Chapter 8
EIGHT
LEXI
I would never cease to amaze me how stupid Dean thought I really was.
Like I didn’t know he was the one on the motorcycle tailing me everywhere I went.
If he thought that helmet of his would somehow distract me from the fact that his shoulders practically jutted out further than the fucking bike itself, he had another thing coming.
I didn’t try to lose him, though.
Because if anything, I knew that Dean was as persistent as he was annoying. Which meant that it would take more than one fucking fight for him to leave me alone for good.
Still, I kept the curtains pulled. If he thought he could tail me and get away with it simply because he thought he had a right, then he had another thing fucking coming.
And I had a daughter to protect. He wasn’t about to crash into my apartment after following me like some lost puppy and declare his ownership of the situation.
I’d kill him before that ever happened.
“Morning, Mom,” Natty murmured as she slid into bed with me.
I groaned as I rolled over, collecting her into my arms. “Hey there, big girl. How did you sleep?”
She kissed my cheek. “Good. Auntie Chloe and I stayed up to watch a movie.”
She let out a massive yawn and it made me smile. “Ah, yes. The late nights in the middle of the school week. I’m fond of them.”
“Really?”’
I peeked an eye open. “How was the zoo?”
She pouted. “The puffins weren’t out.”
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m so sorry, honey. Maybe in a couple of weeks, I can take some time off and we’ll go together. The puffins should be out by then.”
She gasped and sat upright. “Really?! You really mean it, Mom?”
I forced myself to sit up with her as I pushed my exhaustion down into my hardened gut. “I’ll put in for the time off today. How does a long weekend sound? You can even take a long weekend with me off school.”
She leapt out of bed and thrusted her fists into the air. “Yesssss! I can’t wait! This is going to be so. Much. Fun. I gotta tell Auntie Chlo!”
After wrangling one very excited ten-year-old girl, I made my way back to the house and crashed like a motherfucker.
I fell face-first into my bed without so much as calling Chloe like I usually did before I fell asleep, and I snored my life away until my alarm went off to go get my daughter from the bus stop.
I found a note taped to my front door from my best friend with a little heart around the words, “Love you, see you at seven,” and it made me smile.
I had such wonderful people in my life, and I found myself incredibly lucky to have a best friend like her.
Still, as I stood at the front gate of the apartment complex, I couldn’t help but be vigilant about the people passing me by.
I didn’t think that the altercation at the hospital had gotten to me as much as it had, but between having that man’s gun pressed against my head and Dean resurfacing out of seemingly nowhere in the blink of an eye, I grew nervous for my evening shift.
Last night had been just fine, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been watching me.
Maybe it was my paranoia; some overcharged motherly instinct now that I knew my daughter’s father was not only alive, but in town.
However, part of me knew better, especially after that man’s threat wafted through my conscious mind.
Am I now a target for something?
It didn’t take a brain surgeon to know that the guys who rolled up on us at the E.R.
looking like they did were dangerous. So, it made sense that I’d be paranoid for a little while after the fact.
But the hospital was safe. There were multiple security guards on every level, and they did patrols around the outskirts every hour, on the hour.
Not to mention, we were right by the county’s police station when we were back at our work-home, or so Chelsea and I called it.
So, I’d be safe there, too, with them next door.
Right?
“Mom!” Natty exclaimed.
I held my arms out for my daughter and she raced into them after leaping off the bus that afternoon. “Oooooh, my goodness. Hey there, sweetheart.”
I peppered the top of her head with kisses as she wrapped her arm around my waist. “I gotta tell you about this fight that happened at school.”
I waved at the bus driver before we turned and started walking up the hill. “A fight? You weren’t in it, were you?”
She snickered. “Not by a longshot. But Margie was in it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Your best friend, Margie? Is she okay?”
“Mom, she’s not my best friend. She’s just a friend.”
“Well, she’s the only friend you talk about.”
“Because she’s my only friend.”
My heart dropped a bit. “Does that make you sad?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mom, not everything is sad, okay? I wanna tell you about this fight. I mean, they fought over a roll at lunch!”
I furrowed my brow. “That seems like an odd fight.”
“Right!? I tried to talk her down, but would Margie listen? Noooo-O! She wouldn’t. Not one bit. She’s so crazy like that, you know? I don’t know how she sleeps at night.”
I barked with laughter. “You sound like an old woman.”
She giggled. “Hey, I just think fighting is pointless.”
I sighed. “You and me, both.”
I listened as my daughter rattled on about her day and the smallest part of me wondered what it might be like to have Dean with us.
Granted, I’d never let him that close. I’d never let him into our daughter’s life after what he did to me.
Dropping off like that after a deployment that I thought had killed him.
I still didn’t know all the details, and I didn’t care to know.
The only important detail was that he had been completely okay leaving me behind without a chance to talk with him, or end things properly, or even talk him out of whatever the hell had taken him away in the first place.
I had been disposable to him. But damn it, Natty wasn’t disposable.
And neither was I.
Natty kept talking about her day while I made us some dinner, and right at seven a knock came at the door.
She rushed to open it up before flinging herself into Auntie Chloe’s arms, and I quickly became chopped liver.
I backtracked to go get a shower while Natty rattled on in my best friend’s ear about the fight that happened at school.
I washed myself down and mentally prepared myself for another long night of trying to convince myself not to look over my shoulder.
Then, I hugged and kissed my daughter before I headed in for my shift.
“Come on, stop looking around. No one’s following you,” I whispered to myself.
Still, I found myself rubber-necking the entire way into work. Every time I heard a motorcycle engine revving in the distance, I jumped. My heart lurched into my throat and cut off my ability to breathe as I white-knuckled my steering wheel.
It was all I could do to contain myself as I pulled into the parking lot in front of the ambulance bay building.
I scurried inside, trying to ignore the hairs on the nape of my neck standing on end.
Trying to ignore the bikes that crept closer and closer with every light that turned from red to green.
I charged through the front door and spun around just as a group of five people on motorcycles putzed by my place of work. And when they didn’t stop, or even turn to look at me with, I was able to swallow my heart back down into place.
Only for the emergency siren to start blaring.
“Let’s go, people, let’s go!” Cap exclaimed as he clapped his hands.
“Come on,” Chelsea said as she threaded her arm through mine, “we’ll need all the help we can get on this one.”
“Five car pile-up on the highway! La Jolla and Mercy are on stand-by. We’re delivering to La Jolla first, Mercy second. Get a move on, people!” Cap bellowed.
Every time a doctor ripped open those ambulance back doors, I flinched.
Every time someone came up behind me to say something, I gasped and whipped around.
Every time I turned a corner, I held my breath, waiting for Dean or some other gang banger to be standing there with yet another warning that I knew I wouldn't be able to ignore again.
So, once my first small break hit, I went and sat in La Jolla’s cafeteria.
With nothing but the memories of the other night flooding the forefront of my mind.
“Knock, knock. Anyone home?”
I peeked up at Chelsea. “Yeah, sorry. Just a bit tired.”
She sat down in front of me with a plate of food. “You okay? You’ve been jumpy all night.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “Just got a lot on my mind.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I shook my head and slouched further into my chair. “I just didn’t get enough sleep.
She chuckled. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Took me almost five months to acclimate to the night shift when I first started. But don’t worry, you’ll get there.”
“Any pointers for a newbie?”
“Chamomile tea before bedtime. Knocks me completely out. That, or warm lettuce water.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Lettuce water?”
“Hey, don’t knock it until you try it. My grandmother used it all the time, and it knocked me on my ass as a child.”
I grinned. “All right, thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”
While she devoured her hospital meal whole, I pulled my phone out and set a timer for fifteen minutes.
That was all we got during our smaller breaks, and even that was subject to shift if something serious popped up.
But, that didn’t stop me from leaning my head against the cold, hard glass beside my head and closing my eyes for a bit of shut-eye.
And I was thankful that Chelsea didn’t attempt to engage me in any further conversation.
I slept until my alarm went off, the sound jerking me awake from the pathetic little nap that I thought would somehow sustain me. But, even that alarm going off didn’t stop me from hunting down caffeine before Chelsea and I worked our way back to the ambulance.
And as my shift wore on, I allowed the scenes unfolding in front of me to pull me out of my own anxiety.