Chapter Ten
Hayes
Tap… Tap… Tap… The curtain draws back achingly slow. “Hi, dove.”
She opens the window just as slow, avoiding any noise that’ll alert her mother to my presence outside her bedroom. “Are you okay?” She asks with the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen, but it’s the shakiness of her voice that guts me.
“I’m fine. My dad is always like that when he drinks. I’m used to it. I wanted to apologize.”
“Apologize?” She whisper-screams, and I shush her, but she doesn’t relent. “You shouldn’t have to live like that!”
“Your mom is going to hear you.”
“I don’t care! She’s probably already blazed out of her mind,” her voice cracks on her last word. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”
“Look, I’m fine.” I hold my hands out, grabbing hers on the window frame and squeezing her delicate fingers. “I’m out of here soon, don’t worry.”
She blinks at me, and her entire face breaks as tears stream down her cheeks.
“Hey, stop, don’t cry,” I beg as she covers her face with her hands and flops back on her bed.
“I can’t stop thinking about how mean he was to you,” she cries into her comforter, and I can’t handle the way it makes my heart ache.
Gripping the top edge of the trailer, I pull up until my feet clear her window, easily lofting my body through the opening.
I drag her into my arms like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and hold her until the heaving sobs turn to soft whimpers.
I’ve never touched her like this. We’ve barely done anything more than side-hug, but that was always out of friendliness. This goes a lot deeper than that.
It’s not romantic. This is intimacy beyond that.
I’ve never experienced this before, and I don’t think I can ever let her go.
“He’s a terrible father. A shitty cop. And, a miserable human being, but he doesn’t deserve your tears.”
“I’m not crying for him, I’m crying for you.” Her sad eyes find mine, and I can’t look away.
Her beautiful hazel-blue eyes that shine with gold flecks during the day, and apparently deepen when she’s crying. The dark ring around her iris is thick and angry.
“Don’t cry for me, Olive. I can’t stand to see you cry.” The pad of my thumb traces her cheekbone, and her eyelids flutter when I reach her temple.
She’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, but I’ve put her so high on a pedestal that it’s hard to fathom that she’s real.
“You’re my best friend, Jensen. I think I’d die if something happened to you.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Your life is more important than mine. You have so much to offer the world, and it needs you because of it.”
“The world needs you, too.”
“Some of us are expendable, and I’m one of those people. That’s just life.” I offer a faint smile, feeling the canyon that will divide our paths.
“Don’t say that.” She smacks my chest, and I chuckle.
“At least I know the one good thing that I’ve ever done in my life is tricking you into being my best friend.”
I watch the dimples form at the corners of her lips and have to fight the urge to kiss them.
Olive is too good for you.
“I love you, Jensen,” she murmurs against my chest, and I pull her in tighter.
“I love you, too, Olive.”
* * *
Present…
“I can help you with something,” I offer for the fourth time today. She’s drowning in stacks of legal documents, and the intern keeps bringing more.
“What exactly do you think you’re qualified to help me with?” Ouch.
“I don’t think it takes a genius to sort through paperwork.”
She sighs, rubbing her temples. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a bitch. This case is complex, and I’m used to having a team of litigators and paralegals.”
“How can I help?”
“I don’t know. I need to know everything about Randall and Jeremiah Porter, so there is a definite timeline of their crimes and escalation. Unless you can inject that knowledge into my brain, I don’t think you can help me.”
“Well, what do you have so far?”
She slaps a stack of papers on the edge of her desk, and the top sheet slips onto the floor. When I pick it up, there’s one single highlighted line among an ocean of words.
“This part is all you need?”
“That’s the main point. I can tie it all together later. Hey, where are you going?” She shouts after me as I leave her office.
When I return, I’m dragging in a giant whiteboard on wheels that barely works.
“What are you–” She stops. “Where did you get that?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Hayes, I don’t own the building, you can’t just take stuff…” She continues berating me, but I ignore her, carrying on with my self-assigned task.
I draw two horizontal lines across the board and add one hash mark at the very beginning, jotting down the year and the incident.
“I’ll pinpoint the details. It’ll be all laid out, and you won’t have so many papers to dig through.”
Her mouth opens and shuts as if she’s going to argue for argument’s sake, but then she hands me the rest of the stack silently, giving me the green light.
“Thank you,” she utters softly after I get to work.
“It’s what I’m here for, Liv.”
“You’re here to keep an eye out for my stalker, not to be my assistant.”
“I’m here to be anything you need.”
She doesn’t respond, and when I turn to look at her, she’s staring straight through me.
“We’re not friends. This is a working relationship. That’s all it will ever be.” Her eyes dart to mine to punctuate her statement.
“I don’t expect anything from you.”
She nods, and we continue on our islands, separated by a sea of unsaid thoughts and turmoil.
It isn’t until the end of her workday that I dare to bridge the gap and speak to her unprovoked.
“I need to go check the parking lot. I want to see if anyone is out there lurking. Stay in here until I come back, and we can walk out together.”
“Doesn’t that seem a bit unnecessary?”
“No.”
“Hayes…”
“Liv, let me do what I’m here to do.”
“Fine.” She tips her head back down to her laptop, and I shut her into her office before I go down to the employee lot.
Nothing seems amiss as I check my SUV. We parked in her assigned parking spot, but threw off the routine by not driving her car. No flowers today.
I don’t like how many places there are to hide out here, and I don’t like how easy it is to get into the building. I have a visitor’s key card, but I bypassed each of the scanners because other employees were exiting for the day. I slipped back in easily.
The floor for the prosecutor’s office is empty when I exit the stairwell, but it doesn’t concern me until I notice Liv’s door is wide open…
I shut it. I know I did.
“Liv,” I announce, but she doesn’t respond. I confirm she isn’t in her office and whip back around toward the common area. “Liv!”
My feet thunder down the silent hallway as I scan each office and room for a sign of her. “Liv!” I yell again, ignoring the tightness in my chest.
I nearly miss the water running when I pass the bathrooms. Decorum out the window, I shove into the women’s restroom and don’t take a breath until I set eyes on her.
Her startled expression finds mine in the mirror as she washes her hands. “What are you doing?”
“I told you to wait in your office.”
“I am in the office.”
“No, not the office. Your office.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Dammit, Liv. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I’m not living in fear!” She snaps back, aggressively chucking her paper towels in the trash can. If only she were as passionate about her safety as she was about hating me.
“You wouldn’t have to live in fear if you’d only listen to me and let me take care of you.”
“Yeah, sorry if I have trust issues. I’ve been burned in the past,” she flings at me as she breezes by me out to the hallway.
I sigh because I know I deserve it, but I still wish she’d give me even an ounce of the benefit of the doubt. I’m not the boy she knew a decade ago.
And, I’ll prove it.