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She nods. “Good for you. You’re free to go.”
I sit in my car, too distraught to safely leave the gas station parking lot. I watch as all the patrol cars pull away. I’m still sitting there when the tow truck arrives and carries Travis’s truck from the parking lot.
I pull out my phone, knowing I’m going to get the voicemail but placing a call to my attorney anyway.
I do my best to explain my situation through the sobs I can’t seem to get a handle on.
When I finally get enough control to drive away, I head toward the office I met Mrs. Brunello at earlier, but the office is dark.
I head home, ready to lose my shit on my own mother, knowing I’d never be able to lay my head down tonight and go to sleep without knowing exactly where my child is. I wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone.
Chapter 14
Bishop
“Has Sunshine made it to work yet?” I ask Tiffany as she rolls up the sheets from my bed.
“She called in sick today,” the aide informs me.
It makes me even more nervous for the woman. I hardly got any sleep last night, worrying about her. I don’t attempt to pry information out of Tiffany. She probably doesn’t know anything more than what she just told me. I don’t see Sunshine as the type of person to confide in many people.
Once the bed is remade, I climb back in it, wondering just how long it’s going to take me before I can be awake for more than a couple of hours without needing a nap.
The doctor visited again this morning, and he says the tiredness is common. My body did a lot of healing while I was under, but there’s still more to be done. He instructed me to listen to the signs I’m given and not to push myself too hard. I didn’t mention the push-ups or the laps I took around the building earlier. Mostly, I was hoping to run into Sunshine, thinking she had been avoiding me all day after the weird interaction yesterday evening.
As tired as I feel, I realize I’m never going to get to sleep while worrying about the woman I’ve grown accustomed to seeing regularly.
I climb out of the bed, feeling like an old man rather than someone in their prime. It’s less of a struggle today to pull on the pair of house shoes Kincaid sent here for me. The walk to the door is faster than it was two days ago, and I’m proud of the progress I’ve made even though it isn’t much.
I head out back to the small garden I spotted on my second trip around the property earlier. The sun beats down on me, drawing beads of sweat to the surface of my skin. That, along with the exertion, leaves me more than a little sweaty by the time I drop my ass down to the concrete bench in the middle of the small flower garden. It’s mostly rocks and pebbles, but I expect nothing less in the middle of the New Mexico summer. A couple of pots with colorful flowers dot the landscape, and I get lost in thought, watching a bee land on a red flower.
“Mind if I join you?”
There were times I can recall in my life that I ached to hear her voice, but the sound of it now brings more pain than joy.
“Sure,” I say, keeping my eyes on the fluttering bee rather than looking at Rivet.
When she stopped by yesterday, I heard her voice in the hallway and pretended to be asleep. Thankfully, she didn’t stick around long. Today, my luck ran out, I guess.
She doesn’t say another word as she sits beside me. Once upon a time, the brush of her thigh on mine would seem like more than it actually was. I’d question if she was trying to flirt or if she wanted to get my attention in some way without words. Right now, I know she’s touching me because the bench is small and barely holds the two of us. I may not be able to remember what happened after Bahrain, and my memories may be all fucked up and contorted from the dreams I had over and over, but I have memories from before that night.
I’d watch her, my eyes full of fucking hearts, and she’d smile at me. Then she’d smile at someone else. She gave those smiles freely. She wasn’t trying to turn any of us on. We were friends, and I fought against that, wanting more from her than she ever wanted to give.
I don’t doubt what she told me before—that we got drunk, had sex, and agreed to part as friends. It fits her to a T. I don’t recall a single instance before that night that she showed any sort of interest in me that way. My ego tried to convince me that she was a lesbian because my pride was taking too many hits, but I’d watched her pick a guy up in a bar once. It crushed me then, and even the memory of it now still hurts my feelings, but that’s on me not on her.
