“I’m a walking disaster,” she said. “I’ve done nothing but make you work since I came into your life. And I really don’t like being a burden.”
“Is it a burden when I want that person to be there?” I asked. “When I want to do those things for you?”
“You don’t want to get me dressed in the morning,” she countered.
She snorted out a laugh.
“Getting you dressed in the morning was the highlight of my day those first few weeks,” I explained.
She brought her head up and peeked at me from between two fingers.
“It’s been a lesson in control these past few weeks,” I said, touching the metal haloing her forehead. “Probably a good thing. I’m not sure you’re ready for anything more.”
Because on a scale of one to ten, I was at about a twenty-three of wanting her.
She narrowed her eyes at me, her hands dropping from her face, and said, “Well you hide it very well then, because I’ve been tied up in knots these last few weeks. I finally had to move myself out because I was having these… thoughts.”
My eyes zeroed in on hers when she said what she’d said.
“What kind of thoughts?” I rasped.
She straightened then, her face coming closer to mine.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispered.
“Like what?” I challenged.
“Like you want to eat me alive,” she answered.
The door opened and a nurse and Dr. Neil bustled in.
I made sure not to take my eyes off of hers when I said, “Because I do.”
***
We walked slowly out of the office, my hand in hers.
“This feels so weird,” she murmured. “My neck muscles feel like they’re just gone. Is my head bobbing?”
I wiggled the neck brace that the doctor said we’d probably need for the first few weeks due to the muscles that’d atrophied in her neck and shoulders.
“That’s why she sent this,” I said. “You want to put it on?”
She shook her head and nearly toppled right over.
I caught her around the waist.
“I can shake my head!” she said on the front walk that led out of the building.
I snorted and pulled her in close, her body pressed up against mine.
“I have to go back to work,” I muttered. “I took a lunch break, but it’s getting time I head back.”
She patted me on the chest and pulled away, but almost reluctantly, as if she couldn’t quite convince herself to leave my arms.
But then my phone went off, indicating a SWAT call.
“Fuck,” I hissed, pulling back and reaching for it.
She pulled away from me completely and started heading toward my car.
“I can call an Uber,” she offered.
I shook my head and walked her to the passenger side, making sure she was settled safely inside before I walked around the front.
“I’ll take you to the station and get someone to run you back home,” I countered. “You’re not riding in an Uber again.”
She smiled.
I drove fast through the streets of Kilgore, arriving at the station in less than five minutes.
I was pulling into the assigned parking spot for my cruiser when a few of the men that were on my team came pouring out dressed and ready to go.
They had my bag and were tossing it into the back of the armored vehicle.
“Shit,” I said. “My team leader’s gonna be pissed.”
I got out and called out to her over my shoulder. “Go ask my dad for a ride!”
Then I was in the back of the vehicle and the doors were slamming shut.
I never made it back over to her that night.
By the time I finally got home, it was after one in the morning, and all of her lights were off.
I chose to head straight inside my own house and fall into bed instead of waking her up.
What I didn’t know was that she was standing at the front door waiting for me.Chapter 12I don’t like you.
-T-shirt
Avery
I walked out of my duplex and kept my eyes on my feet.
My camera bag was slung over my shoulder, and my neck felt wobbly as fuck.
But I was halo-free, and I had a job to do.
I didn’t look at Derek’s place.
He’d been home all day long and hadn’t once come over to talk.
Which made me second-guess everything that he’d said the day before.
Maybe I was just reading into the things he was saying, making them more than they were meant to be?
I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I’d been hired by the school to take photos of the prom, and I was going.
Sure, I was dressed up, because I didn’t want to be that butt ugly person dressed in jeans and a t-shirt while everybody else was dressed in their finest.
Luckily my mom had a dress in her closet that she’d worn to her own prom that I’d been able to fit into, or I would’ve been that loser dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.