by KC Decker
“Mercy, say something. Who is in charge there, anyway? This is bullshit!”
“Never mind,” I manage to get out. “Everything is fine. I’m overreacting. Goodnig—”
“Wait! Mercy, be serious. Are you in danger right now?”
“No, I’m fine. I just have to get used to a few things, that’s all.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” he asks, exasperated, but not yet relinquishing his sense of panic.
“Sutton, I’m fine. Just putting old ghosts to bed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Goodnight.” I hang up before the sob breaks free, then I go sit in the corner of my room furthest from the door. For the rest of the night, I watch the doorknob and cry.
There is no more scratching.
Chapter 30
I haven’t slept all night, so when I walk back into the hospital I used to call home, it’s with the dreary haze of exhaustion. Sutton hustles me into his office before I can even grab a muffin or say hi to Lyla.
Last night was a powerful reminder for me of where things stand with Sutton, and I would rather not linger in his ambivalence any longer. Right away, I lie down on the couch. I’ll submit to his cognitive-behavioral runaround, but I’m going to do it while I rest my eyes.
“What the hell happened last night?”
“Mercy?”
“Mercy?”
***
I wake up starving. When I sit up, I realize I’m alone in Sutton’s office. The lights are out, and the blinds are drawn. He has also covered me with the blanket that smells like him.
I feel like I’m back where I belong—not in Sutton’s office, but here, with Colleen and Lyla. Then I stretch and readjust myself on the couch, settling in, and deciding to milk this reprieve for all it’s worth.
Not ten minutes pass before Sutton checks on me and realizes I’m awake. He shuts the door, and then scoots me over and sits down in the same motion.
“Start talking.”
“What do you want to know? That place fucking sucks. The people are at best, rude, and at worst, psychopaths. I’d be safer living under a viaduct.”
“Let’s go then,” he says as he stands and extends his hand.
“Go where?”
“To the facility. I need to check this out.”
“Uh, ok.”
We step out into twilight, which in itself is surprising. I must have slept all day. No wonder I’m so damn hungry.
“What the heck time is it?” I ask.
“Almost 5:00.”
“What about all your sessions?”
“The hospital is a big place. I managed.”
“And now?”
“What? Now I’m done.”
I decide not to fight the losing battle about going back to the facility. Sutton is accustomed to stoking my anxiety like a bellows and then putting out the fire. It’s called exposure therapy, and I’m quite familiar with it. The fact that my nerves have eaten a hole through my stomach by the time we pull up has no visible effect on Sutton.
He takes the key from my shaking palm and then unlocks the door. After pushing it open, and with a sweep of his hand, he says, “Why don’t you show me around.”
My plan is to take him straight to my room, but there is an obstacle along the way. That obstacle is Marv, who is sitting on the couch in plain view, furiously masturbating while his pants are around his ankles.
He tips his head back and locks eyes with me, but instead of stopping at the intrusion, he picks up his pace.
“Ahhh, Mercy, yeah,” he moans. Just before he spurts ejaculate all up the front of his naked body.
Sutton is frozen in place with his mouth hanging open, so I grab his arm and yank him into motion behind me. I have to push hard against the door to my room because of the furniture. I squeezed out this morning, but it has to open more to allow Sutton to come in.
“What the fuck was that?” he asks, indicating with his thumb over his shoulder.
“That’s Marv. He was pissed I didn’t eat the Macaroni he made for dinner, so he sat outside of my room all night scratching on the door and moaning my name.” I deliver all this with a, we’ve been over this already tone.
He listens as he looks around at the stacked furniture and coiled lamp, then he looks back at me with fury on his face.
“Who is in charge here?” he grinds out as he turns to shimmy back through the door. I follow on his heels, straight to the living room, where Marv is thankfully dressed now.
“Mercy, do you want to try my macaroni and cheese?” Marv asks as he tips his head back like before when he looked at me.
“Listen, buddy. If you say one more word to her, I will have you thrown out of here. You got that?”
“I bet, Big Man wants my macaroni and chee—”
“What’s going on?” Theresa asks from the open doorway, before wiping her feet on the mat and stepping inside. Her lungs are lined with tar, and she brings with her the heavy odor of cigarette smoke.
“Not much, we are just headed out for a quick bite to eat, and Homeboy is over there bustin’ a nut on the couch. See ya in about an hour,” Sutton says as he all but drags me down the front steps.
He drives recklessly for about six or eight blocks before he pulls over and rests his head against his forearms on the steering wheel. I know better than to say anything, I know last night’s phone call is running through his mind right now.
After a few minutes, he leans back in the seat, face tipped toward the ceiling, eyes closed. When he opens them, he looks directly at me and says simply, “I’m so sorry.”
I nod and lie, “It’s ok.”
After that, we don’t talk, and I don’t ask him where we are going because I don’t care.
Chapter 31
When Sutton pulls into an underground parking garage, it occurs to me that he is not, in fact, taking me for a quick bite to eat. He unbuckles his seatbelt and then makes eye contact with me.
“Don’t ask.”
We take the elevator to the eighth floor without speaking, but his eyes remain on mine the whole time. As we walk down the hall, I have questions, lots of them. And concerns too, like, how pissed is Theresa going to be that I didn’t sign out on the sheet? She didn’t really have a chance to object to me leaving, but it’s still a fire I will have to put out when I get back.
“Did you have something better in mind?” he asks as he unlocks the door and pushes it open.
“Is this your place?” I ask, still rooted to the ground. “I was thinking more like a hardware store—for a door lock. And maybe a cheeseburger the size of my face.”
“Why would you need a door lock?”
“Um, because Marv is a sociopath, and he likes to hang out on the other side of my door.”
“You say, my door as if you are going back there,” he says as he turns on some lights and walks into the kitchen. “What sounds good for dinner? Oh, wait, you said you want a cheeseburger. Let’s order from Carl’s, their burgers are—”
“What is this? Are we playing house now?” I ask with a sweep of my arms and an elevated voice.
“We can call it whatever you want, but you are not going back there,” he says as he crosses his arms and leans back against the counter. He looks pretty relaxed for being the last person Theresa saw me with before I go missing.
“And you?”
“Me? I don’t care what we call it.”
“Sutton! Theresa saw me leave with you.”
“She doesn’t know who I am. I’m not worried about her at all. When do you check in with your social worker next?”
“Tuesday. She wanted to give me a few days to settle in.”
“You’re settled all right, right the fuck out of there.”
“This isn’t funny!”
“Listen, you should keep your appointments with Dr. Gingham and me, but otherwise, you should be fine. It’s an imperfect system, what are they going to do if you don’t go back? Send out a search party? Haul you
in?...Force you to use government funds?”
“What about my stuff?”
“You can get new stuff.”
“What about my computer?”
“Yeah, you definitely need a new computer.”
“But my computer has the programs I need. Photoshop is really expensive.”
“You’re right. You need your outdated Photoshop. I guess I’ll have to take you back,” he shrugs and then takes a big step toward me before swallowing me in his arms.
“You really are insane if you think for one second I’m going to allow you to go back there,” he mumbles directly into my ear. The sheer emphasis of his rumbly words warms my body from the inside out.
My arms close around his waist, and I return the hug. Even though this is the part of his push and pull that he pulls me in and makes me feel like I’m drowning in happiness. I know the push will follow on its heels.
“You strike me as a better roommate than Marv, but do you have any sleepwalking tendencies or masturbatory habits that I should know about?”
“What? And take away all the mystery?” he laughs. “Let me order some food, and then I’ll show you around.”
I take a look at my surroundings. He has a nice sized kitchen with a row of stools lining the bar countertop. It has a very masculine look to it, with cherrywood cabinets and dark stone countertops. The living room is flanked by a row of patio doors, but it’s dark outside, so I can’t see beyond them.
The living room has a fireplace—which I’ve always wanted, and it looks like he walked into a furniture store and said, I want that display because it looks so editorial and un-lived in.
“Dinner is on the way. Now, for the grand tour. Kitchen, living room, and bedroom,” he says as he points to each area. “Annnd, that should do it for the tour.”
I haven’t seen the bedroom yet, but he didn’t speak of it in a plural context, and I sincerely doubt there are bunk beds behind that door. This should be interesting.
“I need to shower, but I don’t have any stuff,” I say, immediately thinking about how badly I need to shave before I share a bed with him.
“I’m sure I have most of what you need, but I can stop and pick up the rest after work tomorrow. Go ahead and take a shower, I’ll see if I can find anything that will fit you,” he says as he walks into the bedroom.
“Clean towels are under the sink.”
“Got it,” I say as I notice the bathroom isn’t exactly separated from the bedroom. There is a wide-open archway instead of a door, and the same dark cabinets and countertops inside. My pulse speeds up when I look at his bed. This is where sexy doctor Sutton sleeps. This is where we are going to sleep. Unless, of course, he has an attack of ethics, which is likely.
“Here’s a t-shirt and athletic shorts, it’s the best I can do on such short notice,” he grins at me while I take them from him. “I’ll just be out here Google searching medical misconduct and kidnapping charges,” he says as he turns and walks back into the living room.
It feels incredibly strange to take my clothes off in a bathroom with no door, and with Sutton so close by. But what is even weirder, is his shower. There are three different options of bronze showerheads and three protrusions from the glass tile that should be knobs, but that don’t make any sense.
One knob-thing controls all three heads depending on how far you turn it, so I run through all of them a few times before I realize it’s not controlling the temperature. It takes some trial and error with the other two knobs before I find a good temperature, but I still don’t know which one is responsible for it.
The shower floor is covered in smooth, black rocks that match the niche in the wall that displays Sutton’s products. All of his toiletries smell rugged and manly, including the shaving cream that I use liberally. It’s almost enough to grow a penis while I’m in here. I’m not complaining though, it smells just like Sutton.
I get out of the shower and wrap a towel around my body and another one around my hair. I really want to brush my teeth, but Sutton uses an electric toothbrush, and I’m not comfortable snooping through his stuff.
“Food’s here,” he says through the bedroom door as he opens it just enough to announce dinner.
“Sutton? Do you have an extra toothbrush?” I call out before he shuts it again.
“Are you dressed? Can I come in?”
“Yeah.”
“You said you were dressed. This is a towel,” he says as he walks over and hooks a finger on the towel right between my boobs.
“I meant, I’m covered,” I say as a tingle begins to hum between my legs.
“My cock doesn’t care about semantics.”
“No? But does it have an extra toothbrush?” I say, smiling like a jackal at the mention of his dick.
“Sort of. I have replacement heads,” he says as he opens a drawer and gets one out. While he gets the toothbrush ready for me, I consider dropping the towel, but I’m too hungry to be thinking about seduction right now.
***
After we ate and cleaned up, Sutton messed around with my phone for a bit while I halfway watched TV and halfway worried about him searching for my sexy pictures. When he handed it back, he had added a couple apps.
“You need to continue to come to your appointments and driver’s ed, and all that stuff, so I connected your phone to my Uber account. All you do is type in where you’re going, like this,” he shows me how to use the app, while I focus entirely on the side of his face, noting how chiseled his jaw looks when he talks, instead of looking at the phone screen, but I get the gist.
“And here is the Amazon app, I linked it too. Order anything you need; it will arrive in two days.”
“That’s really sweet of you, but I have my own money. I just need to figure out how to get into my PayPal account.”
“I can help you with that, but I want to do this stuff for you. In fact, I kind of like taking care of you,” he smiles. I think he is going to kiss me, but the look on his face passes. Before my disappointment can register, he is already pulling up PayPal.
Five minutes later, my account summary is open on Sutton’s laptop and in front of me. The balance is right around what I expected, which is good because I have a lot of expenses coming up—rent, furniture, a computer, Photoshop…
“What are all those transactions?” he asks, trying not to be nosy but not being able to help it.
“What do you mean? I had to qualify for FCA to stay in the system until I turn 21. I did it by staying in school and doing freelance work.”
“This is all graphic design work?”
“Yeah. Mostly travel brochures and some marketing for the University.”
“You are amazing. You know that, right?”
“I wouldn’t say amazing, I just had a lot of time on my hands.”
“No, you are definitely amazing. But listen, we seriously need to talk about this little arrangement we have here.”
“Is this where you tell me you are going to sleep on the couch?”
“Not a chance, Lady. But this little situation needs to be kept between us. I have to go to work as normal, and you have to proceed as though the step-down facility didn’t work out, so you moved in with a friend. If you can arrange to check in with your social worker at the hospital when you are there for therapy work, that’s even better. Tell her you moved in with a friend, and if she needs to see it, take her to Matty or Veronica’s. That’s it. There can be absolutely no connections made between us beyond me being your doctor.”
“So, you expect me to sleep next to you all night, and then go have sessions with you every day at 9:00 as though nothing is unusual?”
“Yes.”
“What if someone sees us together outside of the hospital?” I question with raised eyebrows.
“You are my patient, we are doing some exposure therapy,” he shrugs.
“You have thought of everything, haven’t you?”
“Nope. I still fully expect this to crash and burn all around
us.”
“We can minimize that by finding me a new doctor.”
“You already know how I feel about that.”
I sigh, “Yeah, I suppose I do.”
Chapter 32
I get the distinct impression Sutton is stalling about going to bed, which is right on par with his clashing morals. I’m starting to fall asleep on the couch and no longer know what show we are watching, so I get up and announce the obvious.
“I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” The word rings hollow, and it makes me wonder if he plans to sleep on the couch. I can’t worry about that, I have driver’s ed at eight in the morning. I also have a three o’clock interview at a grocery store that I have no intention of going to. Hilary has lined up a bunch of crap for me to do, but she is swamped with other cases, so hopefully, she will lose interest in me soon.
I consider ditching my appointment with Sutton too, but that will complicate matters and draw all kinds of attention to my absence. It would force him to put something in motion regarding my whereabouts, and that can’t happen. Not while we are shaking up.
I don’t bother turning on the bedroom light before I climb into his massive bed. I also don’t take off the tightly cinched athletic shorts because I have nothing on underneath. Dang, this is a big bed, it makes me want to sleep like a starfish.
I sprawl out at first, but soon enough, I get to tossing and turning. Sleep was at my door, but I chased it away fretting about not being at the facility…Matty not texting back yet…truant job interviews…Sutton eventually sleeping next to me…
When he finally comes in, I’m still wide awake, but I don’t let on. I want to see how he plays it. He brushes his teeth, which is more than I did, and then quietly pulls back the covers. Lifting the comforter disrupts the warm little cocoon I’m tucked in, and a rush of cool air claims the space.
Then Sutton gets in and promptly turns his back to me. Well, I guess that answers my question about how he is going to play it, he’s going to be a fucking saint.