Chapter Fifty-One #2
Someone from King’s office would try to contact her, see if it was accidental. If they got no answer, the police would be called.
Someone would be there within a few minutes to help her if she needed it.
Joss wouldn’t get the chance to try to take her back again.
There were other extreme measures available, too. Ones I’d seen King use for clients who were facing a real threat like a stalker or exes who wouldn’t accept that their wives or kids were off-limits to them.
Trackers attached to cars. Apps on their phones. Other types of trackers that the wife and kids wore in carefully disguised necklaces or bracelets that the police would follow in an emergency to recover them before anything bad happened.
And as much as a part of me wanted to mention the latter to AJ, I didn’t want to push it too far. Or make her even more paranoid than she clearly already was.
Besides, I was here now.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
I didn’t keep weapons in the house, since it seemed unconscionable to do so in a home that would be empty most of the time. But I was starting to wonder if I should head on over to the biker compound and get myself one or two to keep around. Then maybe teach AJ how to use them.
I mean, it was one thing to have an abusive ex.
It was another to have one who was actively stalking you, tracking you down no matter how many times you moved.
It wasn’t really a question of if Joss would find her again. It was when. And I wanted us to be prepared for that eventuality.
But I didn’t want to overwhelm her all at once. She agreed to the security system. I would get that in the works. After that was done, I could start to mention other things that I personally thought might be good ideas.
Trackers.
Weapons.
Maybe even some basic self-defense classes.
Or advanced ones, if she ended up liking them.
We had a world-class self-defense gym in town run by two badass women.
Going there, spending time with those women, it might help her gain more confidence.
If nothing else, it would teach her how to ensure that she would never be at a man’s mercy ever again.
Across the table, AJ’s free hand rose, covering her mouth as she let out the third yawn in a row.
“You need to get some sleep,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You’re not going in today, are you?” I asked, looking at the clock. She would normally be heading into work in just a couple of hours.
“I’m going to go in this afternoon for a few hours, so Tucker can go catch a few hours of sleep in his van to do the overnight tonight.”
That place was understaffed. There were a couple of part-time employees who were around, but the main staff seemed to just be AJ, the single mom Ella, and the genius/van-life dude Tucker. It wasn’t enough to cover the nights when they had boarders.
And some selfish part of me wanted her home at night.
I wanted to tell myself that I wanted her home for safety. But that place locked down at night with her inside of it.
It wasn’t about that.
It was pure selfishness. I just wanted her home with me at night.
Especially once the cast was off, and I was able to be more mobile.
And, yeah, my mind went to other things at night. Because there were plenty of positions I could swing that wouldn’t hurt my leg too much. Or, at least, I could tolerate the pain.
I was getting ahead of myself.
I now understood how delicate the topic of sex could be to someone who’d been abused. She hadn’t exactly shared a lot of details with me about their sex life, but she’d told me enough to know that it never seemed to be an enjoyable thing for her.
And it sounded like Joss was the only man she’d ever been with.
There was so much I had to show her, to share with her.
But it was something I knew we’d probably have to ease into. Maybe have some less-than-comfortable conversations about.
The interest was there, on both our parts. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be something she needed to think about and work toward.
“Alright. Go crash. Do you want me to wake you up at any particular time?” I asked, watching as she turned to the clock, hemming and hawing it.
“One-thirty, if I’m not up yet. That should give me enough time to function. I can crash when I get home later again.”
“Got it,” I said.
Then both of us stood there for a beat, seeming to each want to say something, do something, but unable to figure out what. Until, eventually, she turned and walked down the hall, closing her bedroom door with a quiet click.
Alone, I pulled myself up to stand, resting a small amount of weight on my cast as I did the dishes, then used the chair to tidy up the rest of the space before making her something to bring to work later. Then finally, getting back on the couch and calling Kingston’s office.
“What’d you forget my cell number?” he answered after the secretary put me through.
“I’m calling in an official capacity, so I figured I should do shit the right way.”
“Official capacity?” he asked, and I could practically see him sitting up straighter in his chair. “You want a security system?”
“It’s something I should have done a long time ago,” I said.
Kingston waited a beat, choosing his words carefully. “I’m going to assume you have a reason for this that involves AJ. And that you’re not going to tell me for the same reason.”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
“Alright. I was heading over there after a few morning calls anyway,” he said. “I’ll bring my tablet, and we can go through the options. Does AJ know about this?”
“Yeah. I asked her first. It’s something I should have done when I bought the place. AJ said there’s been some break-ins in the area.”
“Yeah, there’s always something going on. Alright. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Then, before I even finished looking up local CPR certification courses, he was at the door, taking me with him around the house, throwing out his ideas on top of the ones I already had.
Like a lock for the backyard gate. One with an alarm. Which, he felt, played double-duty. Preventing anyone from coming in uninvited without someone knowing, and also making sure no one accidentally left it open and allowed Samson to get loose.
And a steel reinforced door inside of the garage since, apparently, garage doors were one of the biggest entry points for intruders.
Sure, sometimes it was as simple as people leaving their garage door remotes in their car, granting people access to their homes.
But it was also that garage doors were easier than you could realize to open from the outside, even without the code.
The interior doors into the house from the garage were rarely deadlocked, let alone had sensors or reinforcement.
“So, what do you think?” I asked as he stood in the driveway, looking at the house.
“I think it should cover it. You know me, if this was my woman, I’d change all the exterior doors, and insist on the tracker. But I get that you don’t want to freak her out, or make her feel trapped.”
I didn’t correct him.
That AJ wasn’t my woman.
Because little by little, day by day, she was starting to feel like mine.
And I didn’t exactly think that was one-sided either.
So what was the point of insisting otherwise when, for all I knew, she could actually be mine in a few days or weeks?
“Yeah. I mean… I’m here now. So, this should be fine.”
“You’re here now, huh?” Kingston asked, and I could feel his gaze on my profile.
Some part of me wanted to brush it off. Say You know what I mean.
But the other part, increasingly the larger part, just had me nodding. “Yeah. For the most part. I mean, I’m not done traveling. But… it’s nice being here.”
“If I’d known having a woman in your house would get you to stay, I’d have rented out sooner,” he said, shooting me a smirk.
“You’d have had to push me down a mountain to slow me down too.”
“Not gonna lie, Atlas,” he said, eyes bright, smile teasing, “there have been several times I’d have been willing to push you down a mountain.”
“Knew that Nice Guy routine was an act,” I shot back.
“So, when do you want this done?”
“As soon as you can get someone out to do it,” I said.
“Someone?” he scoffed. “I’ll do it myself. How about the next time AJ has an overnight? This way, I won’t make her feel weird about being around.”
“That works,” I agreed.
“I’m calling in Nixon and Rush,” he said. “We can whip it out faster all together.”
“Can’t wait to be fucking out of this thing,” I grumbled, looking down at my leg.
“Not long now,” he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “That’s… Wednesday, right?” he asked, trying to remember.
“Yep. And I’m gonna need a ride to a car lot right after,” I said.
“You buying a car?” he asked.
In the past, I’d always just rented a car at the airport to get me by while I was around. It seemed stupid to make payments or have insurance for something that I wasn’t around to use. Not to mention have a car sitting and starting to fall apart from not being run.
“Yeah.”
“Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “Think I might be telling Helen to set a permanent extra seat—or two—at her table,” he said.
“Starting to seem like it,” I agreed.
And, for maybe the first time in my life, the idea of staying put didn’t fill me with panic.
In fact, some part of me was starting to look at it like an entirely new kind of adventure…