforts was realized. It was packed with supporters and Samantha’s heart did a little happy dance.

She looked around at the eclectic bunch that had swelled their ranks all morning. There were a lot of Hawkeye fans – a lot of Crabbers jerseys and hats and foam fingers – but there was also a lot of older people as well as a strong representation of Gen Zs. Also, as Nick had said, there was a professional protestor element ready to march for anything anti-establishment.

After they’d milled around for forty-five minutes and different people took to the stairs that formed the entrance to the beautiful old sandstone building that was city hall, revving up the crowd through a megaphone, it was Nick’s turn. He’d been posing for selfies and signing autographs pretty much non- stop, but he made his way to the stairs just as the clock in the tower that dominated the building’s roofline clicked over to midday.

He waited patiently, megaphone in hand, until it chimed its last chime then he spoke, urging the crowd to sit. He was wearing shorts that hugged his hockey thighs to perfection and the same Martha T-shirt as everyone else but possibly wearing it better than anyone else.

She sat down on the impossibly green lawn and drank him in as he began to talk. The crowd hushed, wooed by his natural charisma as he laid out his powerful arguments. They clapped him when he rattled off the city icons that had disappeared over the last few decades through greed and apathy. They cheered when he talked about the rich history of Martha’s Teahouse and its enduring legacy. And they booed when he mentioned the politicians and pen-pushers and their complete inaction and disinterest.

Samantha wasn’t the only one in the crowd who could feel his energy and charisma. The two twenty-something women sitting beside her were digging him big time.

“Omigod, Dee! We really need to start watching hockey,” said the black woman with funky sunglasses and cornrows.

“You are sooo right, Shelby,” the white woman with blonde hair and a beret concurred. “That man can park his puck under my bed any day.”

They both laughed hysterically and clapped loudly as Nick made another salient point and Samantha barely suppressed the urge to growl back off, he’s mine ! Which was, of course, totally irrational. Just because he’d kissed her in an alley, made out with her in an elevator, nearly made her come on her birthday and told her he thought about having sex with her all the time, didn’t mean he was hers.

“And finally, I’d like to say before I finish that I have a friend who is totally addicted to Martha’s orange and poppy-seed friands. Thanks to her I get to share in her daily fix. I’ve also seen her go a day without and it’s an experience I never want to repeat. Please, I beg of you, if for no other reason, we have to save the Teahouse or my life is going to be hell.”

A wave of goosebumps spread from her scalp to her toes as Nick shared the anecdote with the crowd. Their anecdote. Nick had shared a slice of their life with a square crowded with strangers and yet it had felt strangely intimate. She was absurdly moved as Nick urged everyone one last time to sign the petition and to call their local official to object.

“Omigod!” Shelby grabbed her chest dramatically as everyone clapped and cheered him off the stage. “Lucky girl.”

“Come on,” Dee said, dragging her friend to her feet. “Let’s go meet him.”

Samantha stood to follow but was pulled up short by a twinge low in her abdomen. It was eerily familiar and she shut her eyes momentarily. Oh no! Not now. Not today . Another twinge hit her along with a wave of nausea and she knew from bitter experience that in about two hours the pain would be crippling. And her back would be on fire and she would be vomiting.

And if she was really unlucky, a thumping headache would round it all off.

She did some quick calculations in her head. Her period wasn’t due for three days. Damn, damn, damn . She’d promised Dulcie she’d hand out leaflets with her in the square straight after the rally. But she knew the only way to minimize what was to come was to go to bed. Directly to bed. Do not stop to hand out leaflets. Do not do favors.

She needed medication, a shower and a hot water bottle. Her stomach twinged again. It had been almost a year since she’d had a period this bad. As a teenager she used to get them every month until her doctor had put her on the pill and miraculously eased her monthly torture. But even so, she occasionally still had a doozey.

“There you are, dear.” Dulcie appeared, beaming at her like they’d already won. “I have the leaflets. Are you ready?”

Samantha looked into the octogenarian’s bright eager eyes and knew she couldn’t disappoint Martha’s most ardent supporter. Dulcie had been the backbone of the protest.

Smiling weakly, she nodded. “Sure.”

She could probably spare Dulcie an hour before crying off and slinking home even if she did feel guilty about already plotting her desertion. But she had been here too many times to not know how ugly it was going to get.

Forty-five minutes later Samantha could take it no longer. She was about to cross to the other side of the square and apologize to Dulcie when Nick turned up. Her back ached and her intestines felt like they were being grinded in a blender and she had to lean against a wall for support. An awning overhead provided shade but she felt faint from the warmth of the day.

“Hey.”

He flashed her a smile and, at any other time she would have admired his ability to pull such a hundred watter but she was barely keeping upright. She was starting to tremble and sweat had popped on her brow.

“Hey.” Samantha pushed away from the wall, swaying a little as a wave of nausea hit.

“Whoa.” Nick caught her as she stumbled. “Samantha? What’s wrong?”

She leaned into him, absorbing some of his strength. “Migraine.” Which wasn’t really a lie considering she’d most likely have one of those soon enough. “I need to go home.”

“Can you walk?” he asked as he continued to support her and gather her things.

Samantha nodded because she worried if she opened her mouth she might vomit.

Dulcie was suddenly there. “Goodness, Nick. Sam, what on earth’s the matter?”

Samantha shut her eyes and leaned into Nick as he replied. “Migraine. She’ll be fine but she needs to go home and get into bed.”

She wanted to protest that she could walk but, in all honestly, the task felt beyond her and when he was ushered her into a cab moments later – after politely refusing an autograph from someone who clearly couldn’t read the room – she could have kissed him.

“I’ll get you into bed and call a doctor,” he said as he helped her out of the cab fifteen minutes later.

Samantha shook her head. All she needed was to be horizontal and sleep. “I’ll be fine.”

He looked at her dubiously and stuck close, hunting through her bag for her keys as they reached her door because even that simple task was too much in her current state.

“Easy,” he said as she swayed, sliding his arm around her waist as he inserted the key into the lock and pushed open her door, guiding her inside.

Samantha’s body must have known she was home because she couldn’t stem the nausea a second longer. “I’m going to be sick.”

Afraid she wouldn’t quite make it on her woozy legs, she ran anyway, clapping her hand over her mouth. She made it but only just, throwing herself on the cold bathroom tiles in front of the toilet as she vomited.

And vomited. And vomited.

She was vaguely aware of Nick entering the bathroom and sitting on the edge of the bath but couldn’t even find it in her to be mortified that this was the second time he’d seen her riding the porcelain bus. His hand glided to her neck and started to rub and it felt so good she would have purred had she not been so busy retching.

“Lower,” she croaked as the nausea ebbed, and she moaned when his strong fingers moved to her aching lower back.

Rousing herself, she pulled the toilet lid down with shaking hands and rested her head on it, murmuring, “Harder,” as she almost drooled on the plastic at the instant relief from his ministrations.

“I’m calling the doctor,” he said a few minutes later when she hadn’t moved.

“No. I’ll be fine in a little while.”

“You don’t look fine. Maybe it’s not a migraine? Maybe you have food poisoning or appendicitis. You know how bad that can be left untreated?”

Samantha smiled at the mild note of panic in his voice and opened her eyes. “Bad?”

“Ugly,” he agreed. “I know. I have three brothers who are doctors. They have an inexhaustible supply of horror medical stories.”

“Yeah, well, pity you never had any sisters,” she muttered as she shut her eyes again, lulled by the rhythm of his magical fingers.

“What the hell has that got to do with anything?”

“It’s just my period, Nick. It’ll be fine in a few hours.”