"Your fault?" Dar chuckled softly. "I could have remembered when I was putting some on you." She flexed her arms and turned, taking the bottle and putting a little on her fingers. Then she carefully painted Kerry's face with it, tracing the pink skin over her rounded cheekbones. "You got a little toasted too."
"I sure did." Kerry let her hands rest on Dar's hips. "But you know what? I had a great day. The dive was stupendous, and scaring the poo out of those two was so choice."
Dar grinned. "Yeah, it was," she admitted. "A little juvenile, though."
"So was their trying to make trouble last night," Kerry stated. "And so was their showing up tonight and trying to bait us. So there."
"So there." Dar leaned over and kissed her, tasting a hint of lip balm as she explored Kerry's mouth. "I am starting to wonder now what they're up to, though." She added, "The bitchiness I understand. Them being nice is scary."
Kerry took her hand and tugged. "Well, let's give 'em the benefit of the doubt, Dar. You never know--maybe they decided to grow up too."
"Mm." Dar followed her willingly. "Like us, you mean?"
"Exactly." Kerry paused and indicated the tray. "So, grownup. Wanna share some hot chocolate and berries with me?"
They walked to the table hand in hand. Dar gazed down at the treats with a smile, picking up a piece of apple garnish and taking a bite of it. "What more could any woman ask for?" she inquired around her mouthful of apple.
"Share." Kerry stood on her tiptoes and closed her teeth around the apple slice, and they both nibbled toward the center, giggling as their noses bumped and they fought over the last scrap of it.
"Whoops." Dar rolled her tongue around a small, hard point. "Seed."
"Where?" Kerry caught the pink appendage in her teeth, surprising Dar into releasing the seed into her mouth. "Ah! Got it!" She pulled back and swallowed the seed sticking her tongue out a few times like a lizard. "Mm."
Dar laughed. "Did just swallow that?"
"Yup." Kerry picked up a strawberry chaser and bit into its chocolate shell ruthlessly. "I heard a story once that if you swallow an apple seed it makes the tree of knowledge grow inside you."
"Um."
"Here. Don't think about it. Just eat." Kerry offered her half a strawberry. "It was a goofy story, but it's better than the other one I heard."
Dar chewed her berry contentedly. "That it makes you healthy, wealthy and wise?" She hazarded a guess.
"That it makes you pregnant."
Dar spit a bit of berry halfway across the table and nearly inhaled the rest of it. She covered her mouth as a laugh erupted from her.
Kerry patted her back solicitously. "Told you it was goofy. You'd be surprised at what you end up being taught in Sunday school that far north, honey."
"Jesus...remind me to throw some of our education outreach budget up there, will you?" Dar buried her face into Kerry's shoulder. "Before they start teaching Cabbage Patch creationist theory."
Kerry gave her a kiss on the head and exhaled happily, patting Dar's cheek when she lifted her head up. "Will do." She brushed Dar's cheek with her lips. "But they threw the book away when they came up with you."
Dar poured out two cups of hot chocolate, lifted hers, and clinked its edge against Kerry's when she picked her own up. "Here's to us." She looked into Kerry's eyes. "To hell with everyone else."
Kerry took a sip, and gave a kiss. "I'll drink to that anytime."
DAR SETTLED HER balance, gripping the bar on the weights with both hands at shoulder width and pressing her back against the weight bench. Slowly, she lifted the barbell clear, and lowered it, pushing it away from her with the same deliberation until her arms were straight.
It was very quiet in the hotel's gym, not surprising since it was before dawn. Dar lowered the bar and pressed it up again, keeping an even rhythm until she'd done it ten times. Then she set the weight back on the bar and let her arms drop.
"Ouch." She flexed her shoulder carefully, reaching over to probe the tightness she could feel still in the joint. It had mostly healed after her injury, but getting a full range of motion back and evening out the strength between her two arms was proving a long and, to her, tedious process.
But a process it was, and she slid down, fitting her legs under the leg press and flexing her thigh muscles to steadily lift up the weights she'd set on it. Aside from their new kickboxing classes, she'd felt the need lately to reaffirm the power she'd taken years to build into her body and she'd started doing a little more weightlifting than she had been for a while.
There wasn't any real reason for it. Dar folded her hands across her stomach and counted silently. Just a phase she was going through, apparently, figuring maybe her running and other efforts were getting her bored at the moment.
Breakfast was also on her mind. As she exercised, Dar went over the possible tacks she could take in their next fencing match with Shari and Michelle. Should she give them the benefit of the doubt and assume maybe they did want to bury the hatchet? Maybe Kerry was right.
Dar slid up on the bench and switched back to the chest presses. Maybe she was letting the personal side of the issue get in the way a little too much. After all, Shari wasn't anything she needed to worry about now. She'd passed her years back in the business strategy arena. She was a successful corporate executive, and she had the stable loving relationship Shari had been so sure she hadn't been capable of.
So it was her game, match, and set, and she had nothing to fear from either her ex-lover, her ex-lover's company, or the breakfast they were going to have in just a few hours.
Right. Dar let the bar drop again, and braced her legs, beginning a set of sit-ups, contracting her torso muscles in a more rapid rhythm. So why did she have knots in her guts?
For a few long moments she turned the thoughts off, concentrating on the exercise instead. Then her eyes lifted and met her reflection's gaze from the mirrors on the wall and she saw the wry lift of her own lips. "I think that whole 'grown up' crap wasn't a hundred percent now, was it, Paladar?" She addressed herself in a mocking tone. "Still smarting from that first blow off, huh?"
Just the articulation seemed to help. The knotted feeling inside her stomach eased, and she felt her body relax in response to it. "Redneck squirt fraud." She stuck her tongue out and slowed her motion, turning the last crunch into a rise to her feet as she ambled over to the leg press with a sigh. "Turn off the hormones, turn on the synapses. Think about what you've got right now."
She loaded an extra plate onto the bar and got under it, lifting it up onto her shoulders carefully and pausing to set her feet. With a deep breath, she went down with the weight, then straightened her legs and eased back up.
She did it again, reveling in the reassuring sense of control as her body responded smoothly. You are the energy in this, Dar. She reminded herself silently. They want something from you. That means you have to drive the situation to your advantage.
I can do that. Her inner voice responded. We can do that.
Dar studied the far wall of the gym. I hope.
THE NEXT MORNING started off charmingly enough, Kerry reasoned, as she surveyed the chocolate kiss resting squarely on her navel. Dar was nowhere to be seen, but she concluded the kiss could not have come from a Disney waiter, so she unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth as she slid from under the covers and got out of bed.
A rumble of thunder caught her attention, and she glanced outside the window, where a gray, drizzly day met her eyes. "Hm." She lifted her T-shirt from the back of the chair and slipped into it, turning to check the clock by the bed. "Six thirty."