Chapter 20 Early Morning Phone Calls
EARLY MORNING PHONE CALLS
ELYXANDRE
It was two a.m. She entered her house and set the alarm.
Weary, she headed down the hall to her bedroom without turning on the lights, other than the one in the living room, which was on a timer.
Inside her room, she dumped her keys on her dresser, then began the nightly ritual of disrobing.
Stun gun, issued handgun, baton, pepper spray, and handcuffs went into her safe in the closet.
She hung her vest on the back of the closet door, unlaced her boots, removed them, then pulled her shirt free from the waist of her pants.
Stepping into the bathroom, she started the water in her shower, pulled off the rest of her clothes, and tossed them in the hamper.
She stood in front of the mirror, naked, running her hand over her shoulder where her clavicle was oddly distorted.
Back and forth, her fingers brushed across the bump, memories of the night she earned the injury bombarding her.
Some things were better off not just in the past but erased completely.
She sighed at the thought. That wasn’t happening.
She’d never forget that night or what came afterward.
Her call to Tripoli. The days of living in terror.
Panama taking her to a dive hotel on the outskirts of the city.
Tripoli, Cosmos, Triumph, and Fereh showing up at her door dressed in black from head to toe.
What they did? It all could have gone so wrong.
If they’d been caught…? Maybe Panama would have escaped, but the others could have spent time in prison.
They could have ruined their lives, all for her.
Grabbing her hairbrush from the drawer, she pulled the elastic from the tail of her braid and ran the spines through her hair.
She always used a ton of hairspray to make sure it didn’t fall out during the day, and if she didn’t wash it out each night, the result in the morning was more than painful.
Tomorrow would be another long day. She’d called the neighbor kid and asked him to pick up the destroyed plants and trash them for some extra cash, but she’d need to do something to fix the flower beds themselves so they didn’t look like someone had been digging up land mines.
Then there was the dance. Another night of being hypervigilant, this time in the darkness of the high school gym, keeping kids from spiking the drinks, stopping them from making out in secluded hallway corners, and watching for threats in every face.
Hoping to wash away the events of the last few weeks down the drain, she stepped under the warm water, eyes closed, face turned up into the spray.
Her hands swiped down from forehead to jaw to the base of her neck, her fingers once again coming into contact with the bump.
Like a timeline in motion, events from the last several years moved toward her, speeding up as each got closer.
The betrayals.
The divorce.
The aftermath at the station.
The move to New Mexico.
The job offer at Tejeda Springs.
The move back to San Antonio.
The leak in her roof.
The broken air-conditioning.
The raid on the high school.
The unexpected fire alarm.
The break-in at the greenhouse.
The flooding in the girls’ locker room.
The dug-up flower beds.
The phone calls.
The kiss.
The active shooter threat.
The cut internet.
The sight of Jess with Lucas.
The appearance of her father at the game tonight.
For the first time since she started the new job, she allowed herself to groan aloud. It seemed like tonight was some sort of macabre cherry on top of a shit sundae.
Allowing herself another thirty seconds of her pity party—table for one—she rinsed off and stepped out of the shower. She’d no more than wrapped a towel around her wet hair when her phone pinged.
If she was going to start getting texts from one of those internet numbers, she would scream. It was the middle of the night, for fuck’s sake. She wrapped a towel around her torso, then looked at her screen.
Lucas.
For a brief moment, she considered letting the text go unanswered. Let him stew, the rat bastard. That would teach him to bestow THE KISS, invite her to a sacred Sunday outing with him and his son, and then let his ex-girlfriend paw him at the very public homecoming game.
She sighed. Her exhaustion was making her irrational.
He was not Knox, she reminded herself again.
He wasn’t cheating on her. She knew Jess wasn’t his girlfriend.
She also knew that they both agreed not to be public about…
whatever this was… in front of people from school, so it wasn’t like he was going to create a fuss tonight and violate that agreement, claiming her like some over-the-top knight in shining armor.
Standing there in her bathroom, practically naked, she debated what to do. Did she read and answer the text? Did she read it and let him suffer, waiting for the bouncing dots and a reply? Did she ignore it? Delete it without reading it? Why was this so difficult to deal with right now?
In the end, it wasn’t in her to hide or play games. She opened up the text.
LUCAS:Are you awake? Can we talk?
Did she want to talk? She typed her reply and proceeded to get ready to go to bed.
ELYX:It’s almost three in the morning. Can it wait?
LUCAS:It could, but I’d rather it didn’t. I won’t keep you long. I know you’re tired.
She tapped the green call button. It rang twice before he answered.
His voice was low and soft, as if he was somewhere he could be overheard. “Hey. I’m glad you called. How are you doing?”
What did she say to that? On the surface, it was a stupid question. She was battered. Bruised. Embarrassed. Furious. But she knew he wasn’t asking it as a social nicety. He really wanted to know how she was handling the shit show of the night.
“I’d rather not talk about it right now. I just got back from the station and filling out my statement.”
“I understand. I’m here if you need to talk, whenever you’re ready.”
“Congratulations to Ezra tonight. I didn’t get to watch the game, but the students were loving it all the way out of the stadium. How’s he feeling?” There. Start with something neutral-ish.
A warm chuckle came over the line. “You’d think he was the MVP on the winning Super Bowl team.
He was flying high until about an hour ago, questioning his decision to go to MIT and ready to play football for Ohio, then he crashed epically on the sofa, drooling on a cushion.
More photo evidence to harass him. He never learns. ”
“He’ll be rethinking that Ohio decision tomorrow morning.”
“Hope so. I’m not an Ohio fan.” She heard a sliding door open and shut, then wood creaking. “I’m outside, just so you know. He can’t hear us.”
She waited. He was the one who wanted to talk. He could start the conversation.
“I wanted to talk to you about tonight. When you saw Jess and me… it wasn’t what it looked like.”
The petty, insecure part of her reared its ugly head again. “Every time a guy says that, it always turns out to be exactly what it looked like.”
“I was talking with a couple about a student get-together. Anyway, Jess works with the wife, so we’ve seen them at a few social events over the years when I’ve gone with her as her plus-one.
We were reminiscing about something that happened regarding her boss the night I met you, actually, and it was just a natural reaction to hug her and laugh about it. ”
“We’re not in a relationship. You don’t owe me any explanations, Lucas.”
He made a sound of exasperation. “We may not have been on a date yet, but we sure as shit are something, Elyxandre. And I feel like I owe you a whole lot more than just an explanation.”
A little spark of warmth formed in her chest.
“Yes, we dated for a few weeks several years ago, but we have been nothing more than friends for over two years. I never slept with her, and while I did kiss her, that’s all it ever was.
“She knows how I feel about you. When she saw us in my office on Monday, she put two and two together and has been pestering me all week for details. Tonight, after you passed by, I finally confirmed that yes, we are something to each other. That’s all she knows. I don’t kiss and tell.”
“I believe you.”
“I just… She’s my friend, and I don’t want you to worry about that.
I don’t want to lose her in my life because it’s too difficult to be friends with the teachers I supervise now, and she really is an amazing person.
I want to still be able to have her over, or go visit her, or maybe even do things with her, but I also want to respect you because I know you’ve had issues with your ex and other women.
I’ve never cheated on a girlfriend, nor did I cheat on my wife, and I never would.
But she lives in the same city, so there is always going to be a chance that we’ll run into her somewhere, both with or without each other, and I don’t want that to be an issue between us. ”
She heard his desire for her to believe him in his words.
A part of her was reluctant to trust him.
However, she knew from experience that lying to people wasn’t his way, and as a high school principal, he had more than enough opportunities to do so to save himself problems. Hell, he didn’t even like to sugarcoat things that were tough for people to hear.
Unfortunately, Knox had done an excellent job of making her second-guess herself.
Combined with the double blow of her father showing up tonight and the knowledge that Knox had contacted him to hopefully spur a scene, the high tension from the entire week made her emotional bandwidth very narrow at the moment.
“Lucas—”
“Please, Elyxandre. Don’t dismiss this so quickly.”