3 After party

Jo came back downstairs in a few minutes in her pajamas and a long white terry robe. She sat down on the sofa, put a pillow on the coffee table and her swollen leg on it. Next, she turned on the TV.

She seemed to be completely oblivious to Luke's presence. She began to browse on Netflix. Finally, she turned on the final season of Manifest.

"Seriously? Are you going to watch that crap?" Luke reacted seeing her choice.

"Why not? I need something completely unreal right now." She explained.

"Of course." He wondered what to do with her swollen leg. He didn't want to send Ann the photo he just had sneakily snapped because she would have told him to take Jo to the emergency room right away.

Luke had to find a different way. He rummaged in the freezer, and found a package of frozen green peas. He wrapped it in a cloth. 'That may be a solution!' He thought.

"Gotta do something about your swelling." Luke said as he applied the compress he had just made, to her ankle. At that moment, his phone rang.

Moments later, Patrick was sitting on the sofa next to Jo.

"You should be at work." Jo noticed.

"I am not irreplaceable."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

They sat like that for several minutes in silence. She watched her show, mostly on preview.

"At this speed, the season will be over in an hour." Patrick commented observing her action.

"I only watch the interesting parts."

"I understand…" He said, massaging her swelling ankle. She didn't protest. He wondered if she even noticed. He tried to figure out what was on her mind right now.

"Shall we go to the orthopedist tomorrow?" In the end, he couldn't stand it.

"For what?" She retorted coldly, completely emotionless.

"To check your ankle."

"I am not going. The orthopedist will tell me to spend two weeks at home with my feet up high."

"What's wrong with that?" Patrick asked, looking into her eyes. He wanted to know if that really hurt.

"I have a few days to show up at work and then a trip ahead of me. Did you forget?"

"No, I didn't."

"Besides, I have to go to work on Sunday." She tried to explain her point.

"You don't work on weekends."

"But this weekend I wanted a change…"

"All right. Would you like a cup of tea?" He offered. He didn't know how to ask about what happened at the party. The best thing was just to be with her.

"May I have a Russian earl grey, please?"

"Sure."

"Could you promise me something, Pat?"

"Anything, badass."

"If next time your friend will have some issues with sexual harassment or abuse, don't save him. Help him get his sentence. One hundred percent nothing was ever slander, it was a fact." She paused for a moment to take a few deep breaths, and then she continued.

"I am sure it was never about extorting colossal financial damages from him or trying to damage his reputation. He's fucked up." She stated as a matter of fact.

"What happened, badass? Did he abuse you?"

"No, but he used to paw my ass in public."

"Is that why you choked him?" Patrick asked in a serious tone.

"What did she do?" Luke, who had been watching them closely from the kitchen, interrupted their conversation.

"Nick thought it was some kind of game and they were about to end up somewhere in the hotel room upstairs."

"What???" Luke didn't like her games at all.

"I wanted to embarrass him in public, but the bastard only pretended to be drunk." Jo decided to explain what happened at the party.

Patrick and Luke were speechless. Both of them looked at her waiting for more details.

"I dragged him into a corner. I was pretending I was playing with him. When he didn't respond to my warnings that once his hands would land on my ass again, one of my knees would end up between his legs, and it would hurt. Finally, I choked him a bit with his tie…"

"He needed a serious beating!" Luke commented. "But you're no less fucked up than he is. He could have hurt you. Have you taken that into account?"

"Sure, in public, at a five-star hotel, at his Christmas party." She said coldly.

"Why not? He deserved it." Luke said. "What happened next?"

"The bastard liked it. No. He loved it, and he grew even more excited, barely gasping for air. In the end, I gave up, I was afraid I would hurt him. Anyway, there was no point, because the deviant liked it so much."

"Fuck!" Patrick couldn't hold his emotions anymore. He screwed up, again.

"I left the party at the first opportunity."

"I am so sorry…" Patrick said looking into her eyes. "I thought he was a guy with class. Besides, he claimed that he was in love with you for a very long time."

"He may have class, but only without an ounce of alcohol, when he's able to disguise himself." Jo explained. After a moment of hesitation she continued. "It's okay, Pat. Sometimes I'm wrong with my judgment of others, too."

Patrick had pangs of conscience that he made her go to the party. He really hoped that she would have a good time with a tactful, and full of class guy with a sense of humor. This was what he considered his friend, with whom he had spent four years at university.

He found it hard to believe what had happened. He thought he knew both.

She looked really terrible without makeup. Staring at her blue eyes and dark, grey cicles around her puffy eyes, he knew she hadn't slept well in a long time.

"What happened with your ankle? Is it that bastard's fault too?" He wanted to know the rest of the story. Her leg looked well a few days earlier when he met her at the airport.

"It's Luke's fault and his half an hour walk, just over four thousand steps." She explained with irony in her voice. She wasn't going to admit that she sprained her ankle again on the stairs a few hours earlier. She shouldn't have been wearing high heels yet.

Patrick eyed Luke suspiciously.

"I'll tell you the story later." He told Patrick, but he still stared at him, waiting for details.

"I admit I panicked when I saw the murderous gleam in her eyes a few days earlier. I knew she was planning to commit a crime. I knew that face all too well, I was sure about it. I had to protect the victim."

"Sure." She commented mockingly.

"I had a moral obligation to prevent the crime." Luke added.

"Are you sure you prevented it?" She looked at him with that same murderous gleam in her eyes. "Did you consider that maybe you made a mistake and messed up my life?"

"You talk nonsense, badass! You've had too much to drink."

"I didn't drink much. I had only two drinks."

"Sure! Double? Triple?"

"Guys, stop it." Patrick didn't understand anything from their chat. It was so late, so he decided to leave the conversation with Luke for later.

He just took Jo in his arms and held her gently, caressing her head.

"I'm sorry, badass. I promised him to protect you, but I keep failing all the time."

They stayed like that for a very long time… until she calmed down. It seemed like she was going to fall asleep any moment.

"I want to feel the passion…" Jo stated sadly. "I want to have chills on my back hearing his voice, I want to have butterflies in my stomach just thinking about him. I want to feel shivers when I feel his touch,... Do you understand what I am looking for?"

"I think so." Patrick said with eyes full of tears.

"I want to wake up next to someone in the morning, or in the middle of night, next to whom I trust." She explained slowly, with a pain evident in her voice.

"I want to wake up next to someone who will be there for me when I really need him, not just when he wants me…" She paused for a moment. She took a few deep breaths to calm her emotions, then she continued.

"I want to share some of my passions; do fucked up things together, and not be judged for it, but at the same time not getting too much in each other's way…"

Patrick held her in his arms gently hugging her. He patted her head like a little child. He wished he could take some of her pain. He wanted the same for her.

"I have to figure out for myself whether my admiration for some beautiful neck is real, or just because it reminds me of his magnificent neck… I miss him so much. Do you know what I mean?" As she spoke, tears ran down her face.

"Yes. I miss him too, badass."

"I wish I could look into his dark blue eyes, touch his face, or ruffle the perfectly arranged mess on his head…"

"I know... I wish I could hug him too, even for a very short moment…" Patrick added with eyes full of tears.

To be continued... or not...