Doubles

Richard woke up the next morning with Felicia halfway on top of him, his arm curled around her. After the movie, she’d rolled onto her side and fell asleep with no indication that the grisly film had bothered her. Sometime while they both had been asleep her hand had crept under his shirt to hold onto his abs. It was nice, the way her hand was nestled diagonally like that.

But it was almost six thirty, and he didn’t feel like sleeping in. He moved to slip out of bed like he’d done every day since the week had started, only for her gentle hold to harden into a tight grip on him. He tried to get out of bed again, and he felt a weak tug trying to keep him down on the bed. He could’ve always broken out, but doing that probably would’ve woken her up, and he knew that most people didn’t like to get up as early as him. Aubrey had slowly crept from waking at ten on the weekends to waking at eight in the time they’d been together, but even after four years she hadn't matched how early he chose to get up. So he just lay there, waiting for her hand to relax so he could try again. As he tried to lie still, Felicia spoke from where her head was against his chest.

“How are you awake this early?” She asked groggily.

“I woke you up?” He asked, worried that he’d screwed up yet again.

“Yes, you woke me up. It’s six fucking twenty, how are you trying to get out of bed?”

“I’ve been doing a pretty good job of sleeping in.”

“And you just happened to take a break from that on my morning?” She still hadn’t gotten off of him.

“No, this is me sleeping in.”

“God damn…” She grumbled as she sat up. “Between this and you not noticing our dates, you’re like a jacked robot.”

“Well, I’m sorry for having a routine.” He wasn’t feeling guilty anymore

“And you know who else has a routine? The goat I’ve woken up to every other day this week.”

“So you’re comparing me to a goat now?”

“If the hoof fits.”

“If you’re done fantasizing about me being a goat, I’m going to go take a shower. Is there anything you wanted to complain about before letting me finally do that?”

She bit her lower lip. “If you’re going to be in the shower, can I watch?”

“You want to watch me shower?” He asked, a bit surprised.

“I do.”

This wasn’t something that he’d heard before. Aubrey had often wanted to sit with him while he was taking a shower, but that was just so they could talk during the shower. She hadn’t been able to see him through their shower curtain. “Yeah, sure. There’s a good chance that Hazel or Helena will knock on the front door. If they do, can you let in whoever shows up?”

“Fine.”

So he stripped and got into the shower, the water roaring around him. Felicia sat on the toilet seat for a while watching him under the water, but at one point he looked away to use the shampoo and she’d stepped away. Then when he was done shampooing she was back, with Hazel next to her. It looked like they were talking to each other, but he couldn’t hear a thing under the intensity of the shower heads. So all he really knew was that there were two women in the bathroom with him, watching him shower.

He finally turned the water off and put on his towel. “Good morning.” Hazel said as he walked out of the bathroom past her so he could get dressed in his closet. She was in her uniform, and she adjusted her tie as she followed him out.

“Morning Hazel. I assume she needs me to come help?” He shouted from the closet as he got dressed.

“Yes, Sir.”

“I can be ready in a few minutes.”

While she was waiting, Hazel resumed her conversation with Felicia. “She’s going to notice your jump on the scoreboard sooner or later. If she reacts like she usually does, you should be prepared for that.”

“Thanks for the warning.” The shorter girl said. “I need to decide what to do about Maeve’s thing too.”

“Did she have a problem with you and him dating too?”

“Less a personal problem and more that she was worried about losing her license if she did anything with him. Since I have the same problem, she wanted me to let her know if I thought I had a way to satisfy the show without breaking our ethical codes. So now I’ll need to tell her that I just snapped mine in half.”

“I see.” That’s a different sort of problem. Helena will almost certainly bring that up too, she tried to use it yesterday. “Well, I wish you the best with that conversation.”

“Why aren’t you upset like your boss will be? I could tell you’re into him too, but you’re just trying to give me a warning after how I was bragging about what I did to him.”

“You haven't been particularly competitive with me. I’m comfortable with you pursuing him as well. Even if we weren’t on the show, it’d feel hypocritical to not let his eyes wander.”

Felicia didn’t know what most of that meant, but she didn’t really care. “I don't need to be a poor sport, I'm already winning. You’re taking him back to the Arrow Cottage before breakfast, right?”

“I am.”

“Then I’m going to see how far I can get through breakfast and talking to Maeve before you three show up.” Felicia grabbed her shoes and left a moment before Richard came back dressed and ready. While Felicia tried to get a head start, the two of them went to see Helena.

***

Richard found her in what he had started to think of as her usual position in the mornings, sitting on the bed stewing in anger. What was unusual was that she wasn’t in one of her usual pantsuits. She had on one of her outfits that she usually wore to play tennis in, and she had her racket held tightly in her hand like she was thinking about smacking someone with it.

She brightened slightly when she came in though, and put the racket down. “Thanks for coming again. It’s embarrassing that we keep needing to do this.”

“I’m sorry that I got you into this.” Richard apologized. “”But you can go ahead and walk around.”

She got up and joined them, putting her hand on Hazel’s back. “You don’t need to blame yourself for this. Genet made the transformation, and I technically agreed to be here.”

Neither he or Hazel knew that. She didn’t react externally, but he raised an eyebrow. “Why did you agree to come here?” He asked incredulously.

“I thought I watched Hazel die, and that was after we both watched you go missing. Genet had promised me that if I came with her, I could help get you both out. I thought that she was the devil at the time, but I didn’t think she was bringing us to a… sex show. Now I know she’s a different kind of monster.”

He didn’t argue with that. While Genet had taken opportunities to be nicer than she needed to be, his stepsister had gotten a worse hand than anyone. “Thanks for trying, even if it didn’t work.”

“There’s undeniably some setbacks, but I haven’t given up. I’m just waiting for a new lead or tool.” Helena reassured him quietly as they both followed Hazel back out of the house. After they made the short walk to the dining hall, they walked into Genet stretching batter on a skillet with a wooden spoon to make crêpes. She had a blackboard that she’d written about twenty menu options on, and was wearing the same decorative apron with a green dress.

“Spinach Scramble to go for Owens!” Genet shouted as she lifted up a plate. There was a little red flag sticking out that read allergen friendly.

“I’m right here.” Felicia said, from less than two feet away. “You don’t need to shout.”

“I’m having fun. You should too, after your good work yesterday.”

Felicia smirked, but couldn’t stop herself from blushing too. “Thanks.” She said before walking past the three of them to head back to her bedroom at the Stone Cottage.

As Richard and the others passed her to reach Genet, the host beamed at them. “Good Morning Hazel! How are my favorite Turners?”

“We’re the only Turners.” Helena coldly reminded her.

Genet didn’t lose her cheery tone. “Sure. You’re still my favorites.”

“So today’s a crêpe station?” Richard asked, trying to steer away from the fight he could feel his stepsister preparing to start.

Genet nodded. “Everyone’s getting the ideal meals of the day’s date. For Dr.Petrov, that meant reaching into the memories of her first vacation in America. You three can go ahead and sit down, I’ll bring over what I think you’d like when they’re ready.”

So they sat down. “What do you guys think she was talking about when she mentioned her first vacation in America?” Richard asked.

“Genet was probably referencing her time in the Soviet Union as a child.” Helena said.

“I didn’t know that about her. She doesn’t have an accent.”

“Her parents signed her up for speech classes to help her sound American.” Hazel explained.

“I’ve been seeing her every week. How am I the only one that doesn’t know that?”

“I had Hazel work on a file about her before I gave you her name. I couldn’t trust just anyone with you.”

“I take it you’ve also done one on Felicia.”

“Of course. We did one on everyone in your personal life.”

He stared at her. “Hel, please tell me you got their permission.”

“So they could cover up anything suspicious?”

“That’s a tremendous breach of privacy. Did you even find anything suspicious?”

“No, but I found out that most of them are pretty smart. If they had our resources and they really cared about you, most of them would’ve done the same.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“Luna?”

“That’s part of her job.”

“Felicia?”

Maybe? I’ve learned more in a day than I thought I knew in two years. “I’m not sure.”

“We both know that given the chance, your ex woul-”

“Miss Conners, would you like to come sit with us?” Hazel said, talking above both of them.

“Yeah, that sounds great! I’ll be right there.” In their argument, neither of them had noticed Aubrey flounce into the building. But thankfully Hazel had noticed her, and so the Turners dropped their fight while Aubrey was getting her order placed with Genet.

"We'll revisit this later. They deserve to know." He whispered at his stepsister.

The blonde plopped down next to him, leaning against him like it was something they’d been doing every day.

“You’ve been up pretty early this week.” He remarked to her.

“You’re back. I’m trying to take advantage of this time as much as I can, in case it turns out to be a dream again.”

God, I really did ruin things on her day. Why doesn’t she hate me? “I’m pretty sure this is real. None of us ever could’ve dreamed up the show.”

She nodded. “That’s true. You were right about Ava by the way, she wasn’t as scary as I thought she’d be. She taught me how to play Gauntlets and Giants.”

He was a little hurt that she’d finally agreed to give it a try when he wasn’t around. But he did his best not to show it. “So you enjoyed it?’

“Yeah! Once they took the dice away it was a lot of fun.”

Once they took rolling dice out of the game, she enjoyed the game about roleplay and rolling dice. “So what made you decide to try it?”

“Maeve wanted me to get to know some of the others better, since you three were the only ones I knew here.”

“So things are settled between you and them then?” Helena asked.

“With Luna and Ava at least.”

“That’s good. I didn’t enjoy what happened back then. Later today, would you want to see if Miss Soto would want to go in with us on getting a tennis court?”

It wasn't Aubrey that answered. “You kids won’t need to spend anything if you want to play tennis, that’s part of the athletic complex under the auditorium.” Genet said as she came over with four plates.

“There’s an athletic complex under the auditorium?” Hazel asked.

“There is. I’ll tell you more about it once I have a chance to set these down. From the savory side of the menu, we have a Soprano for Miss Singh and a Count of Monte Cristo for Ms.Turner.” The host set down two crêpes, one with tomato and cheese, the other filled with thin slices of ham, turkey, and cheese, with a dusting of powdered sugar on top. A ramekin of blackberry jam sat next to the pastry. “And from our sweet side, we have a Peanut Butter Split for your master.” She gave Richard a crêpe that she’d filled with banana slices, peanut butter, and a bit of melted chocolate. “And finally a Chocolate Fountain for Aubrey.” She handed a plate to the blonde with a chocolate crêpe filled with whipped creme and little bits of strawberries. Powdered sugar had been dusted on like for Helena’s, and another ramekin was on the plate, this time filled with maple syrup. “So under the auditorium there’s an elevator down to the athletic complex. I tried to include everything I thought you all might want to use to keep in shape. That includes a track, weight room, boxing ring, firing range for both guns and archery, and the tennis court you were asking for.”

“You trust us with a guns?” Helena asked.

“I did. Don’t worry though, the guns down in the firing range have extra protection beyond my consent enchantment; they can only be fired while pointed at a target.”

Richard frowned. “But why a firing range?” He’d never liked guns.

“I don’t want Hazel to be out of practice by the time you all are ready to leave.” The host said, putting a hand on Hazel’s shoulder. The bodyguard tensed up until Genet realized her mistake and lifted her hand back up. ”The last thing I need is another Dallas. Before I take a break, is there anything else you kids need?”

“Can I ask why you sent Ava and I to that cave instead of the athletic complex?” Richard questioned her.

“Working out together is half of what you two already do. Two years of that hadn’t gotten you two to become an item, so I was hoping something new would help you heat things up. Does that answer your question, kiddo?”

Both Helena and Aubrey were visibly disgusted by her explanation. “Yeah, thanks for explaining then.” Richard said before she went back up to her flat.

After the host left, Helena took the opportunity to talk about her. “Is the “kids” and diminutive language talk a new thing from her?”

Richard shook his head. “She was doing the same thing last night, but I don’t remember it happening before that. It’s a similar situation as to last night too, Felicia and I weren’t sure if she’d need to spend BP to watch a horror movie”

“It’s nice that she’s giving us all of that for free, but the way she’s talking is getting creepier.” Helena asserted, still giving the host some small credit.

Aubrey disagreed. “I think it’s nice. It shows that she cares about us.”

“But she doesn’t care about us. She’s just using us as tools to manipulate him.”

“You’re right. Gods, how did she make me forget that she was trying to set you up with Ava?” Aubrey said, directing the second part at her boyfriend.

Her calling you “kid ” probably distracted you. She’s trying to manipulate us too. But Helena knew better than to open that can of worms. Pointing it out would both upset her friend and risk her friend’s secret in front of Richard. “Since we have the tennis court, are you up for a match?”

“Actually, I wanted to spend some time with Richard. Maeve promised that we could share part of her day, and I wanted to make the most of it since he’s been busy with his friends so much of the week.” She edged even closer to Richard, to the point that the only thing separating them was their clothes.

Richard’s discomfort at some of the places the conversation had wandered to eased as his ex-girlfriend got closer to him. “If everyone wants to play tennis, I’d be up for a doubles match. It’s been a while since we’ve all been able to play together.”

“Then I’m available too.” Aubrey said, as she dipped her chocolate and whipped cream filled breakfast into the syrup. “As long as I can be on your team.” She said, looking up at him fawningly.

“Then it’s settled.” The older Turner decided. “After breakfast and you all get changed, we’ll find wherever she put the tennis court.”