I’m right: it is fun to play with your enemy. Jamie makes me a famous actress, but I have to star in a tacky Star Trek reboot where I wear prosthetics and kiss weird looking alien guys. In retaliation, I grant him the ability to change other people’s music with his mind, but every time he does it, “Baby” by Justin Bieber will get stuck in his head for an hour. Those years of learning all each others’ secrets come in handy now. We know exactly how to turn an innocent wish into each others’ worst nightmare, and it’s the most fun I’ve had in a while. We almost miss the nurse calling us in, because Jamie is begging me to take back making him the mascot for the Red Sox and I’m laughing so hard I can’t hear anything else. 

“You said you wanted to be on a professional baseball team!” I gasp out as he wheels me into the examination room.

“You’re a sadist, Alessandra. A sick, sick person.”

I’m still giggling when the nurse walks in. 

“Hi, I’m Rosa, I’ll be checking you out.” She smiles at us over her clipboard. “Glad to see you’re in a good mood.”

Rosa is insanely pretty, probably in her late twenties, with shiny dark hair swept up into a neat ponytail and crazy long eyelashes. It hits me that I’m wearing the leggings I’ve had since I was ten with an old Columbia U t-shirt that belonged to Aldo, and after everything it’s gone through today, the hasty bun I shoved my curls into cannot possibly still be messy cute. I’m not usually one to get insecure but I’m having a major frump girl moment right now.

“Hey Rosa, thanks for your help.” Jamie holds his hand out to shake hers. “I hope you have experience with psychiatric patients because you’ll need it.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s just mad because he has to be the mascot for the Red Sox.” Even as I say the joke, I don’t feel like laughing anymore.

Rosa smiles politely. “Okay, I see you’re coming in for a possible concussion?”

“Yeah, I… fell.”

Jamie snorts. 

I roll my eyes. “You can leave now, James.”

“No, he should stay,” Rosa answers before he can. “Depending on how severe your head injury is, I might need your boyfriend to answer questions you can’t.”

I’m ready to correct her about the ‘boyfriend’ thing, but she’s not even looking at me. Her eyes are trained on Jamie, in a way I’m very familiar with. I must make some sort of disgusted noise because a slow smile starts spreading across Jamie’s face.

“I’m not her boyfriend,” he says, with all his dazzling charm turned on her.

“Oh. Okay.” Rosa’s cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink.

I gag behind her back. She doesn’t see it, but Jamie does. He looks, if possible, even more smug.

“So, what happened?” 

Rosa summons all her willpower and turns back to me. I mentally give her kudos for that. I’ve seen many a good woman get sucked into his tractor beam gaze. For some reason, his eyes have the power to hypnotize unsuspecting victims. I suspect the dark arts. 

I don’t realize how intensely I’m glaring at Jamie until he says innocently, “Lissa, the nice lady asked you a question.”

And then I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I’m either going to have to lie to the hospital, or admit to Jamie’s face that I was intentionally trying to pull the punching bag out of the ceiling. He clearly figured this out before me, because he’s waiting with this expectant look on his face. 

Oh boy. 

“I had a punching bag fall on me,” I say, experimenting with a half-truth. 

“Uh-oh.” Rosa frowns. “How did that happen?”

“Um…” I glance at Jamie. He mouths, go on. “I was trying to hang a punching bag in my room. I’m getting into kickboxing.”

 “What were you doing when the bag fell on you?”

Clinging to it like a monkey and screaming.

“Well, I’d finished hanging it.” I speak slowly, my mind scrambling for a way to say this that doesn’t include an admission of guilt. That’s a handy lawyer term Aldo taught me. He possibly foresaw something like this happening. “And I just wanted to test that it was sturdy.”

“Okay.” She looks like she isn’t following. Jamie’s on the edge of his seat.

“So I just… kind of… wrapped my arms around it.” I mimed the action.

“And that’s when it fell?”

I should just say yes. That’s close enough to what happened. But she’s a medical professional, and this is an emergency situation. If I make it sound less serious than it is, she could skip over something important. I could have a blood clot or internal bleeding, and she won’t know because I’m not telling the full truth. Am I really going to risk dying of an aneurysm at 24 just to spite Jamie? 

“Technically, I was hanging from it. When it fell.” There, are you happy?

I can’t look at him. I’m pretty sure I hear him humming “Wrecking Ball”. 

Thankfully, Rosa doesn’t seem fazed. I guess, in the ER, she’s seen it all. She just clarifies, “So your full body weight was hanging on the bag when you fell?”

“Yep.”

“When I found her, she was pinned under it,” Jamie chimes in.

“Nobody asked.” Behind my smile, I’m gritting my teeth.

Rosa misinterprets my aggression. “Are you in pain?” 

“Very much so.” I make eye contact with Jamie.

“Aw, you poor thing. I’ll get you some meds for that, okay?” She rubs my arm, as if she isn’t just a couple years older than me, and I feel like an eight year old. Next thing she’ll be offering me a lollipop.

I don’t end up getting a treat, but the meds more than make up for it. By the time they’re done checking me out—bruised ribs, mildly sprained wrist, and yes, a concussion—I’m floating on Cloud 9, and not even the fact that Rosa gave Jamie her number can bring me down.

“She was nice,” I sigh, slumped in my wheelchair. 

“Sure was.” Jamie’s behind me, pushing me through the ER lobby. I wave to the woman at the front desk and the kid with her finger stuck in the cheese shaker. She doesn’t wave back. 

“I thought this night was going to be awful, but it really wasn’t.” I let my head fall back and my eyelids drift shut. “I didn’t even mind that you were there.”

“Wow, you must be really high.”

I want to tell him to can it, but I’m too tired. 

The wheelchair stops moving and I feel Jamie’s hand on my knee. “Wake up, Miley Cyrus. I gotta get you in the truck.”

I force my eyes back open. Jamie’s crouching in front of me, and it takes me a second to figure out he’s going to carry me again. I lean forward and wrap my arms around his neck, taking the opportunity to inhale his scent. I've always liked the way he smells. He doesn’t wear cologne. It’s just clean and soapy, with a little hint of sawdust. 

“I still hate you,” I say into his neck as he scoops me up.

“Not the best thing to say to someone who’s carrying you, DeLuca.” His tone is mild, but I hold on tighter, just in case.

“You didn’t let me finish. I still hate you, but thank you for helping me.” I pat his shoulder. “I mean it.”

I hear his truck door opening, and then Jamie sets me down in the passenger seat, sideways, so my legs are dangling out the open door. Instead of leaving, he props his hands up on the doorframe, caging me in with his body. I stop breathing.

He isn’t smiling anymore. In this light, his eyes are dark gray with a hint of green, like the lake on a cloudy day. The breeze coming off the water plays with his hair and flutters his t-shirt. Behind him is one of the prettiest summer sunsets I’ve ever seen. It’s a beautiful night, and I can’t remember why I’m mad at him.

Danger! Danger! some distant part of my brain screams.

“Lissa?” Jamie leans in close, angling his head so his mouth is right by my ear.

“Hmm?” is all I can manage. For half a second, I wonder if he’s going to kiss me. 

Where did that come from?

His lips brush against the very edge of my jaw. “I know what you’re doing.”

I freeze. “What… what do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

His breath is hot on my skin. I’m hit with a wave of dizziness that may not be entirely because of the concussion. My fingers curl into his t-shirt without my permission, just to have something to hold onto. 

In a voice so low it gives me goosebumps, Jamie whispers, “Game on.”