Lacey
15.
“How about we skip my bed tonight and have a sleepover at your house?”
Koa has his pants halfway up his sexy legs, his chest bare in all its glory, when I ask him the question like an annoying girlfriend, even though that is the last thing I want to be.
I asked because I want him to go back to his normal life, at least kind of. Koa and Ledger have taken turns watching me all hours of every day since Monday, bringing me to classes and work, switching their shifts, working with other people just to look after me. And Koa has been here for almost a week, I’m sure he’s homesick by now and probably sick of me.
“Lacey, how often do I have to tell you I’m totally OK with this, that this is—”
“‘My idea,’” I finish his sentence mockingly and sit up straight in bed. “I know.”
The covers fall down and he gazes at my chest. The last week has been heaven and hell all in one. Koa slept in my bed, cuddled me on the couch, has taken my hand in his or me in his arms occasionally, and left feathering kisses on my cheek. So, basically, we’re in a relationship, but without the benefits. He hasn’t touched me, not even when I push my ass against his hard dick every night or wear my sexiest nightgowns. He’s not touching me, and I’m too chicken to take the first step, especially after I gave him a whole speech about me needing distance.
Then, after last Monday’s events, he kind of shut down the flirting altogether. All the reaction I get from him are these tiny glances down my body, like right now. It’s enough to still the hunger for a tiny second, but I want more. I want him to want me like he did when we first met each other and I’m afraid I ruined that when he found me in the kitchen after Adrian fucking touched me.
“Great, then you know I’m mighty fine with sleeping in your bed.” He pulls up his pants, closing them and his belt, and I want him fucking naked again.
“And I’m fine with going home with you.” Sleeping in your bed...
He sighs, pulling on his shirt, and I almost cry while saying goodbye to his glorious naked abs.
“I want to see your place, snoop around a little.”
I grin again like the annoying girlfriend without benefits I am. Thankfully he smiles too.
“OK, but just for a night. And then we will come back here. I don’t like the thought of Briana alone at this place either.”
I smile, knowing she touched the soft spot in his heart too with her quirky personality.
“She will be fine. She’s staying over at a friend’s house tonight,” I add because I too am not convinced Adrian won’t try shit with her. She was always the person he liked the least.
“Good. You need to get up, we need to go to work, babe,” he says, turning around and leaving the room like the gentleman he is.
I groan into my pillow. For a moment, I think about taking one of my friends out of the drawer to finally relieve some of the tension but think better of it. I don’t know if Koa will come back in the room if he needs something and I would be mortified for the rest of my life if he found me like that. So I jump quickly out of bed and put on another white dress, put my hair back up in another messy ponytail, and lightly add makeup before going in the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Since Koa was already ready to go, we’re at work twenty minutes later. Captain passes us at the door, urging us directly into his office and closing the door behind him. He never closes the door. Ever.
“Adrian is coming back to work today.”
I sit down a second later, a numb feeling coming over me while Koa leans his fist on Campbell’s desk shouting.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
The Captain just looks away, guilt written all over his face.
I knew things weren’t going according to plan when the lab called me and told me that they found no DNA at all, just fibers of latex. That meant one of two things, it was either gloves or a condom. And since I didn’t show anything other than the little tears at my entrance and a bruise, it could’ve been just sex. Usual, consensual sex with a damn condom.
That isn’t even the worst part. Officers went to his house and he wasn’t there. He told our boss that he was staying on vacation a little longer, trying to relax and “get over the break up.” So it was my word against his. And either the department was too lazy to check if he was really sitting on his ass in the Bahamas sipping a shitty Margarita or if he took an earlier flight home and groped me in the office kitchen.
Ledger’s trace was lost as well because the guy at the front desk was one of Adrian’s BFF’s and told him to go fuck himself, that of course Adrian was never there. And when he checked the security footage, the time the accident occurred was missing. That was of course the most obvious evidence, but it wasn’t enough according to Campbell. So here we are.
“Maverick, my damn hands are bound. What do you expect me to do, huh? You know the damn law like no one else. You’re about to leave this place soon, then you will move out of the city and won’t have to see him again.”
Move out of the city? What?
“And what about her? Should I just let her and all these other women be abused? Is that what the police are going to do? Lead with the best example with a rapist in our own rows?”
Koa is fuming, pointing his fingers in all directions. I’ve never seen him this livid, not since last Monday.
“Take her with you. She needs to get out of this shithole too,” Campbell says, a sympathetic look crossing his eyes when he looks back at me.
“And then what? Another female has to leave this town because of this bastard? Come on, Captain, you can’t be for real right now. What do you think he will do? He’s never been this brave as to rub it under all our noses that he can get away with fucking everything. He would fucking kill her before she had the time to even pack a fucking suitcase!”
Captain Campbell drives his fingers through his few stray hairs on top of his head.
“I just wanted to let you both know he will be back. I can’t do shit about it, but I understand if you want to quit this job.” His eyes wander back to me.
The numbness is still there but I feel a power lying underneath it that wants to break free.
“No,” I say, standing up. “I won’t ever do that. What would be the point? He would win, all he wants is to control me. I even went through all of our text messages, which took me almost a day. I gave you everything I had. I went and had an examination done after I was raped in a building with working police officers and this happened. I don’t think I’m safe at all, so it doesn’t really matter, huh? And I will not give him the damn satisfaction of winning. If I’m here, he might finally fucking lose it and I will be free and so will all the other woman who come after me.”
I proudly hold my head high, even though I feel like I could bow it down for the rest of this year, as I take my bag and leave Campbell’s office to go work at Koa’s desk.
Ledger sits on the chair opposite, his hands balled to fists, fuming.
“I’m going to shoot him in the head the second he comes through that door,” he states, nodding his head toward the big door next to all the pictures of cops who work and have worked here.
I go to him and lay my hand on his neck, starting to massage out the knots, and he visibly relaxes. Koa is with us a second later.
“Lacey, I can take you home. We can figure out his schedule, you don’t have to see his fucking face.”
“No, I meant what I said. If I go he wins. I don’t want him to win anymore. He can go to fucking hell. I’m not the weak fucking Lacey I was when I was with him. OK?”
“OK, we have to kill him then. That’s no problem for me. I’ve waited for this day for long enough,” Ledger says, rubbing his hands together, but I stop him, taking them in mine.
“No, you don’t understand. None of you will do anything to him, do you hear me? If you strike and he gets away with it, at least one of you will go under. And then what? Exactly, he wins.”
“And we don’t want him to win anymore,” Ledger repeats my earlier statement.
“No, we want him to lose.”
Ledger starts to smile again, and I whip around to Koa who came up behind me.
“I still think you shouldn’t be here, seeing him,” he says, unease written all over his face.
“I’m fine, I promise,” I try to convince him, touching my nose to his chin as he wraps his arms around me.
“Oh, look how sweet. How do my leftovers taste, Maverick?” Adrian’s sickly voice taunts from behind us.
I hold on to Koa even tighter because he’s about to turn around and smack him across his face I’m sure of it.
“Fuck off, Sterling, and don’t even breathe in her direction,” Ledger says, taking a step in front of me so I don’t even have to look at Adrian.
“Two guys at once, Lacey, that’s classy. Sadly for them you can’t fuck for shit.”
I hear it before I see it, the crack of bones. I’m out of Koa’s arms a second later, wrapping myself around Ledger who tries to go in for a second hit.
“No!” I scream, as Koa holds him back by the shoulder.
“You broke my fucking nose you son of a—”
“Stop!” I hear Campbell scream as loud as he can from his office door.
“Sterling, I told you to stay the fuck away from Ms. Monroe! And you!” He points at Ledger. “In my office, now!”
Ledger shrugs me off when I try to hold on to him. Koa is there to take me in his arms a second later. This is all my fault… just my fault... I think as Ledger bumps Adrian with his shoulder, his force so hard that Adrian stumbles into the shelf behind him.
“Whoops didn’t see you there,” he says as Adrian mumbles curse words under his breath.
“Hyde!” Captain warns, waiting on Ledger to come into his office before he closes the door for a second time today.
Adrian looks back to the office and is about to come near me and Koa, starting to spew some more shit. Koa holds me in his left arm and punches Adrian square in the face, another a hit to his nose. He goes down immediately, lying unconscious on the floor directly in front of us. His nose looks crooked and there’s blood running all over his face. The crotch of his pants darkens. He’s probably pissing himself.
Everyone in the office is quiet as Koa wipes his hand on his pants and moves me back to his desk. He grabs another chair to sit next to me, completely ignoring the motionless body on the ground next to us.