Chapter 9 #2
“Prick,” Loche muttered.
“Must run in the family.”
“I stand up for you, and that’s what you have to say to me?”
“Gee, I didn’t realize your being a decent person for once in your life came with stipulations.
” I sighed as I scanned the deposition transcripts for the Sawyer matter, printing out the first transcript to tackle.
“Look, I appreciate the vote of confidence you’ve been giving me lately, but we all know summarizing depositions is more tedious than mentally challenging.
My skills go well beyond reading comprehension and taking notes.
And oh, by the way, I have seven transcripts to read and I can’t work over tonight, so I’ll be hauling ass the whole day to get these done with no lunch break. ”
“What do you have going on tonight?”
I met Loche’s eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I have someone coming over.”
An amused expression lit up his face. “Is it your boyfriend?”
“Maybe. I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“Well, tell him I said hello.” Loche got up from his desk, more likely than not going to the break room to get his morning cup of coffee.
He paused when he reached the doorway and turned around.
“Oh, and summarizing depositions is an integral part of a trial. It helps attorneys quickly find information they need when witnesses are on the stand without having to thumb through an entire transcript. It’s not busy work, and you know that.
What I don’t understand is why you can’t accept the olive branch I keep extending to you. ”
I opened my mouth to speak, but was shut down by Loche, who apparently hadn’t finished his thought.
“Take your lunch, leave on time. I’ll pick up where you leave off.”
At precisely six o’clock on the dot, I opened my door to one of the largest humans I’d encountered outside of V.
“What is in the water in this town? Why are you and V so massive?”
“V?” the man asked, confused.
“Aren’t you Cole?” I closed the door just enough to provide a shield between The Incredible Hulk standing on my front porch and myself. Not that it would have mattered. The man could undoubtedly rip the door from its hinges if he wanted to. “V’s friend.”
“Oh, V.” Recognition seemed to dawn on him. “I’m sorry, we just don’t call him V.”
“We? How many of you are there? Are the rest of them physically comparable to you and V? Are you Avengers? Oh, my God! Are the Avengers real?”
Cole chuckled. “Yup, the man who shall be known as V said you would be assaulting me with questions.
I held the door open for him, and he walked through, pointing down at his shoes and silently asking me whether I wanted him to remove them. My head shook before I knew I’d answered him. “I guess he told you not to tell me what his real name is?”
“Who? V?” Cole feigned confusion, letting me know that I wasn’t going to crack whatever bro code they had between each other.
“You must at least know about V’s activities, then. So, tell me, how many other security systems have you installed at his request?”
“Are you asking me how many other girlfriends V has?”
“No,” I answered, my face burning enough that I had to turn my back to Cole to grab the box containing the security equipment from my dining room table, handing it to him.
His sleeves were rolled halfway up, revealing a full sleeve of vipers curling around his forearms. “I’m just curious how many other women are receiving random gifts from a masked stranger who watches their homes more intently than any Neighborhood Watch program in existence.
I figured we could all start a group chat or something. Compare notes, meet up for coffee.”
A grin overspread Cole’s bearded face. “This is the first one V has ever asked me to install for him, actually. You’re the only one in his life as far as any of us know.” He nodded at the door. “We’re swiftly running out of daylight, so I’d better get going on this.”
Cole slipped back outside, where he began installing the cameras, one in the front and the other in the back, placing sensors near each of them to alert me of someone’s presence outside. Once secure, he came back inside to install the keypad near the front door.
“May I have your phone?” he asked, holding out his hand.
“Oh, I don’t know. Are you going to put a tracking device on it that will allow V to follow me wherever I go?”
“It would seem he does a good job of that already.” Cole laughed, his face turning serious again when he caught a glimpse of my expression.
“No, Ever. I promise you, I’m not going to install any kind of tracking device on your phone.
However, I am going to install an app that will send real-time alerts to you.
If a mouse farts, you’re going to get a text from this system. ”
“My god, this is the most romantic thing someone has ever done for me.”
Cole raised an eyebrow at me as he handed my phone back. “Stalking aside, V is a pretty decent guy.”
“That’s one sentence I never thought anyone would say to me.”
“Imagine being the person saying it.” Cole smiled at me. “It was nice meeting you, Ever. Let V know if you have any issues, and I’ll swing on by.”
“Nice meeting you, too.” Cole walked out my front door, but was abruptly stopped short by me. “Can I at least have his eye color?”
He looked back at me, raising his arm to his lips and mimicking turning a key before turning around to walk to the jet-black pickup truck parked in my driveway.
“What about his Zodiac sign, then?”
Cole spared a two-second glance back at me, confusion written across his face.
“Look, it’s an important piece of information. I just don’t want to waste both of our time if he’s a Virgo.”
Without looking back, Cole shrugged his shoulders, raising his hands in the air.
“Okay, fine. I’ll settle for his Social Security number.”
With a wave, Cole got into his truck and pulled out of my driveway while I stood waiting outside to see whether V was going to jump out from the bushes somewhere until a stiff November breeze forced me to retreat back inside.
“Your mom is losing her goddamn mind, Vinny,” I said, resting my hand palm-up on a rock in his aquarium.
Vinny looked at my fingers, taking a cautious step forward before his turtle brain deciphered what was going on, at which point he hauled as much ass as his stubby legs could muster, stepping into my hand.
He’d grown quite a bit since I’d first found him, taking up a little over half the width of my palm.
“And I thought you were crazy when you yeeted yourself out into the road.”
He craned his neck, looking up at me with a blink of his yellow and black eyes. I crooked my finger, petting the top of his head like a dog, which I was pretty sure he must have been in a past life. A very, very slow one.
“Why does it feel like I’m the one crawling out into oncoming traffic now?
I should be afraid, but just like you, it’s like I’m chilling in the median of the road, waiting for a car to come around the corner and take me out.
There are zero fucks left to go around, and I’m completely putting my faith in the hands of someone I don’t really even know who could slit my throat in my sleep. ”
Vinny blinked, looking at me as if to say, Lady, I have no idea what the hell you just said to me because I’m just a turtle. Now, please give me some pellets, maybe some dehydrated flies to spice things up, and put me back.
“Nice talk.” I lowered my adopted son back into his aquarium via my hand elevator and yawned, cursing the darkness outside.
When I decided to flee my home state of Oklahoma, I threw a dart at a map of the United States.
Why that dart I threw couldn’t have traveled somewhere sunny and tropical, instead of one of the cloudiest states in the Midwest, I’ll never know.
But it didn’t, and after a little over a year of living here, I had acclimated, despite the weather being complete bullshit.
But even if I had an opportunity to move again, I wouldn’t, especially not now.
Now that I had my first best friend since elementary school, a job that paid enough to allow me to live in a rental house on my own, and V.
Even though I really didn’t have V. In essence, he had me, a fact made crystal clear as I once again caught myself peering out my window.
Freshly showered with my hair wrapped in a towel, I walked from my bathroom to my bedroom and was just about to grab a t-shirt to wear to bed when a notification from my phone sitting on my nightstand caught my attention.
My thumb tapped the screen to find that the notification came from my security system.
Heart pounding, I looked behind me at the window that faced my backyard, relieved not to see a face staring back at me.
Live video footage from my surveillance camera at the front of the house filled my screen. At first, I didn’t make out anything in the darkness that extended beyond my porch, but then movement from my driveway caught my eye. A figure was walking around my car, pausing in front of the hood.
Wait a minute. Is my hood up?
What the actual fuck. How had this person popped the hood of my car when my car was locked?
Pure adrenaline flowed through my veins, and I tiptoed out to my living room as though the person outside could hear me.
Before I’d taken my shower, I turned off all the lights in the front of my house, so all anyone looking at my house from the road could see was pitch black.
With my back flush against the wall next to my picture window, I peered outside.
The man skirted the edge of the perimeter where the boundaries of my porch light met the darkness outside, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the red eyes from the familiar mask that had taken up every available space in my brain I had left.
V. But what the hell was he doing with my car?
Shit. Was he a thief playing the long game?
Was this payment for all the orgasms he’d given me, both in person and the nights I had to resort to using B.O.B. ?
“Is he—is he changing out my headlight bulbs?” I’ll be damned. Yes. Yes, the walking red flag was changing the bulbs in my 4Runner.
A part of me wanted to walk outside, but another part, the devil on my shoulder who once caused me to get so drunk that I thought I could dance on top of a bar—when I couldn’t even dance on a level floor—ultimately leading to me breaking my ankle when I fell off the bar, told me to have a little fun.
I opened the drawer to my nightstand and pulled out my vibrator, tossing it and my phone on my bed as I all but skipped to my window and cracked it open.
On my way back to my bed, I allowed the towel secured around my body to fall to the floor, shivering when a breeze from outside caressed my skin.
The down comforter hugged my bare behind when I sat down on my mattress and tilted my head forward to loosen the towel, freeing my damp hair.
My fingers ran through the strands in a half-assed attempt at separating them to avoid a just went through a hurricane but still horny look.
Next to me, my phone pinged with new activity from my camera, showing that V had moved from one headlight to the other, even though the headlight he was working on had been working.
It was showtime. Purposely leaving my bedroom light on, I stacked my pillows behind me and lay back against them spread-eagled, turning on my vibrator.