Chapter 54
“Working for Entity is a privilege, and we want to ensure everyone we employ feels honored to work for such an esteemed company. The work environment we create isn’t just a team, it’s a family.”
Entity Employee Handbook: HR Edition
Alexys had been cleared off work for a few days, and she was relieved to have time to herself.
Natalie had been messaging her every couple of hours after her concussion window had passed to ask how her trip went, having been forced out on her own in-field evaluation.
Alexys kept assuring her she was fine. But Natalie could read between the lines and knew something was wrong, despite Alexys’s best efforts to reassure her to the contrary.
The truth was she felt fine, almost better than fine.
That night at Nic’s, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so deeply without any disturbance.
Not a single nightmare, which felt like a damn miracle and a much-deserved break after everything she’d been through.
They’d slept straight through the night, both of them, on his couch.
He’d not been wrong; it was very soft. As was his hand, which she’d woken to find curled with her own.
He’d made them a very strong pot of coffee which Alexys appreciated, and they verbally danced around everything else. She never imagined Nic Dyre would give her butterflies, but the thought of him, it was doing some very strange things to her stomach. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Natalie was waiting for her as soon as she arrived back in the office, ambushing her with bone-crushing hug.
“Thank God, you made it back in one piece.”
Relatively, Alexys thought to herself. She answered with a tired smile instead. “Eat good food, don’t get murdered. That’s the motto, right?”
Nat grinned at her. “Hell yeah, it is.” She pulled Alexys along with her to stand in line for coffee. Nat’s arm was wrapped around her shoulders and kept Alexys tucked firmly against her. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t here when you got back.”
“Don’t be silly, Nat, you had your own evaluation to conduct. I’m just glad yours wasn’t quite so life-altering.” The joke fell flat, and Natalie regarded her with a frown.
“Coffee’s on me today, yeah?”
Alexys leaned into her and accepted the comfort gratefully. It was good to be back, to know she had a support system in place with Natalie, with Kristin. With Nic.
“You know you can talk to me about it, right? I’m here for you.”
Alexys nodded, she did know, but she was also afraid of Nat’s questions.
The horrors of the Appalachian Mountains had shredded Alexys’s carefully constructed defenses and left her raw and bleeding her emotions all over the floor. She felt like she needed to piece herself back together a little, and Nat had the potential to shatter her with one concerned look.
It was unhealthy to keep it all inside—Alexys knew that much.
Any therapist worth their salt would tell her the negative effects of bottling up trauma, but Alexys was on the defensive.
She’d been attacked in every way, from every angle, and she was going to need time before she could talk to someone who hadn’t experienced it.
“You have your debriefing with Kristin today, don’t you?”
The question was the least harmful one Nat could ask, but it still sucked the air from Alexys’s lungs.
Trauma be damned, she wasn’t going to have a choice.
She had to talk about what happened with Kristin.
There were incident reports to file, case files to close, and jobs to reassign.
Elliot was gone, and that needed to be dealt with.
She bit her lip. What were her chaotic emotions compared to that? At least she got to come home.
“Yeah, I do.” Alexys tried to modulate her voice, hoped that she only sounded tired. The exhaustion could easily be mistaken for a coffee deficiency.
“That should be … interesting.” Nat grimaced. “It’s a good thing I’m getting coffee into your system beforehand.”
“Very.”
“I told Hank you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, so you at least have the day off from his phone calls,” Natalie said, grinning.
“You’re a godsend.” Alexys bumped her shoulder against Nat’s affectionately. “What would I do without you?”
“Quit,” Nat answered with a laugh. “We’re the dynamic duo, babes. They can’t afford to separate us.”
Nat’s phone buzzed and she looked down at the caller ID.
“Ugh, give me a sec, I have to take this.” She stepped to the side to take the call, no doubt one of her needy Wardens, and Alexys found herself repeatedly checking the door.
She realized that she was hoping Nic would walk through it, with his head of curls and wire-rimmed glasses.
If only she could tell last week’s Alexys what today’s Alexys thought of Nic.
She’d probably punch herself.
Knowing she wanted to see him didn’t surprise her.
Alexys was actually surprised by how unsurprising the realization was.
As if missing him was the most natural thing in the world.
She didn’t bother lying to herself and saying it was only because she wanted the visual reminder that he was alive and well.
She took the feeling for what it was: she was infatuated with the man.
Maybe she could have convinced herself it was only a physical attraction, born out of their undeniable trauma bond, but she wasn’t stupid enough lie to herself.
Everything had changed between them, changed within her, and what she felt right now for Nic, that was so much more than just physical attraction.
She’d seek him out after her meeting with Kristin, she decided.
If she’d learned anything from their misfortunes in West Virginia it was that life was short, cliché as it was.
And while she didn’t want to talk about everything they’d just been through, she did want to be with him. And that would be enough.