Indigo Sky

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

So, things went pretty much like that over the next couple of weeks.

I’d see Kate at work, where we kept things as professional as possible. But her eyes would meet mine sometimes, a crackling charge would pass between us, and I would be filled with the excitement to be with her alone after work. And the craziest part? We hadn’t really kissed or anything—I mean, again. It was just … being with her. It felt like enough. There was no rush to get closer. Those first weeks were, like … the most incredible slow burn of my life, just knowing that, when we did finally get together … man …

We’d set the whole damn world on fire.

***

“Rev, hey, one of the ellipticals needs tightening again,” Tony—the dude at the front desk—called to me as I passed.

“Yeah, sure,” I called back.

I’d just wiped down all the strength training equipment and was on my way to the cardio section anyway. But I hadn’t brought my toolkit with me, so I turned around to head back to the utility closet when I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in weeks.

“Yo, man. Wow. How’ve you been?” Nate asked, swiping a towel across his forehead.

I stood speechless for a moment, collecting my thoughts as they raced a mile a minute.

How long had he been coming here? He’d had a membership years ago, back when we lived together, but I hadn’t seen him here in … how long had it been? When did he start coming back? Was it possible that I’d simply missed him?

Nate laughed and gestured over his shoulder toward the front desk. “Literally just renewed my membership,” he said sheepishly, apparently reading my mind. “I thought about going to a different gym, but I know this one, and the prices are good, so …”

“Oh, yeah, no, that’s cool,” I said, bringing myself back down to reality. “Good to see you.”

But was it though?

He grinned. “Yeah, man, you too. I stopped by the other day to see if you were around, but your dad said you were out. Tried calling you a couple of times too—maybe a week or so ago—but you didn’t answer.”

He had seen my parents? He’d tried calling me? I guessed it was possible I’d missed them. Maybe they’d gotten mixed up in the spam calls. I had been a little single-minded these days, especially if I was at work or talking to Kate. But my dad? He would’ve told me if Nate had stopped by … wouldn’t he?

“I didn’t know you’d stopped by,” I said, ignoring the comment about his calls.

His brow crumpled as he waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, nah, don’t worry about it. It was, like, two seconds. I saw your dad outside, stopped by, and asked if you were around. He said no, and I got in my car and left. No big deal. But, hey, are you mad at me or something?”

A lump formed, so heavy and tight, in my throat, and I swallowed as I shook my head. “What? No, no. Why would you think that?”

He slung the towel around his shoulders and shook his head. “I was just wondering. I mean, I know we haven’t hung out much these past few years, and I know we’ve both been busy, but I thought we were still good, you know? But … I dunno. I just get this feeling like—"

“No, man, I’m not mad at you,” I interjected, shutting him down.

And it wasn’t a lie, right? Yeah, I’d been mad when I lost my job, but now? I wasn’t mad at all. But that didn’t change the fact that Nate wasn’t the type of guy I wanted in my life anymore. And I wished he would take that hint without forcing me to scream it into his face.

He nodded. He looked off toward something behind me, his brows tipping with an unexpected touch of emotion as he dragged his hand over the back of his head. “Not to sound like a fuckin’ bitch or anything, but I really miss you.”

There was sincerity in his eyes. Nothing unhinged. Nothing misguided.

The guard I had kept up around Nate lowered just a bit, and I nodded because you know what? Sometimes, every now and then, I missed him too. Even if I didn’t miss who he was, even if I didn’t miss the awful things he had said or done. There had been good times with him at one point. And those things I did miss. I missed when we had been real friends, brothers. I missed who he had been to me and my parents.

“Yeah,” I said quietly with a nod. “I miss you too.”

“What are you doing after work?” His eyes lit up with hope.

“I have errands to run,” I quickly lied, not wanting him to know I was grabbing a late lunch with Kate. I didn’t want him to know about her. Not after the way he’d acted with my girlfriends in the past. “But what are you doing tomorrow?”

“I actually have a date,” he said, stretching his lips into a happy grin.

“Oh, nice.” I crossed my arms and nodded. “Good for you, man.”

“Yeah, this girl … fuckin’ gorgeous, bro. Smokin’ hot. I seriously won the jackpot.”

“That’s great.”

Huh …

If Nate had a girlfriend—a good one, a serious one—then maybe that could be enough to settle him down. Get him on a decent path.

“Yeah, but, uh … what about Thursday? Whatcha doing then?”

Thursday was two days away. I didn’t have work at Midnight Lotus, and I didn’t have plans with Kate. If I went out with Nate, maybe grabbed some lunch or a beer, it could be my opportunity to see if he’d changed much over the last few years. Maybe this distance I had put between us was unnecessary. Maybe we could be friends again. Maybe we could even double date.

A longing tugged at my chest.

“Thursday’s good for me,” I said. “You wanna grab lunch or something?”

His grin broadened as he clapped my shoulder with gusto. “Hell yeah! There’s this taco place that just opened up over on Meadowlark. You down?”

“Count me in.”

“Awesome. I’ll meet you there at four?”

His smile was infectious; I couldn’t help it—I smiled back.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I’ll be there.”

***

A comfortable silence shrouded our table at the diner. Kate sat across from me, her eyes on the menu in front of her. I already knew what I was going to order, so my focus was on the only thing that seemed to matter these days—her.

Her hair was twisted into two pink braids, like one of those girls on that show my mom liked to watch, Little House on the Prairie . She toyed with the end of one braid as she absentmindedly chewed the corner of her lip, flipping one page to the next. I knew that, later, at the club, she’d be wearing something sexy and revealing until she wasn’t wearing anything at all. But right now, she was anything but revealing in a gray sweater at least three times too big, a pair of black leggings, and black Adidas sneakers.

In two weeks, I’d been out with her a total of four times—always at this diner, always at this table—and while our time together hadn’t made it past a peck on the cheek and she’d always worn far more clothes than I’d seen her wear at the club, these hours spent here felt more intimate than anything I’d ever experienced with a woman before.

And that was pretty stupid, right? All we did was talk when we weren’t chewing, and sometimes, we did both at the same time. I felt like I should’ve wanted more from this—I should’ve wanted sex or to cop a feel at the very least. Don’t get me wrong; I did. I wasn’t fuckin’ dead. But I was okay doing this. You know, taking our time. Getting to know each other. Assuring we were something before we were more .

She raised her head only slightly to glance at me, a smirk tugging at her lips. “What?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

One side of my mouth lifted into a sheepish grin. “And how exactly am I looking at you?”

She held my gaze for a moment—one, two, three thunderous beats of my heart. The smirk dropped from her face as her chest rose with a deep breath, her eyes widening with something that made my heart race and my mouth dry—anxiety or fear, maybe. Then, she swallowed and looked away, returning her attention to the menu.

“I think I might, um … I think I’ll get pancakes. Carbs sound good.” Her voice came out trembling, hushed and apprehensive.

This wasn’t her. This wasn’t how she acted with me. I furrowed my brow, ready to ask her what had just happened, when Birdy, our usual waitress, came to take our order. We told her, she left, and I turned back to Kate to find her acting as strange as before.

“What’s—"

“So, I didn’t tell you what happened last night,” she said, hurrying to interrupt.

I tipped my head. “Last night? At the club?”

She nodded, bringing her eyes back to mine. Her confidence was back. She was herself again. I was relieved, but that didn’t answer the question of what had happened just before to make her shrink under my stare.

“Someone was standing by my car when I left the club.”

My spine locked, now stick straight. My heart rattled, desperate and crazed. My hands balled into fists, pressed to my thighs beneath the table.

“ What ?” I asked, not intending to shout. “And you were alone ?”

Kate shook her head. “No, Scott walked me out. We couldn’t see who it was—it was so dark—and they ran away when they saw us. Scott yelled at them to stay the hell away, but that was it.”

My mouth went dry, and before I tried to speak again, I took a quick sip from the glass of water Birdy had brought when we sat down. As I cleared my throat, I tamped down the urge to lash out in a fit of rage, angry with myself for not being there even though it hadn’t been my night to work.

“Why Scott?” I asked, my voice raspy and cold. “Where the hell was Saul?”

“He left with Wendy,” she explained. “One of their kids had gotten sick, so they left a little earlier. I took a while longer packing up, so Scott hung around to walk me out.”

I sucked in a breath and wished it would settle the frenzied beating of my heart a little more than it did. But Kate didn’t seem as shaken by it as I did, and considering she’d once dealt with a stalker, I thought that had to speak for something.

“Probably just some guy looking to rob my car,” she reasoned with a weak shrug.

“Oh, because that’s no big deal,” I said with an incredulous huff of a laugh.

“All things considered, it really isn’t,” she replied. “It was a random hit. I’m not being targeted or anything.”

Or so you think . I held the thought in though, not wanting to freak her out when she seemed okay. And for all I knew, she was right.

Still, I couldn’t help wondering.

So, after lunch, I left her with a kiss on the cheek and hurried home to shower, get dressed, and hopefully get in a power nap. Because even though I wasn’t on the schedule that night, I wasn’t going to let anyone else walk Indigo Sky to her car in a dark parking lot.

Scott might’ve let the bastard run away, but if it were to happen again …

I wouldn’t be so kind.

***

After several weeks of working at Midnight Lotus, it felt strange to show up in something other than a suit.

I stepped out of my car and stuffed my wallet and keys into my pocket as I walked over to Saul, skipping the line—a surprisingly long one, considering it was the middle of the week.

Twin deep lines formed between his bushy eyebrows at the sight of me, and he looked me up and down with a suspicious set of narrowed eyes. But he didn’t unclip the velvet rope immediately.

“The hell are you doing here?”

I lifted one brow and ignored the complaints of some guy down the line. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah, it does matter, Revan. You here to make a scene?”

I laughed incredulously at that. “Make a scene? God, dude, you are seriously paranoid.”

The irony in that statement wasn’t lost on me. I mean, the very reason I was there was because I, too, was paranoid. But not in the way Saul was.

“Sorry if Indie’s track record isn’t the best,” he grumbled, standing his ground.

“Watch it—“

“Hey! We’re still waiting here!” a guy a few heads down shouted.

“And you’re gonna wait a little longer!” Saul shouted back, never taking his glare off of me. “Seriously, Revan, what are you doing here?”

I didn’t like the interrogation. I didn’t like the suspicion. But I couldn’t fault him entirely when we were still in uncharted territory—at work, with Kate, and with whatever the hell might be going on here.

“I came to walk Indie to her car,” I said, unsure if he knew about what had happened the night before.

But that was all it took for acceptance to smooth the lines on his face. He unclipped the velvet rope and held an arm across the next guy in line, blocking him from slipping through.

“All right,” Saul said with a single nod.

I didn’t say another word to him. I passed quickly and into the thumping club. It was two hours into showtime. Ivy was onstage, spinning around the pole and working her hips to the tune of a Nine Inch Nails song.

Standing there in my street clothes, somewhere between the entrance and the bar, landed me in a mix of déjà vu and familiarity. I remembered that first night years ago, when I’d bumped into the woman who was nothing more than a stranger to me then. A woman who would give me my first sexual encounter and kiss, only to become the first woman to stir genuine emotion in my heart nearly a decade after.

I looked for her now, turning my head to sweep my gaze over the dark room. I didn’t immediately see her, so I headed to the bar, where Scott was slinging drinks.

He looked surprised to see me. “Yo, dude, what are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d come by and see Indie,” I said, not wanting him to feel bad or self-conscious about how he’d handled things last night.

Scott gave me a knowing look and waggled his brows. “So, things are going well in that department, I take it?”

“They are,” I replied, remembering that odd expression she’d given me at the diner. Like she hadn’t known whether she should stay or run for the fucking hills.

“That’s awesome, man. Crystal’s got a guy now, Indie’s got you …” He nodded approvingly. “Those girls deserve to be happy.”

I forced a smile and asked, “Have you seen her around? Indie, I mean.”

He looked off toward the stage, sweeping his gaze around the club, the way I just had. He seemed confused at first, then nudged his chin in the direction of the private rooms.

“There she is,” he said. “Just came out from the back.”

My entire body felt instantly hot at the thought of her giving a private dance to someone else, and I scolded myself before jealous rage could make itself at home. This was her job, and I didn’t own her. She wasn’t mine . Fuck, I wanted her to be. Maybe one day, she could be, but even then, what right would I have to tell her what she could or couldn’t do to make a living?

Everything my mom had said weeks ago came rushing back. All those concerns about envy and possessiveness.

No , I thought. I’m an adult. She’s an adult. Just stop this and stop it now .

“You good?”

Scott’s voice sliced through the flood of negative thoughts clouding my mind. I glanced at him and nodded.

“Yeah, all good. Thanks, man.”

I moved my way carefully through the club until I was within her line of sight. She stopped in her tracks, her lips falling open just as a guy about my age came up from behind her. He made a show of adjusting himself in his jeans, and a table of guys behind me whooped and crowed. The blood in my veins had just begun to cool, but it was boiling now that I could put a face to the man she’d been alone with. I had no right—I knew that. No right at all to feel territorial, protective, and so fucking possessive that I could hardly see straight. She wasn’t mine, dammit—but maybe that was exactly what bothered me. Maybe it was that we’d been seeing each other for weeks, we knew there was an attraction here, but we’d never made the decision to commit. To be exclusive. To belong to each other.

The guy took a chance and slapped her ass as he passed, and I saw red. She didn’t seem fazed in the slightest—she’d barely jolted at the abrupt contact—but I couldn’t be so cool. Just as he was about to brush past me on his way back to his table, I snatched his wrist in my hand.

“Hey, man, what—"

“Show some respect,” I sneered. “Apologize to her.”

He tittered with an obnoxious laugh. The guy stunk of booze; he’d obviously had too much to drink. But it wasn’t an excuse.

“Bro, what ? Apologize? For what?”

“The rule is, bro , you keep your fucking hands to yourself. No touching.”

He pulled his wrist from my hold and teetered a little on unsteady legs as he smirked. “Well, she was touching me plenty . I was just returning the favor … bro .”

He moved past me, and I made sure to bump my shoulder hard against his, glowering in a way I hoped was menacing.

What the hell was wrong with me? This jackass meant nothing— he was nothing , as far as I should be concerned. Yet I couldn't pull my glare from his smug, stupid face. This asshole. This piece of shit, who thought he had some right to touch her, simply because he’d paid her to touch him. This entitled motherfucker, who—

"Rev."

Her voice yanked me back from the jealous tirade in my brain. I turned to look at her, still standing in the same place as before. Several feet away, frozen as she stared curiously at me.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, slipping a few dollar bills into her bra. Were those from him? "You don't work tonight."

I swallowed at the dryness in my throat, my tongue like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth. "I came to walk you to your car."

Her expression shifted from curious to … something I couldn't put my finger on. It wasn't unlike the way she'd looked at me earlier at the diner. Cautious . That was it. God, she looked at me like she was scared . Like I was no better than these assholes who thought they owned her, the ones who stalked her and harassed her and …

Shit , what the hell was I doing there?! I was behaving like a psychopath, and I needed to leave.

I groaned and began to turn away, ready to head out the door and back to my car. I'd tell Saul to make sure he was with her when she left, and that'd be good enough. He was good enough. She didn't need me . She had survived this long on her own.

"No, wait!" She hurried to close the space between us and grabbed my wrist, wrenching me back. "You came all the way here, on your night off, just to walk me to my car?"

I sighed and turned back to look into her eyes. I could look into those eyes forever. I'd lose myself, forget my own name, and ignore everything that was important until the only thing I could see, hear, breathe was her and those fucking eyes.

"Yeah," I replied stupidly, diverting my gaze so I couldn't see the judgment in hers. "But I can go. It's—"

She turned and began tugging me to the hallway she'd just come from.

"What … where are you—"

She brought me to a private room and pulled me inside before turning and yanking the curtain shut. I stared ahead at the wall of the dark, wood-paneled room, where I'd punched Tyson and held him back while Kate kneed him in the balls and yelled into his face. That night felt so long ago, before I had asked her out. Before we'd started meeting at the diner to shove food down our throats in the brief hours before and after our respective jobs.

It—this—had felt exciting back then. Full of potential and possibility.

Now, I wasn't sure.

Now, I was worried and convinced I'd crossed an invisible line somewhere.

Now, it felt like I'd pushed her away, scared her somehow, and I was certain she'd brought me back here to scream at me in private to avoid the scene Saul had been worried about happening.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets and hung my head, cursing myself for how foolish I'd become.

"Kate … Indie …" I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm—"

Before my brain had a chance to process what was happening, she was standing before me, her arms were around my neck, and her lips—fuck, her incredible lips—were on mine. I inhaled sharply, startled, and pulled my hands from my pockets to hover awkwardly over her smooth, exposed back before wrapping my arms around her. I held her to me, pressing every part of her body to every part of mine. Kissing her back the way I’d hardly known how to that first time years ago. Her head inclined, and her lips parted with an unspoken invitation; my tongue reacquainted with hers, only to find with relieved satisfaction that she tasted just as sweet as I remembered.

God, she was everything I remembered from all those years before, yet now, she was so much more. Because I knew her. She wasn't just Indigo Sky, the dancer at Midnight Lotus who had given me a nice memory once upon a time.

She was Kate , and right now, kissing her in the back room of the club where she danced, she was mine .

Her hands moved from my neck to hold the back of my head, her fingers threading into the length of my disheveled hair. She tugged gently, and I responded with a groan, hungry and primal. Like a bear in need of sustenance after months of sleeping. Blood raced through my veins, rushing loudly past my eardrums and heading south. My entire body was on fire with the need to back her into the wall, tear off what little clothing she had on, and lay claim to every part of her until the only name—the only word —she remembered was mine. But somewhere beyond that cloud of urgent lust was a little voice reminding me that she was on the clock, and I didn't want her to get in trouble any more than I wanted to lose this job.

I moved my hands to her shoulders and held tight as I pulled my mouth from hers. Breathless and panting, I licked my lips of her taste and minty lip gloss and opened my eye to look into hers.

Her fingertips traced my hairline until they fell to my beard, where her palms held my cheeks. Her eyes danced over my face as her grin grew, beautiful and bright.

"We should've done that weeks ago," she whispered as though she didn't want anyone else to hear.

"Worth the wait," I replied, just as hushed.

Her fingers lifted to touch the crinkled skin on my forehead, the scar I seldom thought about these days. It'd become just as much a part of me as my arms or legs, but now, I was aware all over again, though I felt no need to hide, out of shame or fear that I grossed her out, the way I sometimes did when other people stared.

"How did this happen?" she asked.

I realized then that, after all this time, she had never asked. Most people … it was the first thing they thought of, the first thing they wanted to know about. Maybe it was even the only thing they cared to know about me, as if the accident and disability were the only defining things about me.

How did you become a freak, Rev? What horrible, fucked-up thing happened to you to disfigure your face and leave you half blind?

But not Kate.

She saw beyond the things that didn’t matter on the surface. She saw me .

"A firework hit me in the face when I was a kid," I explained, speaking matter-of-factly without any hint of emotion. I guessed when you told a story so many times, it stopped having an impact on you. "I should've died."

"But you didn't."

I couldn’t help but smile at the gratitude in her voice. “I didn't."

She dropped her hand from my face to press it to my chest, just over my heart. "I'm happy you lived.”

"So am I."

She gnawed at the corner of her bottom lip, her eyes skipping from mine to my lips and back to holding my gaze with a wanton, deep-seated lust that I knew all too well.

"I want a do-over," she said, her voice trembling and hushed. "I want to invite you back to my place. I want you to say yes and come with me. I want … God, I want you so bad, but …"

She paused, and I didn't dare say a fucking word. I didn't dare tell her how fucking badly I wanted her too. I didn't dare do a damn thing, all to allow her to finish her thought, despite the crazed thrumming of my heart and the heavy ache between my legs.

"I … I live with my dad, and …" Her gaze dropped with a shame I didn't approve of.

I cocked my head, not understanding where this sudden shift in demeanor had come from. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"No, it's—"

"I told you, I live with my parents too. I get it. It's okay. You don’t need to be embarrassed about that.”

She sighed, and a look of devastation washed over her face. "No. It's … I’m not embarrassed. But my dad is sick , Rev. I, um … I take care of him."

I sucked in a breath and was slow to nod as a few pieces seemed to fall into place. "Oh …"

She wilted with what could've been relief or humiliation—or maybe it was both. "Yeah, it's a, um, a long story, and when I have a minute, I'll tell you about it. But I-I should get back to work before anyone realizes I’m gone.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, brushing a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear. “We can talk later, if you want.”

She mustered a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. Like dread had already begun to mar the happiness we’d found just moments before.

“We will.”

***

I watched her dance as a member of the audience for the first time in years.

I listened to strangers whistle and holler at her as she undid her bra and let the straps slide over her arms and to the polished floor, revealing her bare breasts to me and everyone else. I witnessed their hands reaching out to tuck dollar bills beneath the waistband of her G-string, her barely covered pussy mere inches from their faces. And, no, I didn’t care for the way they looked at her, but I did care about how much she loved dancing. How confident and happy she was. She became a truer version of herself on that stage, and while I might not have appreciated the smiles she gave other men, I did appreciate the sincerity in those smiles. She enjoyed what she did, truly, and wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be as lucky in what we did for a living?

I used to be. I used to like working on cars, and while I didn’t dislike my job here, bouncing at the door, I didn’t love it—and I certainly didn’t love wiping the sweat stains off gym equipment. And for the first time in a long time, I found myself missing the shop.

After the club closed and Sam was mopping the floor and Scott was putting away clean glasses, I hung around the backstage entrance, waiting for Kate to come out. Crystal stopped by to give me a brief hello, her smile stretching from ear to ear, before hurrying out the door with Saul and Wendy. Ivy was next to leave with Scott. And then the only people left were Sam, Kate, and me.

“Hey, Rev,” Sam said from near his office door.

“Yeah?” I asked, looking up from my phone.

“I’m just gonna clean up in here for a second. You mind waiting around until I’m done?”

I nodded. “Yeah, no problem. I don’t know how long Indie’s gonna be anyway.”

Truthfully, I had no idea what was even taking her so long.

He gave me a thumbs-up and disappeared into his office, and I went back to browsing my phone. Since taking up my post to wait for Kate, I had been scrolling the social media page for Roy’s Auto Repair. I had no idea when the page had been set up, and I couldn’t imagine Roy doing it himself. I guessed Donny or Nate had probably done it—more likely Donny. They hardly ever updated it. There were a couple lame holiday-related posts, a handful of oil change discount alerts, but the one that stood out to me was the most recent.

A death announcement.

Roy had died, and nobody had told me.

I wondered if anyone had told my dad because he sure as hell hadn’t said anything to Mom or me.

“What the fuck?” I muttered, wondering what the hell had happened.

Roy was an older guy, yeah, but he wasn’t that old. Mid-sixties maybe. Just a year or two older than my dad. I guessed the guy could’ve been sick, but my dad had still seen him every now and then. If Roy had been sick—cancer or whatever—why wouldn’t my dad have said something to me?

I thought about doing some more digging, maybe checking out Donny’s personal page, but before I had the chance, Kate finally came out from the dressing room.

“Hey, sorry. Had a little bit of an emergency,” she said, flustered.

Her bags were hanging haphazardly from her hand, and I bent to take them from her as I asked, “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said with a quick nod. “It’s nothing bad. My period just decided to show up, like, two days early.”

“Ah,” I replied, nodding.

She laughed, and her twinkling eyes met mine. “I know; the last thing guys like to hear about is a woman’s menstrual cycle.”

I shrugged nonchalantly, slinging her duffel bag and purse over my shoulder. “Nah, I don’t mind. I just don’t wanna act like I understand what it’s like when I don’t. But you’re sure you’re good? You need anything?”

She reached up to smooth her hand over my chest. “You’re sweet, but I’m okay. I just wanna get home and curl up in bed.”

I glanced in the direction of Sam’s office. “I told him we’d wait for him to be—"

Just then, his door opened, and he switched off the light as he said, “Sorry about that. Just had a couple of liquor orders to go over. We can get out of here now.”

I turned to Kate and extended my elbow, and she took it, slipping her hand into the crook of my arm. Sam followed behind and stopped at the alarm control panel as we headed outside. The night was cool and clear, pleasant. Kate took a deep breath at my side and pressed her cheek to my biceps, hugging my arm to her chest.

"My dad has Alzheimer's," she told me quietly beneath her breath, as if it were a secret for nobody but me to know.

I glanced down at her. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm parked that way." She pointed toward an adjacent lot, then continued as we walked in the direction of her car. "I started dancing when I was nineteen. I was good at it. I liked it. But I was only supposed to work here for a while, save up money for a year or so, and then go away to college. Start over somewhere else. But then my dad got sick, and all my plans went to hell."

I furrowed my brow, keeping my attention pointed forward, watching the surrounding area. "There was nobody else to care for him?"

"He only has me," she answered curtly.

"Oh," I said quietly. "I'm—"

"My parents got divorced when I was twelve. My mom was fucking around behind Dad's back for … who knows how long with who the hell knows how many men, including a few of my dad’s friends … and then she decided she wanted to move in with her boyfriend in Arizona."

"Jesus," I grumbled. "That’s … God, that's horrible."

"Yeah," Kate muttered, bitterness heavy in her tone. "My sisters went with her."

That was the part that startled me the most, and I diverted my attention from her car long enough to turn to her, shocked. "You have sisters?"

"Yep, two little sisters," she said, frowning. "The day my mom left, she told Dad they were never his to begin with. So … they all left."

I smoothed my hand over my hair, brushing the strands off of my forehead. "Holy fuck, Kate …"

She blew out a breath and stood up taller as she shrugged with nonchalance. "Anyway, so that's my sob story. That's why I'm still here, working my ass off. That's why I haven’t stopped doing this. I enjoy it, so that's something. It's better than sitting behind a desk, staring at a computer screen all day, although I assume I'll be doing that at some point when—what is that?"

There was more I wanted to say—this conversation wasn't over—but my attention was snagged away from the topic to the sight of her car beneath the lamppost.

I pulled away from her grasp on my arm and hurried ahead, turning in a circle as I went to survey the lot around us. Sam had left; nobody else was there. We were alone. But someone had been there. There was no telling who without watching surveillance camera footage, but whoever it was had covered the driver's window in shaving cream and written WHORE in the center.

Rage surged through my chest, pumping hot blood through my veins. My face heated; my fists clenched. I turned again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the asshole who had done this. But there was no one. We were alone.

"I don't get it," Kate whispered from beside me, her thumbnail wedged between her teeth. "I don't understand."

"We have to get out of here," I said, wrapping my hand around her arm and beginning to tug her in the direction of my car.

"No." She stood her ground and wrenched her arm from my grasp. "I can't just leave my car here. What if they come back?"

"It's a car . It’s less important than your fucking life ."

"And you're assuming this person has it out for my life," she fired back.

I dragged my hand over my face and frisked the parking lot again, wishing I had a greater field of vision. She was right. I was making assumptions. But so was she.

"I don't know why you're being targeted, but neither do you," I pointed out.

"You don’t know that I'm being—"

"You are being targeted, Kate. That much is fuckin' obvious at this point. And we need to get the hell out of here. We don't know where they are, if they're still here, or …"

I was giving myself the creeps. Fuck . I wasn't equipped for this shit. I could throw a punch well enough. I could drag a drunk asshole to the curb with relative ease. But handling this type of shit … stalkers, vandalism …

I wasn’t sure I was cut out for it.

"We should call the cops," I muttered aloud.

To my relief, Kate nodded. "Yeah. Okay, I'll call my dad's nurse and tell her I'll be a little longer."

And with that, I pulled my phone out and dialed 911.

***

The cops came pretty quickly and took some pictures, and Kate filed a report. They even did her the solid of cleaning the window off after the pictures were taken, and they assured her that nothing else had been tampered with. The car was safe to drive, and I supposed that was at least something close to a win.

"Chances are, it's just an angry customer," one of the two cops who’d answered the call said. "Does that happen a lot?"

Kate shrugged and edged closer to my side, wrapping her arms around her middle. "I mean, I wouldn't say it happens a lot , but it does happen sometimes."

"Well, has anyone gotten mad at you recently?"

"I … no, I don't think so. Not that I can remember. I—“

"Tyson," I muttered, remembering that asshole from weeks ago.

"Tyson? Who is Tyson?" the other cop asked with interest, already retrieving a pad of paper from his pocket.

Kate blew out a breath. "He, um … he was a customer who tried to"—she cleared her throat and shuffled from one foot to another—"f-force himself on me last month."

I saw red and shook my head, throwing my gaze to the sky as my mouth twisted and my gut churned with discomfort and fury.

"You got his full name?" the cop asked, and Kate gave it to him. He wrote it down and nodded. "All right. We'll look into it and be in touch. In the meantime, get home safe, all right? I don't mean to scare you, miss, but make sure you lock your windows and doors. Don’t keep anything important inside your car. We don't really know what we're dealing with here. Could be nothing, but just in case, be aware of your surroundings."

She shuddered at my side but nodded. “Okay.”

He swung his gaze to mine. “You’re her … husband?”

My heart pulsed at the thought as I shook my head. “No, uh—"

“He’s my boyfriend,” Kate corrected, cutting in with a declaration that not only warmed my entire body with elation, but also puffed my chest up with an immense amount of pride.

Her boyfriend. Significant other. Partner. Shit! It felt good, and, fuck, I wished this could’ve happened at a moment when we weren’t dealing with something serious and potentially dangerous. And yet, somehow, that only encouraged something else to course steadily through my veins and bones and all the way down to the center of my soul—the fervent need to protect her.

The cop nodded. “Make sure she’s safe,” he said. “Call us if you need anything else.”

They wished us a good night, although that seemed unlikely, given the circumstances. And, man, I was pissed about that. It had been a good night. No, scratch that. It had been fucking great until we got out here.

And now, I was finding it hard to remember she had kissed me and that this thing felt like an actual thing because some asshole had vandalized her fucking car.

Except this wasn’t just some asshole, was it? This was a repeat offender. Someone who’d been hanging around for at least a couple of weeks. And, yeah, maybe it was Tyson. Made sense. This shit had all seemed to start happening around that point, as far as I was aware. Although call it a gut feeling or whatever … but I wasn’t convinced.

“I should follow you home,” I said, suddenly exhausted and realizing it had been way too long since I’d slept.

Kate shook her head. “No, I’ll be okay.”

I was skeptical. “It’s not a big deal. I can—"

“No, really. My dad’s nurse will be there. I’ll call you while I drive. I just …” She trailed off for a second before continuing, “My dad gets really worked up over changes in his routine, and if other people are involved, it’s worse. He doesn’t do well with it. But thank you. You know, for being so sweet and such a good guy.”

I stared at her, reluctant to back down so easily. But she seemed so sincere and concerned, and I had no reason to believe she wasn’t telling the truth.

“Okay,” I said, already worried this was a bad idea. “But you’re staying on the phone with me the whole time.”

She held my gaze and nodded. “The whole time.”

“And you’re not hanging up until the door’s locked.”

“Not until the door is locked,” she agreed, reaching out to slip her hand into mine.

I sucked in a deep breath and took a step closer until my body was nearly flush against hers, our toes parallel and her hand holding mine. I craned my neck and kissed her forehead before releasing the breath from my lungs.

“I don’t like this,” I said quietly.

She shook her head. “Neither do I. Honestly, I have the most bizarre amount of déjà vu right now. Like I’ve done all of this before. But you know what’s crazy?”

“What?”

She mustered a smile as she looked up at me, squeezing my fingers with hers. “I know I should be more upset or scared, but I’m too happy.”

“Yeah, that is crazy,” I teased before a sardonic chuckle huffed up my throat. “‘Cause I’m upset and fuckin’ terrified.”

“But that’s why I’m so happy,” she whispered, eyes on mine as she took one of her hands and lifted it to touch my face.

“I’m not following,” I muttered, focusing too much on the electric current that pulsed through every part of me anytime her fingers touched my skin.

“I’m happy because I have you. And I know you would never let anything happen to me.”

She stood on her toes and brushed her lips against mine again, and again, and again.

***

And, yeah, okay, maybe the smarter thing to do that night would’ve been to insist she get in her car and drive away. It would’ve been the safer thing—that’s for damn sure. But the thing about her …

Well, I guess maybe it’s the thing about any woman you’re falling for …

You find yourself feeling really selfish a lot of the time, and all I could think about was how good it felt to kiss her.

But it was okay.

Because she was right.

As long as she was with me, I was never ever going to let a single terrible thing happen to her. Not one.

I guess the problem was, she wasn’t always with me.

But … we're getting to that.