Chapter Thirty-One
Hayes
The door clicks shut behind my back as Liv drops her briefcase on her desk. “Are you going to be in your office for a while?”
“Oh, he speaks. I thought you forgot I was here.”
I was stewing in quiet rage the entire drive here, but she should know better. She always stays at the forefront of my thoughts.
“Do you have any appointments? Or will you be in here for a while?” I repeat my question, ignoring her remark as tension rolls across my shoulder blades.
Reading that note has me keyed up, and I haven’t been able to squash it.
“I’m catching up on emails and paperwork all morning,” she sighs, rolling her chair under her desk.
My fingers work the button of my shirt, loosening my collar so I can crack my neck properly. I lose the jacket next, throwing it on the fake leather couch that sits off to the side, acting as decoration more than anything.
The cushion barely gives when I sit on it. Bracing my elbows on my knees, I rub my hands roughly over my face before undoing the buttons at my wrists and rolling my sleeves up my forearms.
Liv peers at me over her laptop, her eyebrows quirked in question. I never sit.
I’ve never removed my jacket or acted anything less than professional in this setting. I’ve always respected her workspace, but I feel like I’m going to implode.
“I’ll fix myself before you have to leave the office,” I assure her, staring at my clasped hands in front of me.
“I’m not worried about that.”
I glance at her, and she tips her laptop screen down to see me clearly. “I just need a minute to collect my thoughts. I’m fine.”
“You need to punch someone,” she scoffs sarcastically.
“Yeah, you have someone in mind?” I look at her seriously, and her eyes narrow.
“I don’t know who is stalking me, Hayes. I don’t know what you want from me!”
“I know!” I launch up from my seat and stalk to the window, bracing my hands on the windowsill. “I’m sorry. I’m losing my mind here, Liv. How am I supposed to keep you safe if I don’t even know who I’m protecting you from?”
“You stay close,” she says softly, grabbing my arm. Her hand on my bicep is an anchor, keeping me sane and bringing me back to earth.
Her ringless finger stares at me like a beacon of hope. She’s still Olive Greenwood, so for now, she’s still mine. Whether she believes that or not.
“Is that what you want? I don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped. I know how that feels… ”
“Prison?” She sighs sadly.
“Yeah. Wouldn’t recommend.”
“I’m sorry,” she utters, leaning her forehead against my shoulder blade. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gone through that.”
“Please, don’t apologize. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
I twist to face her, pulling her closer when she doesn’t back away. “I never blamed you. I made my choices, and I stand by them. He never should have touched you. I’d do it all again, because I did what I thought was right.”
“Don’t. I can’t go through that again.” Her eyes are moist with tears, and I can see all those broken pieces lying dormant inside of her.
“Come here.” I wrap her in my arms, hugging her with all that I have. Trying to heal what I shattered, comforting her after what happened this morning, and selfishly enjoying having her like this again.
My Olive.
“Even if you decide my life is too dramatic and you’d prefer the old Olive, I’d rather watch you walk away on your own volition than to see you go to prison again.” She huffs a sad laugh, but I only hold her tighter.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promise. She looks at me thoughtfully with her head tilted and eyes filled with hopeful wonder.
“Besides, I thought you were beautiful when we were kids, but…” I blow a dramatic breath out. “I think I’d die if I went even a day without seeing you now.”
“Whatever,” she laughs, rolling her eyes.
I tip her chin back to look up at me. “I’m serious. The woman you are today has blown me away. Not only because you’re brilliant and successful. You’re–”
Her eyes fall to my lips, and my stomach clenches. I’ve never wanted anything more in my entire life than to kiss her.
“Gorgeous,” I whisper, rubbing my thumb across her cheekbone.
I’ve dreamed of this. Having her look at me this tenderly, and wanting me. When we were kids, there was a world of reasons for me to say no. Her age, our friendship, my bad influence…
Now I can’t think of a damn reason not to give her what she wants. What I want desperately.
My head dips until my nose traces hers, and her breath catches in her throat. Her fingers curl into my shirt just above my chest, and my heart thrums beneath them.
One touch of her lips is going to crack my chest wide open.
“Miss Greenwood.” Liv jumps as her office door flies open, and her wide-eyed intern stares at us in shock. “I’m sorry, I didn’t– I’m sorry.”
“What can I do for you, Miley?” Liv asks in exasperation, straightening her jacket before walking towards the girl in the doorway.
I take my time, rolling my sleeves back into place and correcting all of my buttons as casually as I can. We weren’t doing anything relatively scandalous in here, but I’d never want it to look that way either, for Liv’s sake.
“Can I get you tea, Miss Greenwood?” I ask her after I slip my suit jacket back on. Miley’s still thumbing through a stack of papers, asking her questions.
Liv’s lips quirk up in a soft smile as she avoids looking at me, as if she knows looking at me directly will dissolve her tough lawyer facade in front of her employee. “That’d be great.”
“Be right back.” I let my hand caress her lower back as I walk by, out of the intern’s view.
“Thank you,” she whispers, daring to look at me briefly as I exit.
I wink, and her eyes snap back to the paperwork in front of her, biting her lip to keep herself from smiling.
My Olive.
* * *
“Thank you for meeting with us today, Curtis. Your testimony is important to the county’s case, and we appreciate your willingness to help us after what you’ve been through.”
I stand behind Liv’s chair in Curtis’s room at the rehabilitation center, looking at the bandages covering my friend in the seat across from her.
Curtis sustained a spinal fracture, a traumatic brain injury, and second-degree burns on 40% of his body after Jeremiah’s attack. Before that, before he ever came to Second Chance Sanctuary, his arms were covered in skin grafts from a bombing incident.
The poor kid has been through it in his 25 years of life.
“Tell me what you need. I’ll do what I can to help.” His voice is low and scratchy, his shoulders are undeniably slumped. His whole being is defeated.
“I would like to go over your story and prepare you for the questions I’ll be asking on the stand. If you’re up to it, I’ll coach you on how to respond to some of the defense’s tactics when they cross-examine.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he responds plainly, and it takes everything in me not to turn away. It’s difficult to see him like this. The young guy, so full of life, is nothing but a shell of himself.
“Can you tell me in your own words what happened the night of the incident?”
He clears his throat before adjusting in his seat stiffly.
“We were celebrating Jo’s graduation when the smallest barn on the property caught fire.
During the commotion, my boss’s niece, Emory, went missing.
I, along with some of the others, split off into different directions to look for her.
After some time, I stumbled upon a man that I assumed was a volunteer firefighter–”
“And, why did you assume that?” She asks, properly, as if we are in the courtroom.
“He was wearing a fireman’s jacket and helmet. I couldn’t see his face at first.”
“What happened next?” Her voice is soft as she leads him through his testimony.
“Jo called out for me. She was trapped inside the bear enclosure and tied up.” He moves around in his seat again, showing signs of discomfort, but I don’t know if it’s physical pain or if he is having a hard time reliving the story.
“Before I knew what was happening, I was taken to the ground, and we started fighting. Even when I got a few swings in, my hands were too weak to do any real damage because of my scars. He blindsided me, and I got knocked out.” His face twists in pain as he spits the words out. “That’s all I remember.”
“That was great. Thank you.”
The door to his room opens suddenly, and a woman in scrubs stops halfway through. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had visitors. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“No, wait!” He calls to her, perking up more than he has in the past thirty minutes. The nurse peeks back through the door. “You can stay.”
She nods shyly before walking across the room towards us.
“This is Sienna. She was one of my nurses at the main hospital.”
“Hayes,” I introduce myself, stepping forward to shake her hand. “I worked with Curtis at the sanctuary. This is Liv Greenwood, Prosecutor of Rollins County.”
She smiles at Liv as she sits at the end of his hospital bed. “I recognize you from the courthouse. I’m friends with Natalie. Her little brother and my son, Charlie, are best friends. Dec was there the night the fire at the sanctuary happened. He was pretty shaken up when Emory went missing.”
“Luckily, with Curtis’s account of the events, Dec and Emory won’t have to testify,” Liv tells her kindly.
“Dec and Charlie send me gifts,” Curtis admits, pointing to the wall beside his bed. “Makes the room suck a little less.”
I wander over to look at the pictures taped to the wall and the small LEGO figurines on his bedside table. “Huh, that’s pretty cool.” I pick up the LEGO bear.
“Jackson helps the boys build those,” Sienna says over her shoulder.
“Jackson plays with LEGOS?”
She laughs and nods, but I’m watching Curtis over her shoulder, locked in on her every move. When she turns back toward him, though, he forces his attention out the window.
“I’m totally busting Malec’s balls the next time I see him,” I mumble. Liv clears her throat, obviously trying to reel me back in. “Sorry.”
“Curtis, at any point during the incident, did you know who was attacking you?”
“Yes. I was the rookie at the sanctuary, and I had to go to the junk yard quite a bit to look for parts. Jerry is the owner, so I knew it was him as soon as his helmet came off.”
“How many times would you say you had been to the junk yard if you had to quantify it?”
He glances at Sienna quickly but away again, delaying his response.
“How many times did you go to the junk yard if you had to put a number on it?” Sienna clarifies the question softly as if she knew exactly why Curtis was hesitating.
“I don’t know. Once or twice a week for close to a year.”
Liv nods in approval because that’s exactly what she needed to hear. You don’t see someone that many times and not recognize them. That’s a solid identification.
“The next thing I’ll do is explain your injuries to the court.
I will give them all the gritty details and pull at their heartstrings because I want them to know how badly Jeremiah hurt you.
I want them to feel how he changed your life.
This might be difficult to hear, so I would understand if you tried to tune it out in the moment.
Focus on a dot on the wall or something to distract you. Whatever helps you get through it.”
He nods, swallowing thickly.
“It would also be helpful to have people there to support you. Friends and family. Anyone you can lean on.”
He glances back out the window and sets his jaw.
“I’ll be there. Lochlan and the guys, too,” I tell him. A fresh wave of sadness hits me. If I could take his pain away, I would. “And when you’re up for it, you always have a place at the sanctuary.”
“I’ll come, too,” Sienna says. “If you want me there.”
Curtis turns to look at her, nodding subtly, choked with emotion. He’s been through a lot, and this won’t be an easy feat for him.