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At my own place.
Whether I was fully comfortable with that idea or not.
I think I hated that more than anything. The discomfort about being in my own home. Sure, I had a healthy amount of concern for being a woman living alone. But I had a linebacker of a man living next door who would definitely come running if I screamed, so there was a certain comfort in that.
I resented these assholes for making me second-guess the sanctity of my own home. Musicians came and went for the next few hours, most of them keeping their voices low as they passed, and leaving me alone.
But then the door opened, closed, footsteps entered, and just… stood there in front of the desk for a moment.
“Lexy?”
The voice had my head shooting up.
Too fast.
Way too fast.
The whole room spun, making me throw my hands out on the desk, grabbing it for some stability, and knocking half the contents to the floor in the process.
“Whoa, okay. It’s alright. It’s… Finn,” he said as my vision continued to spin as I tried to reason with my flip-flopping stomach, so I didn’t throw up all over my office. “From last night,” he added, voice soft. “Christ,” he added, likely getting a good view of me while he was still all squiggly.
I closed my eyes tight for a second, taking a few deep breaths, then opening them slowly.
There he was.
In a gray tee and jeans.
And beaten to shit.
I remembered seeing blood the night before. But I’d been kind of groggy and in pain. The lack of light hadn’t helped either.
I had no idea how badly he’d taken a beating.
But, God, he looked worse than I did with half his face swollen, all of it bruised, his lip split, and the white of his eye all red.
“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head ever so slightly as I looked at him.
“What the fuck are you doing at work?” he asked, voice soft even if the words were a little rough.
“Working?”
“You should still be in the hospital,” he insisted.
“Not according to the doctor,” I said, shrugging.
“You look like you’re in agony.”
“That… sums it up,” I agreed, reaching for my coffee.
“Isn’t there someone else who can cover the desk today?”
Probably, if they knew what had happened to me. But no one liked being called in on their day off.
“I can be in pain here just as easily as at home,” I said.
He didn’t object to that, just looked away for a moment before ducking his head.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he said after a moment, voice raw.
“Sorry?” I asked, squinting at him. “For what? Was this your fault?” I asked, waving toward my face.
“I… don’t know,” he admitted, sounding tortured about it. “But I should have been able to prevent it.”
“Right,” I said. “You, one guy, against, what? Five or six others? Who are you, Superman? I mean, it looks like you were busy getting attacked too.”
“It’s different,” he insisted.
I wanted to object to that. But he wasn’t wrong, was he? It was different. In general, women had other things to fear than getting knocked around. Men, well, it wasn’t that they never had to fear sexual assault, but it was a lot less likely.
“Well, it didn’t happen,” I said, playing down what had happened.
“It almost did,” he said, making my gaze shoot up to his face.
Green.
His eyes were green.
And not as dark as I’d originally thought.
He, like seemingly all men, had an unfair amount of lashes around those eyes, too, so thick that they almost gave the appearance of him having on liner.
I had no idea when he’d come upon me. Or in what state I’d been in when he’d gotten there.
The last thing I remembered, before unconsciousness claimed me, was my attacker’s hands clawing my shirt and bra out of the way.
Was that how Finn had come upon me?
With my tits out?
Ugh.
“But it didn’t,” I insisted.
“It started to,” he pressed.
I don’t know where the urge to play that whole part down came from, but I found myself shaking my head. “It’s not like he saw something no one has seen before.”
“That’s different, and you know it.”
“Why are you here?” I asked, changing course.
“To check on you,” he said, brows scrunching.
“Why? You don’t know me.”
“Because we both went through some shit last night. And I’m feeling shitty about it, so I figured maybe you are too,” he said.
“I haven’t had time to feel anything about it,” I admitted. “I’m too busy trying not to puke.”
“They won’t let you have anything for the migraine?” he asked. “The concussion that bad?”
“It’s probably never good when your brain literally slams against your skull,” I said, lips curving up slightly. “The doctor said it was between a Grade Two and Three. They weren’t sure because no one knows how long I was unconscious. I’m supposed to keep an eye on my symptoms for, ah, what was it called?”
