What We Left Unsaid

“So, I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days, and... I’ve realized something today, Barbie.”

Sending a glance over her bare shoulder, the towel-clad woman let her gaze flicker over the man that was leaning against the frame of the door to her room, arms crossed over his chest and one foot tucked behind the other. She arched an eyebrow at his casual demeanor, before letting her lips pull into a sideways grin. “Oh yeah? You’re right, that’s definitely something worth sharing! Shall we take a picture and put this day down in a scrapbook somewhere?”

He didn’t appear to enjoy her response nearly as much as she had. “Ha ha.”

“I know, I crack myself up, too!”

He rolled his eyes and sighed irritably, looking at her with an expression that made his lack of interest in her sarcasm very obvious. “Are you done yet?”

She rolled her eyes in response, before huffing out a sigh and turning back to the closet she had been sorting through. Not really caring if he was offended by her continuing her earlier actions or not, she examined the shirt she still had her fingers on, leaving her back to him. “If I have to be.” When he didn’t immediately go ahead and explain what the hell had been on his mind, she added, “Alright, Baker, I’ll bite. What is it you’ve realized?”

“I can’t just go out and fuck someone from a bar anymore, can I?”

Her immediate reaction was a mixture between a snort and a laugh. “Really? That’s what you’ve realized? Because I actually thought what happened two weeks ago proved that you can.”

“Well, yeah, physically!” he stressed in response. “But that’s not... What I mean is, if I were to go out and fuck someone from a bar, the same thing would happen that happened last time, wouldn’t it?”

Blowing out a long breath, she took a moment to remove the chosen shirt from the hanger and drape it over her bed before she turned back around to face him, a rather bored look on her face when she met his gaze. “Are we really going to have the same fucking conversation that we had when this happened? If you only just figured that out, then you’re a hell of a lot dumber than I thought you were.”

She could see the way his forehead twitched when he clenched his jaw, green eyes narrowing into a glare for a moment as he looked back at her, before he took a deep breath and forcibly relaxed. “I just realized the implications of that, alright? Does that make any more fucking sense to you?”

Both of her eyebrows skyrocketed. Despite the fact that he had still sounded rather agitated with having to further explain himself, he hadn’t actually snapped at her, but had forced himself to remain pleasant -- at least by their standards. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What’s going on, Baker?” she asked slowly. “What do you want from me?”

The way that he quickly looked down at the floor and raised a hand to rub at the back of his neck confirmed her suspicions. So, crossing her arms over her chest -- and somehow managing to avoid loosening the towel’s knot in the process -- she tilted her head up a bit waited to hear whatever it was he was building up to. But, when he finally glanced back up at her, he took one look at her posture, snorted, and turned to leave.

”Wait, damn it!” she called out, dropping her arms and sighing as she waited for him to turn back around. When he did, she gave a gesture for him to continue. “Clearly you want something, so just get on with it, yeah? I haven’t said no yet, for fuck’s sake.” And, after a pointed look, she turned back around and continued her search through the closet, this time looking through her rather small selection of shorts.

“I just... wanted to know if you had one of those super-secret-pureblood ways around that whole thing.” The way he sighed before admitting his motive told her he had already decided that it was pointless to be telling it to her in the first place; she was inclined to agree.

Giving a laugh, Ava spun right back around, both of her eyebrows once again arched in surprise. “I’m sorry, are you actually asking me to give you something that would allow you to further embarrass me? Really?”

There was determination in his gaze when he glanced back up at her, lips set in a firm line. “Just give me a second to make my goddamn point, alright? I--”

“You don’t have a fucking point!” she interrupted irritably, tone suddenly lacking any of the amusement that had been present in it only a moment before. “There is no point that could possibly exist that would make that request of yours any less infuriating! I told you that I don’t do embarrassment, Baker. What else do I need to say to get that through that thick fucking head of yours, huh?”

“It doesn’t need to be embarrassing, though! There’s nothing embarrassing about--”

“--about having a mate that wants to fuck around behind your back?” she finished for him, the look in her icy eyes easily communicating exactly how little she agreed with him. “How is that not embarrassing?”

“Because it’s not like I’m fucking cheating on you or anything! Jesus, Rinaldi; we’re not actually mates! The guys don’t even have to know, if you’re worried about them. But, hell, even if they did know, it’s not like they’d even think twice about it as long as you weren’t upset about it. And if you’re worried about anyone else in the goddamn world, then you seriously need to get your head out of your ass. You’re mated to the mutt now, Princess; it doesn’t get any more embarrassing than that.”

Her only reaction for a moment was a low, deadly growl as she merely glared ahead at the male, before she very stiffly turned herself around, grabbed the first pair of shorts that she saw, and tossed them onto the bed. She made her way over to the dresser without even sparing the man a glance, pulling out the top drawer and starting to look through it. It wasn’t until Zacky cleared his throat loudly that she finally sighed and looked back up at him. “We’re not having this conversation. So, either run along or stand there and watch me get dressed -- I really don’t fucking care -- but I’m done with this topic.”

“But--”

“It doesn’t even fucking exist!” she shouted, turning towards him and waving one of her hands in a slightly-overdramatic way. “Fucking hell! I don’t even know any way around the pain, so this entire conversation is pointless. Unless you want me to give you Drake or Toni’s phone numbers, because maybe they know a loophole, but I don’t. Why would they ever tell me a way for a mated male to get away with fucking someone else if they were mated to me? And don’t even fucking think about asking me to swoop to your rescue after the fact. I told you, I’m not going to help with that, because whether or not you find it embarrassing, I do!”

The expression on his face told her that he wanted to cross the room and strangle some ‘sense’ into her, but, surprisingly, he raised both of his palms in a position of surrender, instead. “Okay,” was all he told her, tone much gentler than she had expected, even though she could still hear the displeasure in it. Still, the glare that had been in his eyes softened and his body visibly relaxed, and she instantly knew better than to assume the conversation was truly over. He didn’t do graceful losing.

“Okay?” she repeated somewhat incredulously, eyebrow arching in challenge. But he only nodded in response, dropping his hands casually into his pockets and leaning against the door’s frame once again. So, deciding that she, too, could play that game, she only turned back to the dresser and continued sorting through it, waiting for him to bring up whatever it was he was still hanging around to say. It wasn’t until after she had tossed a bra and a pair of panties onto the bed and was already searching through the sock drawer that he spoke up again.

“So,” he drew out somewhat awkwardly, as if he was testing the air, “what is it, exactly, that you expect me to do, here?”

Ava merely rolled a shoulder and glanced over at him. “Honestly, I expect you to simply leave, but if you’re so intent on doing something here, then I guess you can help me find two socks that actually fucking match.”

Once again, he didn’t appear pleased by her failure to take him seriously, but, rather than just snapping at her, he only rolled his eyes. “Come on, Rinaldi, just tell me what your master plan was. I know you had one -- you always have one -- so why not clue me in?”

“Well, you’re going to have to be more specific than that; I have so very many master plans.”

“Fuck you,” the man muttered under her breath, but even his quiet words were more than easy for her sensitive ears to pick up. She didn’t bother to respond, though, and simply waited for answer her question. “I’m a man, damn it,” he told her, confusing her rather than immediately answering her, “and I don’t exactly see myself as the celibate type. So what did you expect me to do, huh? Clearly you didn’t expect me to fuck some random chick while we were at the hotel, so what do you expect? What’s your master plan? Because you can’t honestly expect me to live the rest of my life without ever having sex again.”

She feigned horror. “Oh God no!” she mocked his dramatization, before rolling her eyes and resigning herself to the seriousness of the situation. “Look, Baker: people have needs, and I get that; I’d never expect you to go the rest of your life living like a goddamn monk. Christ, you’re enough of a pain in the ass when you are getting laid!” She took a moment to sigh and give her head a slow shake before she continued, looking up to meet those serious green eyes of his that were staring unblinkingly back at her. “What I expected was for us to sit down and have a nice, civil conversation on the matter as soon as you felt it necessary to bring up. That was the great-big-super-secret master plan.”

There was a long moment before he spoke again, those eyes of his just staring right at her without wavering in the slightest. It made her a bit uncomfortable, honestly. “I’m trying to have that conversation now, Ava.”

Ava. He’d called her by her first time, and to her face. She wasn’t sure she’d heard her first name come from his lips in years, but, as soon as he said it, she knew exactly where he was trying to lead this conversation. Huffing a bit, she turned her attention back to the drawer, eyes rolling at the thought of what she was sure was running through his mind right then. “Too bad, Baker,” she told him unsympathetically, “because I’m not interested in having that particular conversation right now. Three options: change the topic, shut the fuck up, or fucking leave.”

The sound of his footsteps alerted her to his approach, but she only rolled her eyes again, continuing to shift through the different socks in search for a single matching pair amongst the chaos. Her search ended very quickly, though, when all of a sudden, there a hand on her hip, another on her upper thigh, and teeth brushing lightly, testingly over the marking at the junction of her neck and shoulder. Her immediate reaction was -- naturally -- to stiffen, and that gave him just enough time for that hand of his to brush up her leg and dip just under the towel before her elbow came flying backwards at him violently.

But he had been expecting the blow, and after a moment of struggling and more than one grunt from each of them, he had her spun around and pressed up against the wall. He had a weak grip on both of her wrists that she knew would be easy to break, but the fact that his chest was roughly pressed against hers severely limited her attack options. She still had a few good choices, though, and she didn’t plan on hesitating.

“Wait, wait, wait!” he hissed just as she readied herself for an attack, his hands quickly releasing her wrists in a gesture of surrender. He didn’t step away from her at all, though, and instead just stood there staring right into her eyes, his hands eventually making their way to her hips. ”Ava,” he started, tone deceptively soothing, “wait a second. This was your plan, right? It could work; this could be good for the both of us.”

She took a moment to look right back into those green eyes of his before she sent hers skyward and gave a loud scoff. “For you, you mean,” she retorted, “because you can’t honestly expect me to be at all interested in a repeat of last time.”

Zacky visibly winced, his eyes pinching shut for a moment as he took another deep breath. But when he blinked them open, he didn’t try and object. Instead, he gave a shallow nod of concession, before he dipped it down and let his nose trace her jaw line, his lips gently brushing over the skin of her neck. “I could make it worth your while,” he offered somewhat huskily, before giving her jaw a quick nip and pulling back so that he could look into her eyes again. “Come on, you’re an attractive woman and I’m an attractive man. We’re mates; this is what we’re supposed to do.”

It took her a moment to figure out how she wanted to respond to that, but when she did, she gave a low growl first. “I thought we weren’t actually mates, huh? You don’t get to have it both ways, Baker, so don’t try and tell me what I’m supposed to--”

“That’s not how I meant it, Rinaldi!” he objected, before cursing under his breath leaning his head forward so that his forehead pressed against the wall beside her head. There was a long moment before he spoke up again, and when he did, he leaned into her more and gave her hips a squeeze. “You’re not fighting me,” he commented as he brushed his lips over that purple marking on her shoulder, “and I can hear your breath catch. So tell me, Ava, what’s going on in that little head of yours right now? Why are you fighting this?”

“You want to know what I’m thinking right now?” she asked, waiting for him to hum out a confirmation before turning her head so that her lips were at his ear. Her volume dropped to a whisper. “I’m thinking, it’s fucking hilarious that you think I would ever be interested in you. I’m thinking, you’re the most repulsive person I’ve ever met and I wouldn’t want to be near you even if you were the last person on the planet. And I’m fucking thinking, sorry to burst your bubble, Princess, but no one could ever be interested in your personality or looks, and I feel so bad for whoever decides the fame might be worth it and has to spend the rest of their life with their eyes closed, pretending they’re not with someone as disgusting as you. That’s what I’m fucking thinking, Baker!”

And, with that, she finally shoved him off of her and moved herself to the other end of the room, and he didn’t even try to stop her. She spun back around just in time to see him raise both hands to his head and claw at his hair, before he went right ahead and slammed one of those fists right through the drywall. He cursed under his breath as he turned himself around and looked back at her with an expression she could only assume was irritation at himself. “Damn it, Rinaldi, I was twenty-one and I was a fucking jackass!”

“Hell yeah you were. Still are, really.”

He took a carefully controlled breath, looking as if he wanted to punch her in the face for a moment, before resigning to a stiff nod of agreement. “What do you want me to say? I’m not that kid anymore; I’ve grown up -- at least a little bit -- and I’m not fucking with you right now, okay?”

But she wasn’t interested in listening to him and she had told him that she wasn’t interested in having that conversation. So, taking a moment to force herself to relax a bit, she simply rolled a shoulder in response. “I’m not that eighteen-year-old kid anymore, either,” she told him. “Do I look pissed and insulted right now? Because I’m not; I don’t care. We’re mates, we’re not mates... It’s all just too much of a goddamn headache. I don’t want to deal with it right now, okay? I’ve got a Councilman to go and meet, and I still need to get ready. So... do you mind?”

“This is something that we need to--”

“Not now, alright?! I don’t want to have this discussion right now. I don’t have time to have this--”

“But--”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” she finally snapped, dropping the calm demeanor and letting her eyes flash amber in irritation. “We’re not doing this right now. For fuck’s sake, I don’t want to fuck you right now! That’s not going to change no matter what you try and say now, so just drop it. Jesus!”

“I can’t drop this! I--”

“Of course you can’t!” she said on an exasperated sigh. “Because you’re a man, right? Whatever, Baker. I don’t care. Fine! Go ahead, go out to a bar and bring a girl back to get your needs taken care of. But you are going to be responsible for making sure she doesn’t see anything she shouldn’t, and you are going to come to me right afterwards. I’m not dragging you out of a room I can barely breathe in ever again, am I understood? And you fucking owe me big time.”

He looked about to argue for only a second before he gave a firm nod and clapped his hands together in a gesture of gratitude. “Of course, Ava. I--”

“It’s Rinaldi! Stop calling me Ava, damn it! It’s weird.”

There was flicker of a sideways grin on his face when he looked back at her. “You’ve got it, Rinaldi. And thank you.”

She only rolled her eyes, lifting an arm and pointing in the direction of the door. And, with a final dip of his head, the man finally did as requested and took his leave, allowing her to finish getting ready in peace.