Chapter Five
Devyn
Things aren’t that bad, and I try not to give in to a pity party. So what if everything I’ve worked so hard for is gone because Stevie Johansson discredited me, sicced her goons on me, and scared the fucking crap out of me. No one knows the truth about what happened, and I can’t tell anyone. Talia would go ballistic, the cops wouldn’t believe me, and Stevie “Sweetheart” Johansson might follow through with her threat. She took my livelihood away from me; I believe her when she said she would take my life, too.
She’s in control of the Upper Midwest, and I’d been a fool to stay in Minnesota with Talia. We should have moved as far away as we could. California. Florida. Alaska. She wanted to stay in case she heard news about Mom, but the only news she’s going to hear is that her body was found in a ditch. I’ve tried my best to do right by her. Spent thousands of dollars to give her a place to stay and food she was too high to care about. I love her, God help me, I still love her, but there’s hope for Talia. There isn’t any left for our mom.
Rick’s internet isn’t protected with a password, and sitting cross-legged on the bed, I surf the job sites. I can’t go back to reporting, even if we manage to move out of Stevie’s reach. I’ll have to change directions entirely. I can’t teach journalism. Though I have plenty of experience, after what happened, I don’t have any credibility. I could try my hand at blogging, or writing a book, but I need cash now, and the only readership I had I lost when the Times fired me. I could do what Talia’s doing and go to school, earn a teaching certificate and add the classes I would need to teach English. It would be a big enough career turn that she would leave me alone.
The thought’s depressing. Trapped inside a cube with thirty kids who didn’t care where commas go. Oh, never mind. I know where they’d want them to go, and it would be very unpleasant for me. I’d rather ask Rick for another interview. I’d like the results the same.
My stomach growls, and I check the time on my laptop’s screen. I said coffee would be enough, and my ass agrees with my brain, but unfortunately, my stomach does not. It’s past lunchtime but too early for dinner. I could make do with a piece of cheese, a large one, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’m not picky, and when you’re broke, you’re not allowed to be.
I mark a couple of jobs as possibilities and set my laptop aside to go in search of a snack. Rick doesn’t seem to be the type to sit back and enjoy a bag of Doritos, but if I found some snooping around, I wouldn’t turn my nose up.
He isn’t in the living room, and for the short amount of time I’ve been here, I’ve never seen him occupy the subtly elegant space. It’s not a mancave with a huge TV, and along with the Doritos, he’s not the type to lie around in his underwear scratching his balls while watching football.
Though we lived in the same city, our lives couldn’t have been more different. He’d been married, and that had knocked him off the most Eligible Bachelor lists. I wouldn’t have cared, even if he’d been single, but I’d always respected him for the businessman he portrayed himself to be. Never one to do dirty deals to get ahead, and he always appeared to have genuine affection for his wife, which made the divorce all the more puzzling to me and everyone who knew them.
I peek into the kitchen through the wide archway, but that room is empty as well. I’m thinking he has a private room he hasn’t shown me or he’s braved the weather to get some air, when a groan filters from his bedroom. That room hadn’t been part of the tour, and I instinctively felt it was off limits.
The door is ajar, and I push it farther open, hoping I’m not interrupting a rousing game of jerk off when he meets my eyes from the bed. He’s covered in sweat, and he can barely speak. “Help me.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I rush to the bed, but I don’t dare touch him. I don’t know anything about this man. His tortured gaze reminds me of my own expression after nightmares about the night Stevie Johansson taught me a lesson to never meddle in her business again.
Rick could be going through withdrawal, or he could be having a seizure. The accident had given him a severe concussion, and he could still be suffering the side effects.
“My back,” he gasps. “There’s a knot—” A choke cuts him off.
“A knot,” I parrot stupidly. “You need a massage.”
He can barely nod and closes his eyes against the pain.
I can do a massage, and I climb onto the bed. “You have to turn over.”
He’s on his side now, and with a moan that twists my gut, he flattens onto his stomach. I sit on his butt, my thighs flanking his lower back, and yank his shirt’s hem from the waistband of his jeans. His muscles ripple like snakes under his sweaty skin.
I press my hand right where the knot is, dig in the heel of my palm. His shuddering stops immediately under the pressure.
“Fuck,” he moans into his pillow.
“I know. I’m sorry. It will hurt more before it doesn’t.”
“Hmmm.”
I smooth my hands over his back, jagged pink scars crisscrossing his hot skin. “Why were you on the site that day?” I ask, partly to keep his mind off me working the ball of tension out of his back, partly because I want to know. Several people have asked, and he never answered.
“I was always on site. I worked on every site. I was in charge,” he snarls between clenched teeth. Not angry I asked, still in pain.
I work as carefully as I can, but as forcefully as I need, and bit by bit his muscles loosen under my touch.
“You have people for that.”
“You sound like my ex-wife.”
My hands still for a second. I know part of the reason she left him now. She blames him for getting hurt. Blames him for being on the site that day, but he wouldn’t do anything less because to Rick, a good boss doesn’t mean ordering people around. It means showing your workers you’re willing to get your hands dirty doing the job they’re doing.
From his neck to his lower back and up again, I tease the tension and pain from his muscles. I work until my own hands start to cramp and then longer still. Exhausted, Rick falls asleep, and it’s only then do I pull his shirt over his scars and carefully climb off his bed. In the kitchen, I pour a glass of Glenlivet and down it and pour another glass for him. I find some ibuprofen in the cabinet above the coffeemaker and set both the glass and the little brown pills on the nightstand.