Chapter 36 Sloane
Sloane
If anything, Lacey grows even quieter as we near Pippa’s apartment.
It seemed like a bad idea to take the girl to the practice.
It feels like a psychiatrist’s office there, and that’s the last thing Lacey needs.
Especially given her reaction to her recent experience in a hospital bed.
I park the Volvo in the underground lot, and we take the elevator up to the sixteenth floor of Pip’s building.
A breathtaking vista greets us as we exit the elevator.
The Space Needle is a distant gray hiccup in the city skyline, almost swallowed by the other high-rises.
Green parkland stretches for miles between here and there, dappled with the bronzed, evolving colors of fall.
When she sees the view from the window, Lacey shrinks into the hoodie she’s wearing, two sizes too big and most definitely not hers. I’m oddly uncomfortable about Lacey wearing Zeth’s clothes. God knows why.
You’re a crazy person, that’s why. He’s not yours.
And you’d be mad to want him as yours, the sharp voice in my head advises me.
That voice has started to bear a shocking resemblance to Pippa’s—a fact that makes me want to punch my friend in the face.
I know she’s protecting me. I know that, and yet I can’t help but resent her meddling.
I might be cold to Zeth’s face, but the truth of the matter is that I can’t stop thinking about him.
Can’t stop thinking about his hands on me.
His hot mouth trailing over my skin. His strong hands possessing me, making demands…
“Do we really need to do this?” Lacey’s small voice cuts through the silence of the hallway. She looks fragile as lace, just like her name. Mostly, she looks frightened.
“It’s gonna be fine,” I say. “Think of it this way. You’re here of your own volition.
We can leave any time you want. You don’t have to take any pills or tell Pippa anything you don’t want to.
There won’t be any record of you ever being here, and it’s free.
There’s nothing for you to lose, Lacey. But a lot to gain, right?
” I set my hand on her shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze.
I haven’t touched her at all yet. I expect her to shy away from the contact, but she doesn’t. Doubtfully, she nods.
“Okay. And we can go whenever I want?”
She needs the extra reassurance. I give it to her, smiling, and guide her to Pippa’s apartment.
I rap sharply on the door—my police knock—and not five seconds later, the door opens and there Pippa stands, in neat blue jeans and a crisp white shirt tucked into her pants.
Her casual wear is smarter than something I would wear to an important job interview.
Her hair is down, though, flowing to her shoulders, and the effect makes her look less severe. Less doctorly and more soccer mom.
“Hi, girl.” She smiles broadly. Her breezy tone makes it sound like we’re gathering to watch movies, drink wine, and talk about boys.
Absurd, but necessary. Lacey flashes her a grimace that could pass for a smile—a painful one—and the two of us enter Pip’s apartment.
The scent of lilies and jasmine floats on the air.
The place has a showroom feel to it, though admittedly Pippa has added a few homey touches here and there.
Her couch is the only reason I come over.
The thing is huge, the leather grown soft and supple with age.
I immediately collapse into it, gesturing for Lacey to do the same.
She sits down next to me, tugging a folded throw from the back of the chair behind her and wrapping it tightly over her legs.
The action makes it seem as though she wants to bury herself from sight.
Blue moons. The power of invisibility.
Pippa points a thumb over her shoulder toward her open-plan kitchen. “I was just making a cup of tea. Would you guys like one?”
“Be great. It’s freezing out there,” I reply.
Lacey nods, too, just once. Pippa goes about making the tea, kettle rumbling its irritated rumble, spoon clanking, the bright chime of china clashing against china, and Lacey dips her chin into the throw, staring at the floor. I’m about to ask her if she’s okay when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
It’s a number I don’t recognize. I answer the call, getting up and pacing to the window. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
That voice. “Why aren’t you calling from your number? And where the hell are you?” I whisper.
Silence from the other end of the phone. Perhaps Zeth Mayfair isn’t used to people being so hostile with him when they take his calls, but tough fucking luck. If he thinks he can just dump his responsibilities on me and vanish into thin—
“This phone’s a burner. Had to get rid of the other one,” his gruff voice informs me down the line. “And I’m driving. To California. To try and get your sister back. Forgotten already?”
Well, fuck. I can’t really chew him out when he puts it like that. “No, I haven’t forgotten,” I snap. “It’d just be better under different circumstances.”
“You mean if you’d gotten your way, and you were coming along for the ride?” His smirk is the audible kind. The kind I can imagine reshaping his mouth into a bow. I shake my head, trying to dislodge the curve of those full lips.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.” Behind me Pippa arrives with three mugs, two of them clasped precariously by the handles in the one hand, the other carrying just the one. I turn my back, whisper-shouting again into the phone. “When are you gonna be back?”
Caring for Lacey isn’t a job I would have volunteered for, but my eagerness for Zeth’s return also pertains to my sister. Two years is such a long time. It seems impossible that she should be kept away from her home a second longer.
“Need me already?” Zeth growls. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back to take care of you as soon as I’m done.”
My cheeks blush hotly. “No, I do not need you to come take care of me!”
“You sure? I think you’ll be begging me to use that key the second I hit the city limits.”
I hate the arrogance in his voice. Equally, I hate the lie I tell myself when I try to convince myself that it doesn’t turn me on.
Every dark, hazardous aspect of him turns me on.
I’m drowning in the dark, velvet folds of his voice even now, my skin breaking out into gooseflesh at the sexual dip in his tone.
Fucking get a grip, Sloane! “Just bring my sister home, okay, buddy.” Buddy?
Where the hell did that come from? Zeth is a lot of things, but he isn’t a buddy. A deep, throaty chuckle meets my ears.
“I’m on it. I just—” A deep inhalation says he is thinking carefully on his next words. “Just keep an eye out, okay? There’s a chance someone might be following you.”
“Uh, excuse me? Someone following me?” My body reacts like a struck tuning fork. “Why would someone be following me? What someone?”
“My boss’s a little jumpy. He might have put people on me. Could be they saw me bring Lacey to you,” he says matter-of-factly. Ice-cold dread percolates from my chest and pools in the pit of my stomach.
“Seriously?” I try and fail to keep my voice down. Lacey and Pippa look up from their hushed conversation (a one-sided conversation, by the looks of things), giving me quizzical stares. I spin around, turning my back to them. “How dangerous are these guys, Zeth? Do I need to call the cops?”
“Fuck no! Just sit tight. I got you covered.”
I don’t question that. I don’t want to know.
“Got you covered” can only mean more shady characters stalking me through the streets of Seattle.
“All right, Zeth,” I sigh. “Just get your ass back here the second you can. I’m not cut out for this.
” Which has to be the understatement of the century.
Not cut out for waiting. Not cut out for babysitting.
My world may seem big to others—the hospital, the scores of patients I see every shift, the responsibility and the weight of all that knowledge pressing down on me—but I have made it small.
There are no outside requirements of me.
No demands on my life besides being there when I’m needed.
Being there when a pair of hands are required inside a chest cavity.
Being there when an arterial bleed needs stemming.
But that’s physical, logical, manual stuff.
I’m hollow enough for all of that. The nerves I experience when I think about Alexis coming home at last?
The pressure of trying to be there emotionally for Lacey?
Those things, I have no idea how to deal with.
Zeth makes a stiff sound down the phone. “You’re gonna do just fine, Sloane,” he tells me, his voice softer than I’ve heard it before. And then he hangs up the phone.