I lay stunned on accommodatingly bendy branches for what seemed a long time.
Christie recovered before I did. Leaves rustled around me as she stirred.
When she slapped my foot away, I dimly surmised it had been wedged between her boobs. I didn't perv over it.
Damn. We could've died.
Her efforts to untangle herself intensified. She wriggled and twisted. The branches shook as if the bush was now fighting to keep hold of her, then
swoosh
--she broke free and thumped to the mulch.
"Fuck,"
she grunted.
Her vulgar outburst pleased me, pervily enough. Unlike her mother, Christie swore sometimes if the situation called for it, but 'fuck' was strictly an early morning word for her, used only when padding through the house in a grumpy, half-awake haze before her first cup of coffee.
Where's the fucking creamer? Where's my fucking phone? How much fucking longer will you be in the bathroom?
I smiled at the memories. Grumpy Christie was as sexy as Perky Christie, just in a different way.
My inertia dissipating, I shifted on the branches and
swoosh
--dropped straight to the ground in the back of the bush.
At the front of the bush, Christie groaned and scrabbled in the mulch, struggling to stand. Though still shaky, I got to my feet before she did, arranging my face to show no amusement while I watched her cute, clumsy progression to verticality.
Once upright, she stumbled from side to side, swatting hair from her face, swatting air, swatting more hair. She plucked a needle-shaped leaf from her head, held it to her face, and stared at it in puzzled annoyance.
I tilted an eyebrow. "Are you okay?"
She swiped a twig from her boob. "What the fuck happened?"
I chuckled softly. "You fainted," I said, shaking my head in bemused wonderment.
She regarded me with a blank expression. Then she swung her gaze to the bush, frowned, and looked at me again, waiting for more.
I shrugged. "I was trying to help."
"By killing me?"
She sounded bewildered. Or maybe pissed off. It was difficult to glean nuance from her listless tone. I blew out a sigh and endeavored upon a more exacting account of the past few minutes, but cut it short as her eyes crossed and she swayed like a dancing balloon in a windy car lot.
"Hey!"
My raised voice snapped her to attention. "Are you okay?" I asked again.
She scowled abstractedly. "I'm fine," she said. Then her head lolled on her slackening neck and she tipped sideways, dropping to the grass in a fuck-everything flop.
"Christie!" I whisked around the bush, hoping she'd only lost her balance, but as I drew near her inert figure, I knew otherwise.
Crap. She'd stood up too soon. Stand too soon after you faint and you'll faint again, I'd heard that,
everybody
has heard that. I should have stopped her. But before today, nobody had fainted around me
once,