Freed From Desire

Part 9

Nora

Waking up the next morning was difficult for a few different reasons. First of which I noticed was that the room was spinning and I had a splitting headache. Definitely not at that age where I could drink and not feel it the next day anymore. 

But the hardest part was when I turned to look at the time on my phone and saw a text from Katie displayed there.

McCabe [8:42]: Your head better hurt worse than mine considering those last shots were your idea

It was innocent enough. No mention of what had gone down after the shots. Not that I needed any reminders, it was still very fresh in my head and on my body. But that innocent tone was the thing that confused me. 

We were not at the level of just texting randomly or keeping each other updated throughout the day. So a part of me was scared that this was just her opening up a conversation that would eventually lead to 'we need to talk about last night'. And I definitely did not want to do that. At least not with her.

Instead I opened up another text thread, one to my best friend of a solid few decades now and shot her a cryptic "I'm in trouble and I need your help" text. Getting out of bed proved to be less than fun, the dizziness settling once I was upright. Headache remained, but that I could deal with after I had some coffee. And a shower. Maybe in the opposite order.

My phone pinged and anxiety settled in my stomach before picking it up and seeing that it was Megan. 

M3gan [9:09]: Where's the body?

Laughing to myself, I started to text back before another message came through with a ping.

M3gan [9:09]: I'm caught up on CSI, we can do this.

She really was the definition of a ride or die best friend. I slowly walked through my apartment and headed to the bathroom to turn the shower on and allow it some time to heat up.

Nora [9:10]: We're not burying anybody, calm down

Guilt gnawed at me from ignoring Katie's text but what was I supposed to say? I could just tell her later that I slept in for longer than I had in reality. It was a believable lie considering that it was our day off.

My phone pinged three times in a row in my hand, each line making me laugh more and more.

M3gan [9:11]: Of course not, that's too easy

M3gan [9:11]: Now hear me out

M3gan [9:11]: Industrial meat grinder.

I decided to hold off from replying and stepped into the shower to erase all marks from yesterday. At least the ones I could, I'm pretty sure there was a hickey on my collarbone that wouldn't wash off.

Once I got out of the shower and put some clothes on, I checked my phone again to see a much saner reply waiting for me.

M3gan [9:16]: Costa run in 20?

___

I hadn't really given much thought to how I was going to explain this. So when it all kind of stumbled out of me in random bits and pieces of information, it took Megan a solid minute or two of just staring out the window to shuffle through it in her head.

And when she did, she gave me one of those looks. Megan was a kindergarten teacher so she had many different looks. She could look at you with absolute warmth shining from her eyes, like she'd had a piece of the sun for lunch. Or could effectively stare down a jacked up guy at a club whenever he tried to get too close for comfort. We even had that secret 'omg did you see that' look for just the two of us.

This one was one I didn't see often, let alone be at the receiving end. It was a look that said 'why on earth would you do this, I could never'. Which spoke volumes cause there was very little Megan wouldn't do. Apparently getting involved with someone at work was one of them. 

Ahem. She did work with children so I guess that one made a lot of sense in her case.

Nonetheless. That one look made me stare at my cup of coffee and sit very quietly until she finally spoke. "Are you gonna see her again?"

Her voice was relaxed and held no judgement in its tone, making me feel slightly better about it all.

"Well.. yeah. Monday, in trainings," I shrugged. It's not that I didn't understand what she was really asking, I just didn't have any answers.

"Last night wasn't supposed to happen either so I'm not gonna sit here and promise that it won't happen again," I added, knowing very well that Meg would call me out on it in two seconds.

"Neither of those times were supposed to happen you mean," she smirked in response before shuffling around her tiny purse. The motion caught my attention and my eyes went wide when she pulled out a small bottle of.. was that vodka?

Unfazed, as she always was, she uncapped the bottle and much to my surprise divided the contents between our coffees. Oh that was going to taste absolutely disgusting.

"Hair of the dog," Megan simply shrugged when I stared at her, it being my turn to be judgemental now. "I can't do this conversation fully sober."

"Oh come on, it's not like I've been celibate since Eva. And once again. I didn't know I was getting the job," I said defensively, crossing my arms on my chest for the full effect.

"Nora, I love you. But you're just so.." Megan said, waving her hand in the air while looking for the right word. "Dumb," is the one she landed on. Lovely.

"You absolutely knew who Katie McCabe was before anything happened. Matter of fact, I've heard about that woman and her yellow cards more than I would have liked in the years you've dragged me to watch a bunch of women run around and chase a ball."

I got as far as opening my mouth to interrupt but she lifted her hand and had that infamous 'don't you dare' look on her face so instead I just sipped my coffee slowly. I was right, it was horrible.

"So spare me with the 'I did it cause Jonas would have wanted me to help her' bullshit," she continued, mocking the crap out of my accent which, goddamnit, made me smirk. Megan had this way of being effortlessly funny and even though she sounded a bit angry, I knew she could never be mad at me for longer than a minute so I wasn't really bothered with it.

"I don't really care that you work together unless that's illegal? No?" Megan paused for long enough to see me shake my head cause well. It wasn't. Just highly unethical probably. "Okay so yes. Don't give two shits. What I do care about and what's getting me pissed off is you sitting here across from me and trying to write this off as something that just happened when you so clearly have a crush on the damn woman but are too big of a wuss to admit it to yourself because you think Eva is rolling over in her grave." 

Megan took a deep inhale after that long rambly sentence and blew out her breath before picking up her coffee and enjoying it as if it didn't have the casual taste of death to it.

"Eva was cremated so technically she can't really roll.." was all I said and a few seconds later we both broke out in laughter. I was right, she was unable to stay mad at me for longer than a minute.