Chapter 40 - HARPER-RAYN
HARPER-RAYN
Laith stares at me from the foot of my hospital bed, and all I can do is gawk back at him. It’s strange seeing his face after everything, even though I know it was in my head. It’s humiliating to let my friends see me at my lowest.
“How’re you doing, tiger?” he asks, his blue stare taking me in as though I’m about to break, and honestly, I can’t blame him.
The last time I saw him, I was barely a shell of my normal self.
I was well and truly losing my mind. Hell, I was fucking crazy, screaming about him being dead while he stood in my doorway. “You good?”
“Better now,” I say, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that. Apparently I’ve been going through some things, and my mind has been distorting the truth. It really wasn’t my intention to scare you like that.”
“Yeah . . . about that,” he says, striding around the side of the bed and dropping down into the seat that Knight usually occupies. “You wanna tell me what the fuck you thought was going on? Because I’m confused. Did you think I was dead?”
I cringe as I nod. Laith and I have always been honest with each other, but that doesn’t mean that telling him about all of this doesn’t make me want to slam my face against a broken mirror. However, I probably shouldn’t mention that to Dr. Carzy. She might have me locked up for good.
“I’ve, ahhh . . . kinda been having psychotic episodes where I’ve hallucinated a masked stalker, and every time this stalker has appeared, his intentions have escalated and become more sinister.”
His gaze narrows as he leans forward, his elbows braced on his knees. “Like?” he questions.
“Like . . . I believed he was going to kill me,” I explain.
“At first, it was this twisted game of hide and seek, and he would just show up—well, I would hallucinate him showing up. Like the night Izzy and I went to that club. One minute I was dancing, the next, he was there watching me. But it grew from that. At work, bodies were showing up on my table that I thought were messages from him, warnings, but it was all in my head. They were just regular bodies. Car crash victims, stuff like that.”
“Fuck, tiger. That’s rough,” he says. “I’m really sorry that you’ve been going through all of this, but I’m failing to see how any of it had to do with me.”
I cringe again. “One of the bodies that showed up in the morgue, I thought it was you,” I tell him, my gaze falling away from him, shame eating at me.
“When I unzipped the body bag, I saw your face, and it gutted me. I had to do your autopsy, and I’ve never experienced anything so agonizing in my life.
I thought you were dead because of me, and it broke me in a way I’ve never broken in my life. ”
Laith immediately gets up from the chair and scoots in beside me on the bed, wrapping his arms around me as though I’m the most precious thing in his world. “I’m right here, tiger.”
“I know that now,” I say, resting against his chest as I stare up at the ceiling tiles.
“That’s why I was so messed up when you showed up at my door.
I couldn’t understand how you were there.
My brain was playing tricks on me, trying to tell me that you were dead and in a body bag in the morgue while you were really standing right there in my door. ”
“After you ran out of your apartment in your pajamas, I was worried about you,” he tells me.
“I’ve never seen you like that. There was something weird in your eyes.
You obviously looked like yourself, but it’s as though the Harper I know wasn’t in there.
It’s like everything behind your eyes was just blank. ”
“Well, that’s fucked up.”
“You’re telling me,” he mutters before brushing his thumb over my bruised shoulder.
“What about everything else? You really scared me when I got to that alley and found you on the ground like that, and it killed me that I couldn’t stay at the hospital and wait for you to come out of surgery, but I had to be in court.
I hope that it was okay that I called that guy you’ve been seeing. ”
My head snaps up, my gaze locked on his as I push myself off him, putting just a little space between us so that I can see him properly. “Wait. That was you who drove me to the hospital?” I ask, my heart racing.
“Well, yeah. Who the fuck else would it have been?”
I shake my head. I guess I haven’t really had a chance to think about it much.
“I thought . . . shit. I suppose I don’t know what I was thinking.
I don’t really remember much about that trip to the hospital.
Everything was hurting, but you . . . I thought it was my stalker who was driving me, which is why I was kinda freaking out as well.
I guess the trauma of what happened in the alley kind of had me slip into one of my hallucinations, but thank you.
It’s refreshing to know I had someone I could trust with me at that moment. ”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re good now though?” he asks. “Healing? There’s no permanent damage?”
I nod. “Yeah. I mean, apart from the permanent psychological trauma I’m bound to hold on to, I’m mostly good.
I kinda fucked up my stitches when I freaked out and took off after seeing you in my doorway, but for the most part, I’m doing much better.
The bruises still look bad and the swelling is still going down, but they’re much better than they were. ”
“And the guys who did it? Do you know who it was? Because all you need to do is say that word, and I’ll make sure he spends the rest of his life rotting in jail.”
I stupid smile pulls across my face, and I snuggle back into his side. “It’s all good,” I tell him. “It was one of the night janitors from the morgue, but Knight paid him a little visit, and I think it’s safe to say that he won’t ever be a problem for me again—or any other woman, for that matter.”
Laith nods, pulling me closer. “So, Knight is your new hero, huh? How’s that going?”
“Good enough to know that if he were to walk in right now and see you in bed with me, he’d probably want to kick your ass. And he will. He’s a six-foot-four SWAT officer with more muscle than a girl knows what to do with.”
Laith gapes at me, and I can’t help but laugh. “Chill out. I’m kidding. Well, mostly. He is pure sex on legs, but he would never hurt anybody that I care about, no matter the circumstances. He’s . . . shit. I don’t know. I think I’m falling for him. Or maybe I’m already there.”
“No shit, huh?” Laith mutters, impressed. “You’re telling me this guy managed to thaw that cold heart of yours? I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Oh, shut up,” I laugh as butterflies swarm through my stomach at just the thought of what Knight and I might mean to each other. “I think it might be something serious.”
“Wow. I never thought I’d see the day,” he tells me. “Won’t lie, I’m kinda jealous. I’m going to have to go find someone else for those 4 a.m. booty calls. Do you have any idea how hard that is going to be?”
“Why? Because I’m irreplaceable?”
“No,” he scoffs. “Because what woman would voluntarily put up with a guy who likes to fuck in the middle of the night? Don’t get me wrong, you and me together. We were always great, that’s not the issue. It’s just that most chicks aren’t spending their nights playing with dead people.”
A laugh bubbles up my throat. “It was always great with us, wasn’t it?”
He scoffs again. “Remember our first time?” he questions, recalling the one moment that we weren’t compatible. “You were a mess, trying to put your leg in places it’s got no business being.”
“Me?” I gasp, gaping at him wide-eyed. “Uh-uh. That was not my fault. That one was all on you. I mean, shit. What man in their right mind asks a girl he just met to perform acrobatics during sex? It’s not my fault that my foot slipped off the headboard and broke your nose.”
Laith reaches up and touches his nose, shaking his head. “Sometimes when it’s cold, I can still feel the pain.”
I roll my eyes and shove him in the side. “You’re such a loser.”
“Maybe. But you’ll always be a bigger loser,” he laughs, pulling me back in. “I’m glad you’re happy with this guy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, a small smile playing on my lips. “You know that’s what I want for you too, and you’ll find it.”
Laith scoffs. “Oh, hell no. I’m content with my single, bachelor lifestyle. I’m not looking for someone to come and screw that up. I’m just fine on my own. Don’t go jinxing me with that shit.”
I roll my eyes. There’s no surprise that Harvey Spector has always been his idol. “You know, I hope some amazing chick comes along and really knocks you on your ass.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I laugh. “I, ummm . . . I also think now that Knight and I might be something a little more than just two people mashing their junk together, I think we need to cool it on the flirty texts. Though to be fair, when I was texting you the other day, I thought you were dead and that my masked stalker was texting from your phone, but—”
“Wait. Why are you sending flirty sex texts to your stalker?” he asks, cutting me off before his eyes go wide.
“Oh fuck! Was this stalker thing some kind of sexual fantasy? Were you getting railed by this guy? Holy fucking shit. I always knew you had some nasty undiscovered kinks. Were you holding back on me all these years?”
I press my lips into a hard line, regretting having brought up the texts in the first place. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Court? The office? Searching old dive bars for your next booty call?”
Laith laughs. “Oh, hell no. Don’t even try to change the topic. I wanna hear all about this freaky stalker. What did your imaginary friend do to you? Did he put it down like I can? Fuck, tiger. Give me all the filthy details.”
Fuck me. This is going to be one hell of a long afternoon.