Heartbeats

[The Delaney Twins]

It was getting a lot harder to fit gym into her schedule, what with this whole let’s-kill-all-of-upper-sixth-with-insane-and-useless-amounts-of-work that her teachers seemed to be advocating this year. Over the last week, she’d had so much homework weighing her down that, at one point, she had very seriously considered packing in the whole education thing and just running away to the circus. The only thing that had stopped her was her realisation that Kennedy probably wouldn’t survive more than four days while she was away frolicking with the elephants and the tigers.
Still. It was tempting.
Today was Saturday, the first day that she’d been able to find enough time to get away since last Wednesday, and even so, she’d only been able to allot it a few hours in the afternoon. Tonight, she’d be sitting down to another lovely date with her technology notes, because fool that Professor Montgomery was, he had decided to set them a month’s worth of coursework to have completed within a week.
School was definitely turning out to be a hell of a lot of fun this year.
Jamie came out of her changing booth a couple of minutes after she did, wearing her usual orange tank top and white track bottoms that never failed to make Lynn jealous – she doubted that she’d ever be able to get away with anything that bright, considering her horrendously pale, speckled skin. And her dumpiness, but the skin was really the problem. Jamie’s ebony skin could get away with so dàmn much; it really wasn’t fair. Lynn was supposed to stick to her blacks, her tans, her navies, her browns…
But God, that could get depressing sometimes. As of now, she was trying to combat the restricted colour palate of the white-girl-who-refused-to-get-fake-tanned by wearing – well, yes, her shorts were still dull. But it didn’t matter that her shorts were that hideous shade of khaki, or that her shirt was kind of dark – well, black – because emblazoned in the middle of the shirt was the bright red tongue logo of her beloved Rolling Stones. In terms of music, yes, she liked the Beach Boys better than them, but she had to admit that the Stones won hands down in the graphics department.
Jamie narrowed her eyes when she came out of her booth saw said logo, and said, “Lynn, I have to say, I don’t understand you. Why the Rolling Stones shirt? Why now? You’ll ruin it.”
“Ach, no I won’t,” Lynn replied, lacing up her hiking boots. It was really only a matter of time before she got told off for wearing such heavy shoes on equipment that could really only stand up to so much abuse. The stuff in the Cardsdale gym wasn’t bad, true, but her shoes still definitely weren’t healthy for it. “Worst happens, it’ll get a little sweaty. And anyway, this isn’t the good one.”
The eyes narrowed further. “You have more than one Rolling Stones top.”
“Yes.”
“You have more than one Rolling Stones top.”
“I have more than one Rolling Stones top.”
“Do I want to know how many you actually have?”
“Well, that depends. Do you have any strong feelings against the number four?” As she asked, Lynn started to pull her hair back into its usual training ponytail, but as she slipped the band over it, the elastic snapped and the bobble fell useless to the floor.
“Oh, crap,” she seethed, bending over to pick up the fallen hair accessory. This wasn’t good. She didn’t want to be training with her hair flying into her face.
“Four.”
“Jamie, you wouldn’t have a spare bobble, would you?”
“You have four.”
“Should I take that as a no, then?”
“Sorry. You’ll have to go without today.”
“Crap,” she said again, pushing her hair behind her shoulders. This wasn’t good, was it? First training session in a week and a half, and she’d be blinded for it.
“C’mon,” Jamie said, nodding her head towards the door that connected the ladies’ changing room to the gym. “You may be a blind little bat, but you can still fly like a bat out of hell, right?”
Lynn gave Jamie a look that showed pretty much exactly how much she doubted her sanity based on that one sentence. “I shall assume that that was a compliment,” she said, making her way to the door, “wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in an insult, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in another enigma.”
Jamie smiled widely, pushing the door open. “You’ve hit the nail right on the head,” she said, looking through into the gym. Lynn followed her gaze, seeing that the room was unusually empty for a Saturday afternoon. Not too many villagers came here, true – of course, there weren’t all that many villagers to begin with – but there were usually six or seven warriors here when she came in. When your life depended on being fit, it sort of became a priority.
But now, she could only see Jessica McCreary on the benches, Aaron Boyd on the leg press machine, Stacy Farmer on the chin up bar and…
Oho.
Russ Ford on the cross-trainer.
Her first instinct was to step back into the room, just out of view, a massive grin spreading across her face and a little bubble of laughter escaping her lips as she remembered their last… ah-hem, ‘encounter’.
That had been – what, two months ago now? It didn’t feel like that long, to be honest. She had been so dàmn busy since then that the months had just slipped past, and likewise, the fact that she had said that she had hoped to see him again had slipped out of her memory. She had really meant it at the time, when she’d said it, but there just… hadn’t been time.
She’d seen him, though. Passing him in the halls, in warrior training. There weren’t too many places to hide in Orchid. And every time she had, her mind had wandered back to that time. That unfortunate, accidentally-stripping-and-practically-being-sexually-harrassed-then-practically-sexually-harrassing-him time that still managed to have been probably one of the most fun times she’d had throughout the entire summer.
It had been awesome, now that she thought back.
Jamie was looking at her as if she was completely certifiable – which, granted, wasn’t an uncommon look to receive from Jamie, but she had to admit that there was more reason now for it than there usually was.
“Again, I’ll ask this first – do I want to know?” Jamie said, raising one eyebrow.
Lynn laughed, nodded her head at the door. “Russ Ford is in there.”
And he’s not wearing a shirt, a little voice in the back of her head added. A little voice that was right, come to think of it.
She forced herself to stay where she was and not edge back to the door to get a closer look.
Jamie’s face grew horrified. “Oh – oh, God, Lynn, seriously? You have a crush on Russ Ford?”
“What? No!” said Lynn, still laughing. She couldn’t stop.
Jamie shook her head sadly. “Lynn, Lynn, Lynn, I thought you were more sensible than that. I mean, come on. Nil points for originality.”
“I don’t have a crush on Russ Ford,” Lynn said, choking the laughter back. She could see where Jamie had got the impression, yes, but then –
Ah yes.
“I didn’t tell you about warrior training back in July, did I?” she asked, a wicked grin replacing the inane one that had been there a second ago.
“And yet again, do I want to – ”
“Well, me and Russ were paired up for one session,” Lynn said, acting as if Jamie hadn’t interrupted at all. “Something about our powers being similar, or something, I’m not exactly sure why Madeleine did it. Anyway, so we got to talking – and he is really, really nice, by the way, you shouldn’t go believing what everyone says – ”
“Yes, I should take your one opinion over the steadily growing crowds of his jilted lovers.”
“Yes, you should, ‘cause his jilted lovers aren’t your best friend. He is nice. I mean, just about every third word out of his mouth is a swear, but that’s not necessarily his fault.”
“You’re saying he has Tourette’s?”
“Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, always so literal. Look, just shut up, whether he was nice or not isn’t part of the story. Anyway, so we were shooting down plates from this machine thing, and it started heating up, and it was about to explode – ”
“It was about to explode.”
“Please don’t question everything I say. It started to explode, so naturally I had to stop it from exploding, so I melted – ”
“Oh God.”
Lynn choked back a laugh. Jamie knew full well what happened when she melted.
“And when I reformed, I got my shirt back on, but I was kind of missing my –”
“Oh God.”
“And well, then there was some… uh, ‘banter’. That, um, possibly could have been misconstrued as sexual harassment on both sides, so that would be why I jumped back from the door there, see? Not ‘cause I have a crush on him.”
“You just sexually harassed him.”
“Hey, he started it!”
“Of course he started it! He’s Russ bloody Ford!”
“Again with the rumours, Jamie…”
Jamie rolled her large, dark eyes, looking as if she didn’t know quite what to do with Lynn. “What exactly was this sexual harassment?”
“Well, um, something along the lines of how he’d never had to do so little work to get a girl half-naked, and then I asked if my half being naked was bothering him, and then he said – ”
“I don’t want to know.”
“And there was some stuff about showgirls and whatnot. Y’know, I can’t really remember, it was a long time ago. And I don’t want to scar your little rich-girl mind.”
Cue dirty look from Jamie. Well, it was only to be expected.
“So what are you going to do now?” she asked.
Lynn was incredulous. “What do you mean, what am I going to do?” And then she paused for a moment, bit her lip and thought. “Oh, right, crap, what am I going to do?”
Jamie thought for a second. “Well, you had fun, right?”
“A lot.”
Jamie paused again, clearly weighing up what Lynn had said against throwing her friend to the sharks. Or, rather, the very attractive and shirtless shark who was currently working out in the gym.
“You should talk to him then,” she concluded.
“You sure?”
“Go on, it’s OK. I can run on my own.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, Lynn, I’m a big enough girl to look after myself.”
Lynn grinned and hugged her. “You’re awesome, you know that?”
“Sure I do.”
Jamie disentangled herself, walked through the door. Then walked back in for a split second, to hiss to her, “Jesus, Lynn, he’s built!” before leaving again.
Lynn laughed at her friend’s conclusion, and also kind of impressed. It took quite a lot to get Jamie’s eyes to bug out like that.
A couple of seconds later, she had collected herself enough to have her smile just being confident instead of being mad, and she walked across the room to beside where he was working out in fluid strides. She was hardly going to let him start intimidating her now, just ‘cause he wasn’t quite as… clothed as they had been upon their last encounter.
“Ahh, Mr Ford,” she said, when she was just a couple of meters away from him. She had to raise her voice loud, even for her, to get heard over the whirring noise of the machines. “It has been a long time, no?”

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Fake it if you’re out of direction,
Fake it if you don’t belong here…

The rhythmic drum beat pounded loudly in Russ’ ears as the volume of the song increased, his feet and hands moving with the cross-trainer, his eyes focused on the window opposite.
It had taken him long enough to discover this – the gym. Six months actually. Christ. He’d been using his own equipment, and whatever was in the battle training room while he’d been at school, and had been running a hell of a lot. It was kind of ironic, actually, that he’d lived practically in the Great Outdoors all his life and he’d never actually spent much time running in it until he’d been living in a building. He guessed it helped to combat the never-easing stir-craziness – in fact, far from easing, it got worse. That was why he liked to be down here.
Here, he could train until the blood was pumping quickly, pulse thumping loudly, endorphins shooting so dámn fast that he didn’t have anything left to concentrate on the claustrophobia with. His body was moving, his systems were responding to the running, the weights, the rowing, whatever – all that was left of Russ for the part of his mind that needed to concentrate on something to focus on was his pounding heartbeat, the depth of his breaths. You didn’t have to think about anything when you were doing this. Nothing at all.
It reminded him of the fighting he used to train for. You didn’t need to concentrate. Your body moved, responded to the other person without conscious thought. Kind of like this.
That was why he liked it. But today, he wasn’t losing himself in the movement yet. The music was quickening his pulse, increasing the speed of his running, but he was still there. He’d discovered that sometimes, interesting things happened outside the window.
Usually, there was some old person walking their fluffy lapdog with a tartan coat (the dog and the owner. Usually matching. What the hell was this place?!), and a couple of cars. But the other day, there had been a fist fight, and today, there’d been an arguing couple outside. The only reason that that was fun was because you couldn’t hear what they were saying, but you could see their hand motions. Russ could bet that he wasn’t the only one inserting his own sentences into that one.
Now, no one was there, and it was just him, his mp3 player and the blurred noise of the other machines, and the slightly louder noise of his own mach-
“Ahh, Mr Ford – it has been a long time, no?”
It was a girl’s voice. A loud voice, to get through the noise of the machines and Seether-
Sally
He grinned as he turned towards her, slowing the cross-trainer down to a halt and automatically remembering what had happened the last time they’d met. Violence, strong language, sexual references and partial nudity. Kind of hard to forget.
“Miss Delaney!” he said, less loudly than she had spoken, seeing as there wasn’t so much of a need. “A very long time”
Since July, actually. They’d both been away for part of the summer, so that would explain the lack of seeing each other. And, weirdly enough, the first thing that jumped out at him were that her freckles hadn’t changed at all.
“So, how’ve you been? A lot of microwaving?”

[The Delaney Twins]

An almost imperceptible feeling of relief stole quietly over Lynn as he spoke, grinning that proper smile of his that hadn't changed a bit. She didn't realise until after the danger was over, but hundreds of things could have gone wrong there, couldn't they? He mightn't have remembered her. He mightn't have wanted to speak to her at all - she knew more than a few folks, especially from her physical control class, who really, really didn't take to being interrupted while they were working out, touchy gits that they were. He mightn't have...
She forced herself to stop thinking about just what might have happened. It was OK. He'd remembered her; he seemed happy enough to talk. It was all right.
"No," she said, sighing heavily and overdramatically. Or maybe it wasn't overdramatic. Was it still overdramatic if you kind of meant it? "Too much work; it's abominable. Unfortunately, when you're stuck inside morning, afternoon and night doing schoolwork, there isn't much time for fun activities like recreational microwaving. Or running. Or walking the dog. Or coming to the gym. I haven't been here for nearly a week, it's awful."
Deciding to wrap up the theatrics, she dropped the subject of schoolwork and let her smile settle back onto her face. It felt weird when she wasn't smiling. "But I won't get started on that one, or I'll still be bítching about it come November. What about you? How have you been?"

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Well, Russ couldn’t say that he couldn’t empathise with that. They weren’t half loading it on, were they? He knew it was the final year, it was important for the future and all that crap, but they didn’t seem to be making any allowances for the fact that the Warriors had to spend half their feckin’ time training to fight for the bloody cause.
Their bloody cause.
“I’ve been good,” Russ responded, the machine finally stopping. He stepped off the machine and leant against the body of it. “Have to agree with you on the work front; it just doesn't stop. My sax is getting sorely neglected."
Sorely was right. He hadn't played it in what felt like months - but then again, he hadn't had it until he'd gone back for the summer, so it really had been months.
He probably wouldn't be able to play the dámn thing anymore by the time he'd get around to it.
He hadn't missed Lynn's "I haven't been here for nearly a week, it's awful" - that meant she usually came, but he hadn't seen her.
"So, do you come here often? I haven't seen you about, is all."
And he could swear to God that that wasn't intended as a crappy chat-up line.

[The Delaney Twins]

"Well, I used to," she said, keeping her eyes firmly trained on his face. Jamie was right across the room - it would only take a glance for her to check up on them, and should her eyes fall on Lynn looking... southward, she could tell that she'd be over in a split second. Like Ari.
Her friends were awfully uptight, now that she thought of it.
"Actually, back in the lovely, happy days of fifth year, I came here every morning before breakfast, but that plan fell through with the GCSE's. Then last year it was cut down to after school four times a week, and now, it's basically whenever I can make it. Which isn't often."
More's the pity. Warrior training was good and all, but it was more useful for powers, really. When it came to keeping herself fit - well, it simply wouldn't happen if she didn't take the initiative.
And then something clicked. "Wait, hold on, you play the saxophone?"

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Again, Russ could empathise with that – well, not with fifth year and the exams, which he’d managed to scrape by with minimal attendance at five different schools. As Imogen had said, it was a miracle that he hadn’t failed all of them, seeing as the total amount of work that he’d put in amounted to sweet FA.
Well, okay, maybe she hadn’t phrased the last bit exactly like that, but the meaning was pretty clear.
“Wait, hold on, yep, I play the sax,” he confirmed. “Well… alright, I try to play the saxophone. I was never taught, see, so I kind of made it up by ear – so I’ve no idea if I’m actually playing it properly; but what the hell, no one’s checking.”
The sax was one of the few things Imogen liked him doing. Every other … hobby, for want of a better word, he had she thoroughly disapproved of. Except the saxophone. He’d been given it after that brief stint working for the guy who ran that record and instrument shop up at Longbourn, and Imogen had liked him to play it, especially when Oliver… well, yeah.
Neither of them had gotten used to thinking of him in terms of “asswipe” yet, after the initial anger phase. He was, but…
Russ’ wandering concentration snapped back quickly to Sally again, as the unwelcome topic intruded on his brain, and he stretched slightly, shaking it off.

[The Delaney Twins]

Lynn laughed. "Hey, self-taught is good. More people will believe you're a prodigy if you can tell them that you've never had lessons."
So Russ was musical too. That was fantastic, wasn't it? That was just wonderful. He had his saxophone, Cass had his guitar, as did Willie, Arihant had his violin - hell, even Kennedy could pick out a tune on the piano if needed be.
So that meant -
"Oh my God," she said, laughing. "If you're musical - Christ, that's worrying. That means that every single man I know is."
Which was just wonderful for her, wasn't it? "Unlike me. I was never able to pick anything up; it sucks. When my brother and my ex formed their 'band'," she said, making air quotes, "I was put on 'sound duty' because they couldn't even get me to play the drums right."
She grinned, partially at the memory. Sure, they may not have ever actually performed more than one song or even lasted for more than two months, but Kennedy and Cass's half-assed attempt at a 'band' had provided a constant source of amusement for years after it had flopped. "I suppose I am what you would call musically-challenged."

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

A ‘band’? Anytime that that word was put in air quotes, you just knew that there was something really wrong. As did the phrase ‘sound duty’. Jesus.
“No, not a prodigy by any means - and 'sides, I got told by someone that there’s no such thing as being ‘musically-challenged’; you just haven’t found your instrument,” he quoted, mimicking her air quotes. “Then again, this guy was 80 years old and lived in a flat filled with broken violins and about eight f**king cats. I used to work for him.”
That was how Russ got his sax. But every time he ended up in the shop below the flat, he’d end up wheezing like a frickin’ …. Well, kind of like that exploding machine from Warrior training, actually.
Still, it paid for the cigarettes, and seeing as he couldn’t get a permanent job, that was probably a good thing. Moving around so much wasn’t really compatible with a job in the traditional sense of the word.
Maybe now, though, now he was trapped in one place, he could. Not that he’d bloody want to, but still, the option was there…
… but no. Just no. It’d be the responsible thing to do, it’d earn money to supplement his carvings, et cetera, but the hell if he was going for that. He wouldn’t have time to come down here, anyway.
And seeing Lynn here was showing that going to the gym was paying off – he hadn’t seen her in a while. Russ took a second to look at her – she looked good; better than he’d noticed last time. The freckles were still the same, though, that was the main thing that had stuck out in his mind, a dusting across her nose and cheeks.
Cute.
“So, uh, do I want to ask what this sound duty involved?”

[The Delaney Twins]

'Not having found her own instrument' was one way of putting it, she supposed, but she doubted that that was the real problem. The main problem was really the fact that she completely lacked a sense of rhythm, as had been amply illustrated by Jamie's numerous failed attempts to teach her how to dance. After the tenth time or so, she had given up even trying to teach Lynn, and had merely offered her the wise council of 'Just stick to slow dances, OK? You can manage swaying, can't you?'
Lynn had agreed, of course, but she hadn't meant it. What was the point of that? She may as well have her legs amputated, if she was just going to ponce around swaying at dances. Better dancing crappily and having fun than not dancing at all.
"So, uh, do I want to ask what this sound duty involved?"
She laughed. "Don't worry, it's not quite as sad as it sounds. Or - well, I suppose it kind of is, but you couldn't really tell what I was doing just by looking at me. It just looked like I was... kind of hanging around in the background uselessly or something. Actually, what I was doing was - you remember my power? The wave thing? Well, I'm not really good at controlling sound, but I'm able to make things louder and quieter, so I was basically their amplifier. And I muffled the bum notes, as well, which wasn't really necessary for Cass, but Kennedy..." She winced. "My brother doesn't play well with other people. In any sense of the word."

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Russ laughed. The whole band thing had never been something he’d tried out. Playing in crowded bars with people he didn't like very much, all fighting for creative control hadn't really appealed to him much. He remembered that Jace Sorley had once – but literally once. He’d come storming out of where the first practice session with a face that could only be described as being like pissed-off thunder, and a typically Jace remark – a high pitched “Never again! That was like hell.”
No one ever found out what went that badly - if it did go that badly. Jace tended to be what’s known as a drama queen, though, he could be cool as a cucumber and slicker than greased owl shít when it came to cheating at cards. When there was money involved - well, you never saw any dramatics or outbursts of emotion from him then.
And that reminded him, he still owed Russ twenty from the last time they'd played.
“Right. Woman of many talents, I see – microwave and amplifier. You know, that’s impressive," he laughed.

[The Delaney Twins]

Lynn giggled, then immediately wanted to hit herself for doing so. When a laugh could be described as a giggle, it was not a proper laugh - it was the high-pitched hormonal shuddering of some teenager. Needless to say, this was not a sound that she wanted associated with herself. At all.
"That is true," she said. "I guess I'm the power equivalent of a Swiss army knife. Microwave, amplifier, lightbulb, muffler, A-bomb, space heater, air conditioning - hell, I've even got the knife thing sorted, if I so choose." She held up one hand, let it shudder into metal and then let the metal mould into a blade that protruded from her wrist. Particularly useful in Tech, that aspect of her power.
And then something struck her. "Oh, wait, actually, that reminds me - you have magnetism, right? Well, I was thinking about this the other day - I can change into any metal I want, it's not just lead. So I was wondering; your magnetism. If I changed into iron... Well. Do you think it would work on people? Think you could attract me?"

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

"That is true," Lynn answered, with a giggle. A giggle? That was unexpected. "I guess I’m the power equivalent of a Swiss army knife. Microwave, amplifier, lightbulb, muffler, A-bomb…"
A-bomb? That wasn’t one he’d thought about, but now that he did… Christ, right. If they had people in the school capable of that kind of stuff, what the hell were they still doing here? They wouldn’t necessarily even need to liquidate the entire enemy camp, even just the threat of it should be enough. Russ knew that Madeleine had some sort of idealistic crap going on in her head about what should be done, but someone had to have thought about this before.
The list continued on, until she got to "knife", and her hand morphed into a sharp silver blade. Huh, that was brilliant. Russ needed to quit watching crap films when he was bored if he wanted to remain anywhere near Lynn in the next while. First the Silver Surfer, and now Edward Scissorhands…
This was getting out of hand, now.
"Oh, wait, actually, that reminds me - you have magnetism, right?”
Right.
"Well, I was thinking about this the other day - I can change into any metal I want, it's not just lead. So I was wondering; your magnetism. If I changed into iron... Well. Do you think it would work on people? Think you could attract me?"
Ha, right. Was she aware of what she'd just said?
A smirk spread across his face at that, and he leaned back against the cross-trainer casually. "I think I might. What do you say we try it, some night?"

[The Delaney Twins]

...Christ, that thinking thing wasn't going all too well for her, today, was it?
She burst out laughing, and as she did, hit his arm. That was the autonomous reaction when it came to Lynn's being psuedo-outraged: the fists came out. Or, well, in this case, the palm of her hand, and as it collided with his warm, bare skin, she chided him, "Oh, you bad bad man! You know that's not what I meant. And anyway, we've already managed to freak out a good half-or-so of the Warriors; we wouldn't do well to start freaking out the Cardsdalians, too."
She grinned, raised her non-slapping hand up to the level of her shoulder, and let it turn into steel. "Let me rephrase, then - would it be better for me to say can you repel me? Can you magnetise me? Or is there just no way to get away from the innuendo?"
If Jamie looked around just now, she was dead. Officially dead. Lynn should probably have turned around to check if her friend was staring at her, but just now she didn't really have the heart to glance away from the black eyes that she was looking up into.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

The answer to that one – well, after everything, that had to be a no.
Russ rubbed the arm that had been slapped mockingly, grinning impishly at her. “No, there really isn’t, Sally. So if you don’t want to freak them out – we don’t do it here; we can go someplace else, if you’d rather. I don’t really care.”
Her hand was now made from steel, catching the light from the windows and reflecting it back onto her face, lighting up her grin even more.
That was funny – she was always smiling. Even when the machine was about to explode all over the place, the grin was still on her face.
Focusing his energy on his left hand, he raised it up to the same level as Lynn’s. This was something that had taken a lot of practice to get used to, but it was kind of necessary – turning your whole body into a magnet could result in some … er, injuries. It wasn’t the safest idea.
Especially when, like now, you were in a room where most of the machines were made at least partly from materials that could rush at you and very probably crush you.
Russ flexed his fingers, feeling a small electric current rush through his veins – nothing large enough to create a large enough force of attraction to attract Lynn’s hand, but enough to get the field up and running.
“Okay, then, scrapping the innuendos, shall we try it?” he smiled, adding. “Alright. Count of three – one, two… three.”

[The Delaney Twins]

There was that 'Sally' again. It surprised her, now, but not for the same reasons as before. Before, just hearing it at all had felt strange, because - well, let's face it, it wasn't exactly like she was used to having people saying it. That was a fairly normal reason to be surprised.
But now, there wasn't just one reason she was surprised: there were three. One, that it didn't sound so alien in his voice right now. Two, that it didn't surprise her immediately - it took her a couple of seconds to even realise that he'd said it. And third was that, if she was completely honest with herself... she kind of liked it.
These thoughts were wiped from her brain a second later, when her hand started being slowly drawn towards his - and that was a strange feeling, wasn't it?
"Wow, that feels weird," she said, watching her hand go forward. "Creepy. I feel like I'm a puppet!"
And a second later, her hand bumped into the one that had been magnetising her, and she laughed before the somewhat-compromising nature of that position had a chance to become awkward. Not that she'd ever felt awkward with Russ before, obviously, but it didn't hurt to be cautious. She let her hand go back to its normal state and pulled it away, while saying, "Nothing personal, Russ, you understand: but if the innuendo is as inescapable as you say, I'm not going to throw fuel on the fire by leaving my hand at your magnetic mercy with my friend's beady eyes watching us from the other side of the room. And that very long and complicated sentence should prove how serious I am." She nodded mock-seriously, and gestured at Jamie, ignoring the fact that her point was somewhat disproven by the fact that she wasn't looking anywhere near them.