Chapter 29 Hannah
Hannah
“Morning, Margo,” I greet my boss as I step onto the floor, passing by the Emerald and Sapphire booths. Margo stands beside Lana, a ciggy hanging out of her mouth, and she blows a billowing cloud of nicotine-tinged air toward Lana’s face as she chats with her.
“Mornin’, honey,” Margo says, sounding throaty in the way only a woman who smokes two-plus packs a day can.
Lana flashes a playful eyeroll behind Margo’s back, and I counter that with an amused grin, but when my ears latch on to the words castration play, I’m certain there’s nothing I’ll gain from hearing more, unless I want to add to my ongoing CMA-trauma list.
I pass by the other cubicles until I reach my red-lit Ruby one, and I almost want to laugh at myself for how early I’ve managed to get here.
Once Lovie got to the house this morning, I was already dressed and ready to head in to work. For the past several weeks, waking up in the morning to the reality of being stuck in my sex cubicle, chatting horny men into orgasm, hasn’t exactly felt like rainbows and sunshine.
But today feels different.
Because of Dom.
Okay. Yeah. I’ll admit my obvious truth.
After the weekend with Dom, after what happened late Saturday night, everything feels different.
He left pretty early on Sunday morning, and I was half asleep when he said goodbye, but my lips still remember the gentle kiss he gave me before he walked out of my bedroom, and my skin still remembers the way his touch lingered on my face.
I still don’t know what came over me or how I mustered the confidence to guide him into my bedroom in the wee hours of the night. But I don’t regret it.
All day yesterday, I was tempted to text him and call him, and this morning I had to stop myself from reaching out to him on my way to work.
But I don’t want to come across as clingy.
Clearly, I’m going to see him today. He knows my schedule.
And, like clockwork, he and Shane show up to listen to my calls.
A restless energy hums in my bloodstream as I sit down in my chair, ideas of Dom’s presence inside my little cubicle mixing with actual memories of what it was like to taste him. I’ve never, in my life, experienced something like what I experienced with him. And he didn’t even put his P in my V.
What happens when we do have sex?
My body straight-up tingles at the thought, and I’m equal parts annoyed and thankful for Monica when her cute face appears above one of my cubicle walls.
“Did you watch that TikTok I sent you last night?” she asks, her mouth lifting up at the corners.
“Pretty sure you mean, did I watch all ten TikToks you sent me and Lana last night?” I respond on a snort. “And yes, I did. I laughed my ass off at the little girl who was talking to her mom about not being a Zoomer-Arounder.”
Last night, while I was mindlessly staring up at my ceiling and trying to stop myself from reaching out to Dom, Monica’s texts inside our group chat with Lana were a welcome distraction.
“Oh my God!” She giggles. “That little girl was so damn cute! Reminded me so much of my niece Cora. I swear, that girl is four going on thirty. I don’t know how my sister is going to survive her teenage years with all this sass she’s got.”
Cora is one of Monica’s favorite people in the whole world. If she’s not talking about college or friends or the current guys she’s dating, she’s talking about her niece.
“How is preschool going for her?” I ask while Monica steps into my cubicle to sit on the edge of my desk. “Didn’t you say she had to switch schools?”
“It was a whole thing,” Monica says with a dramatic wave of her hand.
“She was not happy that my sister and brother-in-law moved to a new neighborhood and she had to start a new school and leave her little bestie, Eden, behind. Thankfully, she’s a social butterfly like her chatty aunt,” she says through a knowing laugh.
“And she already has two new besties. So all is good in Cora’s new hood. ”
“Way to go, Cora,” I say with a soft smile.
“Oh, by the way!” she says, but her phone starts ringing. “Shit,” she mutters and rolls her eyes. “Remind me to tell you about that guy I went on a date with on Saturday. It was a nightmare, Hannah!”
“Oh no,” I respond with a grimace as she pops back over to her cubicle to take the call.
“Yeah! You won’t believe the shit he was saying to me!” she exclaims, settling down into her desk chair before her usual, sex-laced Diamond greeting fills my ears.
I return my attention to my desk, putting my headset over my ears and starting the process of logging into my phone and computer. But I stop mid-setup when I hear footsteps entering my cubicle.
My heart races in excitement, in anticipation, in all the feelings that have been vibrating through my body all morning, but when I spin around in my chair, I only find Shane standing there.
“Hey, Hannah,” he greets me around the toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth.
“Hey.” I offer a friendly, but distracted, smile as I glance around him in search of the one man I’m embarrassingly excited to see today.
But there’s no Dom in sight.
“Just wanted to see if you needed anything or have any questions before we get started today.”
“Um . . . I think I’m good . . .” I pause, even glancing over his shoulder a few more times.
“Well, don’t hesitate to shoot me a text if anything comes up, okay?” he says with a nod. “And I know this is a big ask, but the more calls you can take today, the better.”
“What do you mean?”
“Had a meeting with our captain this morning, and we’re running out of time on our wiretap warrant.” He shrugs. “I’m still following up on the rest of the callers I’ve marked to investigate, but the more calls you take, the more possible suspects we reach.”
I didn’t even know warrants expired.
“So . . . what happens if the warrant expires but you don’t find the guy?”
“Hannah, I don’t want you to worry about any of that, all right?” He offers a reassuring smile. “I still have more callers to follow up on. Still have time on the warrant. And I want to assure you, I’m very much focused on solving this case, okay?”
I don’t know what to say to that. My head is spinning too fast to nail down a single thought. Where is Dom?
“Now I’ll get out of your hair.” He pats one hand on the edge of my cubicle. “I’ll be in the van if you need anything.”
My mind buffers as I try to understand all the things he’s just said.
“Wait . . .” I pause after repeating his words in my mind a good five times, until I’ve got the confidence to ask the question I need the answer to most. “You said I’ll be in the van. What about Dom?”
“He’s no longer on this case.”
My head jerks back in surprise and my mind spins inside my skull like an out-of-control top.
“He’s no longer on the case?” I ask, my mouth and my heart both agape. “W-what do you mean, Shane? Why isn’t Dom on the case anymore? Is he in trouble? Is he . . . ?” Fired?
Or worse, did he quit to avoid me? The thought twists in my chest, sharp and unrelenting.
He searches my gaze for a long moment. I know my eyes have to be bouncing from side to side in uncertainty, but his are steady, controlled. Calculated, even. Which is the opposite of what I’m used to seeing from this normally quick-witted and easygoing detective.
“Shane?” My heart kicks into an unsteady rhythm inside my chest. I swear, the thing is pounding so violently, I can feel every beat against my ribs.
“There’s just some lines we shouldn’t cross, Hannah.” His eyes are this weird combination of sympathetic and edgy. “And he’s not in trouble. He’ll just be focusing on other cases now.”
What can I even say to that? The answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because I know, without Shane saying it aloud, I am the line Dom crossed. Being with me, getting close to me—that was the line, and we barreled through it the other night.
And now he’s not on the case.
What makes it all feel so freaking bad is that I didn’t get this information from Dom. I got it from Shane.
He could’ve called. He could’ve texted. He could’ve given me a heads-up.
But he didn’t. The last time I talked to Dom was early yesterday morning, before he left my house after we were together.
The last update I got on the case was in regard to Waylon having alibis and no longer being a suspect.
And now Dom is off the case and I need to take as many calls as I can because the warrant is going to expire.
Not only does it feel like MNPD is going to be moving on soon, but it feels a lot like Dom has already done so.
Moved on from me as soon as I was naive enough to let him in.
The cold, harsh reality of my emergence from my sheltered life stings, and for the first time since I met Detective Dominic Dunn, I consider crawling back in.
It was boring and hard, but it sure as hell didn’t hurt like this.