And that’s when I realized that Porn Guy had followed me out.
He was jogging down the length of the sidewalk, gaining on me with those long, powerful legs of his.
I swallowed hard and stopped at the pukey Pepto Bismol colored car.
Once there, I threw my bag into the back seat, then opened the driver’s side door.
That’s when I turned to survey the guy that was looking at me with an odd expression on his face.
Amusement? Pride?
Hell, I didn’t know.
But it was one look I never expected to see on a man’s face that I didn’t know.
“Can I help you?” I asked, aiming for a cool, calm voice.
It came out sounding like a teenage girl meeting her crush for the first time.
Jesus Christ.
Why did Harlow always do these things to me?
I mean, how the fuck? What were the freakin’ odds?
The man’s eyes took me in, starting at the top of my head, running his gaze down the length of my straightened hair, pausing briefly at my boobs that were all but dwarfed in the oversized puke-pink scrub top. He lingered slightly on the tops of my pants that I just now realized had wrinkles in them due to me sitting still and sweating my balls off while working up the courage to go into that house.
He finished up by taking in my black Chucks.
They were battered, needed a wash in the worst way, and were so comfortable that I wore them everywhere. No matter what the occasion.
“Listen, Wednesday,” Porn Guy said. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just had a really stressful couple of weeks, and you’re not helping things by being so antagonistic.”
Wait, was he calling me Wednesday?
I tilted my head slightly. “Antagonistic? You think that I’m being antagonistic? I just listened to him threaten my life last time over me helping this kid. This time he’s accusing me of being a slut. Or whatever. I’m not sure.” I frowned and turned back to him. “Do you really think that I should just take that sitting down? Because I don’t. He’s already run off two other home health agencies. I realize that he’s scared. I realize that he’s worried. But he needs to get his shit together, because if I quit, y’all aren’t going to be able to find anybody else to do this. This is the last company—and don’t think that we didn’t talk to the other companies. We did. We’re small. We’re trying to make a name for ourselves, so of course we said yes even though we didn’t want to. Did you know that my boss, who is a staunch believer that guns shouldn’t be in a workplace, told me to conceal carry? He honestly thought that I would get hurt. That’s why he allowed me the option.”
Porn Guy’s eyebrows went up, showing off those beautiful, long lashes.
That’s when I paused, remembering another thing he’d said that pissed me off.
“Why did you just call me Wednesday?” I challenged him.
“Because I don’t know your name.” He grinned. “And you look like Wednesday Addams off of The Addams Family.”
Something inside of me warmed. He could’ve gone with a lot of names that would surely piss me off more—I mean, goth chick was very likely one of them. But not because I didn’t like the ‘goth’ label, but because of a certain ex-boyfriend who liked to throw my ‘goth-like tendencies’ in my face.
But he’d gone with Wednesday.
I liked that.
“Is Laric your road name?” I asked him.
“Laric is my real name,” he answered instantly. “What’s your real name, Wednesday?”
I pointed to my shirt that had my name embroidered on it.
“Catori,” I said. “Something in which Zakelina said, aloud, enough times for you to have heard it.”
He squinted his eyes at the embroidered name on my shirt. “Oh. I thought that was just part of the shirt.”
He gestured to the shirt that I was wearing, and I saw that he was right. The red of the embroidered part of my name did kind of tie in with the pink of my shirt. If you weren’t looking hard enough.
I mean, I guess I could see how he didn’t notice it before…
“Anyway,” he said. “Like I said, Zach is struggling right now. Just give him another chance.”
I honestly didn’t want to give him another chance.
I wanted to leave and not come back. Because, regardless of if Zach was “family” or not, even in a roundabout way, I most certainly did not want to get anywhere near him ever again after he acted like that.
Plus, he’d embarrassed me.
I didn’t like being embarrassed.
And, honestly, show me a woman that wouldn’t get flustered if she ran into a man that she’d literally just watched masturbate.
“I’ll talk to my boss,” I murmured, crossing my arms across my chest and glaring at him.
A car honked, and I turned to look over my shoulder, my eyes narrowing on the familiar black car.