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"I think so," she replied. "He’s just...he’s not going as hard as he did the other night. I’m more worried about what he’s going to try and pull when I get off my shift..."
Her voice trailed off, trembling slightly, and I wondered how many times she’d had to put up with assholes like that imposing themselves on her when she was just trying to get home at the end of a long shift. These assholes, they thought that because a woman was kind to them for an evening because she had no choice – because she was stuck behind a bar and couldn’t go anywhere else – they were just gagging to get closer to them.
"Wait for me before you leave," I told her. "I’ll walk you home."
"Oh, you don’t have to do that-"
"I want to," I told her firmly. "What time do you get off...?"
In the following hour or two, I kept close to the bar, doing everything I could to move that guy along, but he bristled every time I got close to him – and, at least, seemed to accept that he needed to keep his distance from her. Though he tried to engage her in conversation, I knew I couldn’t kick him out for that, it would look bad, and raise questions for the rest of the patrons; no, the best I could do was protect her from him when her shift was done, a question he seemed determined to know the answer to, judging by the way he was peppering it into the conversation.
Finally, she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as she slipped into the back staffroom, and, sure enough, the guy hurried outside the club – did he know about the back entrance, the one the staff used to come and go? Had he been staking this place out just to better his chances of getting her alone? Fucking creep...
I stepped into the staffroom just as Jo was slipping on her coat, and she pulled a face at me.
"You don’t have to worry about me," she told me. "I’ve handled worse than him. He just needs me to tell him how it is, then he’ll leave me alone..."
I shook my head.
"I’m walking you home," I replied firmly. "At least some of the way. If he sees me with you, he’s not going to try any shit."
"You’re not going to take no for an answer on this, are you?" she asked me, smiling slightly. I shook my head.
"I’m not," I replied. "I’m not putting your safety at risk, I don’t care how harmless he seems."
She lowered her eyes down for a moment, as though she wasn’t used to this kind of care and attention.
"Thanks, Sasha," she murmured to me, and I shrugged.
"You don’t have to thank me," I replied. "I’m just doing my job."
"I thought your job was keeping the Flood safe," she pointed out. "Not the people who work here."
"You’re not getting out of this," I fired back at her, and she laughed.
"I’m not trying to," she assured me. "Come on, I want to get home, I have to let the sitter off-"
As soon as those words came out of her mouth, she seemed to stop dead in her tracks. She glanced over at me, and I cocked an eyebrow.
"The sitter?" I asked her. She nodded.
"I...uh, yeah," she blurted out. "I have a babysitter. To look after my daughter."
"You never mentioned that you had a daughter," I replied calmly. It didn’t bother me, but it seemed odd she would have kept something like that from me.
"I know," she admitted. "I don’t talk about her a lot at work, what with...well, knowing what kind of stuff most of you are involved in."
"You think we would be a threat to her?" I asked, surprised, and she shook her head.
"No, nothing like that," she replied. "Well, not you, anyway."
I grinned. That was the best I could hope for. After what I had shared with her, what I had let her see about me, I was just glad that she didn’t view me on the same level as everyone else in here.
She pushed open the door and stepped outside – and, as I followed her, my jaw tensed when I saw that guy hanging out and waiting for her.
"Jo, it’s so good to-" he began, but then, his eyes roved towards me, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
"You should go," I told him, taking a step towards him. He stared at me for a moment, as though considering if there was any point trying to push through this – but then, he seemed to think better of it. He muttered something to himself, and then took off down the alleyway and out to the other side, leaving her be.
