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My mind wandered several times. What else could he do with those fingers? I shoved those thoughts back down, deep down, and locked them away for good measure.
His phone buzzed and a couple of minutes later there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll leave your keys next to the door, if you let him in you’ll never get him to leave.” He forced a smile and was out the door before I had a chance to even say thank you.
I spent the rest of the night going over things in my head. The only explanation was that I’d done something wrong.
It made sense, that’s all I seemed to be able to do.
*~*~*
Over the next couple of days, I barely slept. All I did was clean puke up from various surfaces and washed countless items of bedding and clothes. Max wasn’t pleased.
“I better not catch that or else,” he’d warned.
I knew what ‘or else’ meant so I kept Eli away from him, it wasn’t that hard as Max stayed on the couch most of the time anyway.
Saturday morning, Eli woke up with some color in his cheeks. I gave him some breakfast and a few hours later he’d kept it down.
He said that he wanted to go and see Henry so I waited to make sure that he was well enough. Once he started to jump around the room like he was a kangaroo, I was assured that he was back to his usual self.
It amazed me how quickly he could recover.
We went to Miss Maggie’s, the cat practically leapt at Eli. They sat on the couch together and didn’t move for the next couple of hours whilst I told Miss Maggie all about my new position and the new tools that I had.
Her eyes lit up when I told her about the bulletproof vest.
“Is that a possibility? That you could get shot?”
I shook my head. “Ty said better to be safe than sorry.” I shrugged.
I lost track of time whilst we were there and I even dozed off for a little while. I’d barely slept since Eli had been sick and it was catching up on me now.
I rubbed my eyes and searched for the clock. My eyes widened when I saw the time, Max would be home by now.
I rushed us out of there and straight back to the apartment.
Max wasn’t happy when we came home. He was sitting at the kitchen table, his jaw clenched and a dangerous glint in his eyes. I smiled at him tentatively and told him that I was just going to start dinner now.
My stomach rolled, all the while, knowing what was coming but that didn’t make it any easier. We ate dinner and I could feel his eyes on me the whole time.
That night I only received a slap to my face. It hadn’t even bruised so things were improving. Right?
I’d had worse for smaller things, I held out hope that maybe things were changing again. He’d held back this time. It was a sign. I was sure of it.
I kept Eli off preschool on Monday. Ty was fine with that and I was relieved that he wasn’t angry or upset about me missing work. I didn’t like letting the guys down, but I came to reason that it was better than being called out of work to pick Eli up.
I’d set everything out on Monday night ready for the next morning. Eli dragged his feet, not wanting to get ready. It took a great amount of effort and even a bribe to get him out of the apartment.
I was half way to work when I realized I’d forgotten my belt. I’d hid the belt and shirt away when Ty had left on Wednesday, there was no way I’d risk Max finding it.
I did a U-turn and headed back to the apartment.
I’d left it on the bed for me to pick up on my way out so I hadn’t got a clue how I’d not picked it up. My morning had been a nightmare, all I wanted to do was throw myself back into bed, pull the covers over my head and forget this day all together.
I double parked right outside the building door not noticing anything on my way inside.
I pulled out my phone to ring Ty and tell him that I’d be late, the tone came through the speaker as I pushed the apartment door open.
