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“Listen, you are a good man,” I assured him, giving his arm a squeeze. “And none of this is on you. It’s on whoever this asshole is.”
“Has there been any development on that?” Russ asked.
“No. I mean, I haven’t even heard from the cops. Voss said not to get my hopes up that I’ll ever hear from them.”
“But Voss is working on it, right?”
“Yeah. And he has his friend on it too. Working through the list of people I gave them. No news yet. But I kind of have more faith in them than the police right now.”
“I don’t know the other guys, but having met Voss, yeah, I think you’re right putting your money on him. He seems like a good man,” Russ said.
“Oh, God. Why does it seem like you’re going to say something about the two of us dating. Because, let me be clear, we are not.”
“Yet,” he said, getting a grumbling sound out of me. “I’m not gonna pester you about it. I just think he’d be good for you. And I’d like to see you happy. Maybe building some sort of social life outside of this place.”
“Says the guy who eats, sleeps, and breathes this place,” I shot back.
“I got some years on you, kid. I’m allowed to be old and boring. You still have some years of living to do. If you let yourself. Now go sit your ass in the office and do paperwork. I don’t want to see you moving around unless you’re refilling your coffee or hitting the head.”
With that, he turned and made his way out, leaving a lingering warm feeling in the room.
I was surrounded by good people. Ones who cared about me even more than I’d realized.
I went ahead and did take it easy for the first few hours of my shift, answering emails, working out details for the next charity event we were putting on, looking through files for potential residents. All that sort of work that I knew Russ hated the most.
But it wasn’t long before I was itching to move around a little bit, so I worked doing some light cleaning of the common areas, ignoring both Russ and Marshall as they bitched at me about it.
“You give me a name,” a voice said, making me jolt and turn to find Perish leaning in the doorway.
“Jesus. You scared me,” I said, exhaling hard, a little upset about how rattled I felt just from someone speaking unexpectedly to me.
“Give me a name. And I will make sure he never puts a hand on anyone again,” Perish vowed.
“Haven’t you done enough beating people for me?” I asked, trying to make light of it because the air felt thick with his anger.
“This is different,” he said, his gaze moving over my face, then down my side where I was arched to the side a bit, admitting to myself as my ribs throbbed that I was probably overdoing it, and finally landing on my ankle brace.
“Thank you for the offer,” I told him, genuinely meaning it. “But I think Voss is itching to get his hands on him first.”
“Kay. But if he don’t…” Perish said, waving a hand out.
“I appreciate your offer of violence. But you might want to keep your voice down,” I suggested.
Sure, he clearly had anger issues, but he was a good guy. I really hoped he didn’t go back to prison.
“Can’t wait for this shit to be over,” he grumbled, exhaling hard, then turning to walk back to his room.
Alone, I went back to work, very carefully sweeping the kitchen, trying hard not to do too much twisting.
That is until a big, familiar hand closed over mine from behind on the broom handle, halting the movements.
Even without looking or hearing him, I knew it was Voss.
Sure, you could make an argument for it maybe being the smell of him or something. But I swear I could just feel him.
“The fuck are you doing?” his grumbly voice said, his breath rustling my hair.
“Working,” I said, suddenly acutely aware of his entire body pressed into mine from behind.
“You were supposed to be doing desk work,” he reminded me.
“I got bored,” I admitted.
“Gonna make it take twice as long to get better,” he said as his fingers flexed over mine. When he spoke, did his lips… touch my hair? No. I must have been imagining that.
“So? What does it matter?” I asked, even if my ribs were kind of throbbing and letting me know I’d overdone it.
“You need to get better,” he insisted. Had his voice dipped lower? Or was I fantasizing things?
His hand tightened on mine, sliding it down the broom handle, and my silly, dirty, teenage boy mind went to somewhere very dirty before the pole dropped from my hand, making a quiet tap as it got caught on the kitchen table on the way down.
