“To the bedroom,” she answered.
She.
Hastings.
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” I admitted. “We barely know each other.”
She started to snort. Then snorted again. And again.
Her laughter was cute, that was for sure.
And if I could feel my face, I definitely would’ve told her that.
“Your face still works just fine,” she said. “And thank you. My sister tells me that I sound like a rabid pig when I laugh.”
“I don’t think you do,” I admitted. “My face is working? What am I doing right now?”
“You’re glaring at me,” she said.
“How do you know? I can’t see your face,” I countered.
“The lights are out, and I guessed,” she said as she helped me stand. “Now help me get you to the bedroom. I can’t get you there myself. You’re really fuckin’ big.”
“I can walk.” I paused. “For a little bit anyway. My legs feel like I’ve cemented them into concrete bricks, though. Like each one weighs fifty pounds.”
A light flickered on, and then I could see as she handed me the flashlight. “That’s a really great flashlight.”
It was very bright. So bright, in fact, that it hurt my eyes.
“It’s supposedly the most powerful flashlight in the world.” She paused. “At least, that was what the packaging said when I bought it at Lowe’s.”
“Well, it might very well be.” I stopped. “You have great floors. They’re really soft.”
“I put socks on you,” she said. “I had to take your shoes off. They were wet. And you were freezing.”
“What color are they?” I asked, keeping my eyes straight ahead.
“Umm, blue,” she answered. “Does it matter?”
“I always think that girl stuff is softer,” I answered. “Boys’ shit is always so rough. I like soft things against my skin. Like your hands. And your hair.”
I found myself lifting my hand to run my fingers through said hair.
She laughed and allowed me to continue what I was doing, but I did notice that she had stiffened slightly.
I petted her hair even more.
“What’s with the ‘pew pew pew’ that I heard you say earlier?” I asked curiously.
“Pew, pew, pew.” She sighed. “It’s a phrase that I say a lot. Even when my medication is working wonderfully and I’m not having a high anxiety day.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I say fuck a lot.”
She snorted out a laugh and then came to a stop at the end of the hall.
My eyes took in the room in front of me.
“Your room is black,” I croaked.
Hastings glanced around her room. The bed frame was black. The sheets were black. The walls were black. The fucking ceiling was black. Hell, she even had a blackout curtain over the window.
“I don’t sleep well at night,” she murmured softly. “And black makes me happy. Plus, if I don’t sleep well, then it makes my Tourette’s worse. Worse. Worse.”
I looked at her to see her face flushing.
So the repeating words was a thing that had to do with Tourette’s. While I was trying to fall asleep earlier, waiting for the meds to kick in, I’d done some research on her condition.
I was honestly surprised she was able to do as well as she did.
It could’ve been a whole lot worse according to the articles I’d read on the internet.
In high anxiety situations, situations that she couldn’t control, like the one she’d found herself in earlier? Those were the worst kind of situations she could be in when it came to her Tourette’s. Even if it was controlled by meds, anxiety fucked with her control. Meaning the girl could’ve been cursing the druggie even louder than she was.
Or hell, even hitting him.
Yeah, it was best for me not to think about it.
“I like it,” I admitted. “I think it’d be kind of nice to be in a place like this when I sleep. The blinking light on the smoke detector drives me fuckin’ insane. This looks heavenly.”
“You’re more than welcome to sleep in it for now,” she murmured. “My spare room doesn’t have a bed in it. It’s my office. Don’t go in there, though. It’s a mess. I need to clean up something fierce. I’m out of trash bags, though. That was why I was at Walgreens today. For those.”
I looked at her. “Did you ever get them?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t handle another stop. I’ll just order it from my grocery pickup place. I’ll have to wait, but it’ll be worth it.”
“You can borrow some of mine,” I said. “If it’s not taken out by a tree, that is.”
“When’s the last time you took some meds?” she asked as she led me to the bed.
Hours ago.
Way longer than I probably should have gone.
But, again, I’d been a dumbass and had walked out without buying some.
“Umm,” I hesitated. “When did you give me some?”
She snorted and helped me onto the bed.
“I’ll be back,” she murmured.
And she was.
However long later, with my eyes closed, I felt more than heard her come back in the room.
There was hail hitting the windows again.
“It sounds like someone’s taking their fingernails and slowly drumming them on the windowpane,” I murmured. “All I can picture is a witch, with her wicked black nails, slowly tapping them against the glass. Tap. Tap. Tap.”
She helped me sit up and said, “Take these pills.”
I opened my mouth, and she froze for a second.
But then I felt her put the pills in my mouth while being super careful not to brush my lips with her fingers.
I swallowed them dry and she laughed. “I brought you water, too.”
I didn’t want water.
“No,” I denied her.
“You need water,” she said, placing the bottle to my lips.
Then she tried to drown me.
I had no other choice but to swallow the water despite not wanting any.
“Water is good for you, especially when you’re sick,” she said, finally taking the bottle away.
I cleared my throat. “I liked you until right then.”
She snickered. “I’m sorry. But getting dehydrated is a real thing, unfortunately.”
That I knew, too.
I was an adult after all.
But my stomach hadn’t been feeling good for the last half an hour, and I didn’t want to chance puking it up.
Not that I could even mention that to her when I was drowning.
Luckily, she didn’t drown me for long, finally stepping away and giving me room to breathe.
Just moments later, she ripped the blanket away and covered me up with something much thinner. Something that didn’t keep me warm anywhere near as well as the previous one had.
She was the devil.
“I’m not the devil,” she countered.
Whoops, did I say that out loud?
“Yes, you did,” she confirmed.
And how did she know what I needed anyway? I needed that bigger blanket. Not that small, flimsy piece of shit.
“I went to nursing school. Actually, I am a registered nurse. I just chose not to pursue that career now that my writing has taken off,” she said. “So yes, I know that you shouldn’t be using a blanket when you’re running a fever as high as you are. You should really be taking a cold shower, but I don’t think I could keep you from actually drowning in there.”
Instead of answering her, I went ahead and laid my head down and closed my eyes, trying to focus on my breathing and not the way I was slowly freezing to death.
“You’re a writer?” I found myself asking.
I couldn’t find a comfortable position on my side, so I flipped all the way over to my other side, which happened to be closer to where she was lea
ned back on the bed beside me.
She smelled good, and I couldn’t help but close my eyes and inhale her scent. Even though doing so made my throat feel like it was on fire.
“Did you look at your throat?” she asked curiously.
No. I hadn’t even had the energy to pee in the last four hours. When would I have looked at my throat?
She sighed and came back with the flashlight from hell.
“Let me see,” she ordered.
I opened my mouth and showed it to her.
“No pus pockets,” she said. “That likely rules out strep.”
“Thank God,” I said as I closed my mouth. “Strep is awful.”
“The flu is awful, too. Imagine if you had strep throat on top of that.”
“You would just find me dead in your bed because I’m a little bitch,” I said. “Hey, I think I really need to go to the bathroom.”
She sighed. “Let’s go then.”
The next five minutes consisted of her half-carrying me to the bathroom. And me half-walking.
Though, if I was an honest man, she probably did a bit more than half.
“I did more than seventy-five percent,” she countered as she left me leaning against the counter in her bathroom. “I’m gonna close this, but not all the way. Yell if you need anything.”
I sat down to do my business, then decided to stay there long after my business had wrapped up—i.e., I’d taken a piss sitting down for the first time since I was a toddler without doing other things along with it.
“Umm, Sammy?” Hastings called. “Are you okay? Should I come in there and help?”
I would’ve laughed had I had the strength. “I’m just having a wee bit of a rest.”
She pushed the door open and came to a sudden stand still.
“Uh, shit.” She covered her hand with her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I looked down at myself. There really wasn’t anything to see, per se. I mean, it was obvious that I was sitting there, but there wasn’t much more that she could see other than some bare thigh and some outside cheekage.
“It’s fine,” I said as I sighed. “I was trying to decide whether to stand up or not. But my joints hurt. They feel like they’re about to separate, and soon the only thing that’ll be holding my body together is my skin. My skin that hurts, might I add.”
I stood up and nearly cried.
Quickly, I attempted to jerk up my pants—which was honestly a quite pathetic attempt. I was having a hard time maneuvering my cock and balls back into my pants because it took so much effort to lift my waistband over them.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, hands still firmly covering her eyes.
“Yes,” I said as I tried again, in vain, to get my pants over my junk.
“Let me see your hand. But keep those eyes closed,” I ordered.
She kept her hand covering her eyes but extended the one that wasn’t being used.
And promptly poked me in the penis head.
She froze, I froze, but my dick didn’t freeze.
It got bigger.
All it took was a single, solitary, lone poke and it was all ready to go. Apparently it wasn’t affected by my fever or the flu.
“Umm,” she hesitated. “I…I’m…” She shook her head.
I could see her face flushing behind her hand and between her fingers.
“Penis,” she whispered.
I shook my head and guided her hand to my waistband, a bit away from my cock. “Can you pull these? I just… I can’t get it back in.”
There was a long moment of silence and then she reached out blindly with her other hand, her eyes pinched tight.
“Guide this one, too,” she ordered as she held out her hand, much higher than she would’ve been able to touch my cock accidentally again.
I guided it to my waistband and she tugged it out slightly, finally allowing my dick and balls to fall back into the spot they were supposed to be.
And I would not be examining why one tiny poke still had me as hard as a rock.
“Thank you,” I rasped. “I’m fully clothed now. You can open your eyes.”
What I probably should’ve said was ‘you can leave now.’ But I didn’t. And when she opened her eyes and automatically looked down at where my dick was awkwardly jutted sideways at an awful angle, I could do nothing but shrug in response.
“You have soft hands,” I said.
“Pew, pew, pew.” She slapped her hands onto her cheeks and shook her head. “Trust the Midas touch.” She shook her head violently. “Fuck me. I’ll be out there.”
Then she rushed out the door as if she could barely stand to be in the room with me.
Sadly, after that, things only got worse.
And not necessarily because of my accidentally having her poke my dick thing. But because of my fever thing.
“I thought you were hot as hell when we were lying on the floor of Walgreens,” I told her a while later as I once again took up her bed. “Would you like to be my lover?”
She didn’t laugh or giggle or anything. She shook her head, which caused the bed to bounce slightly with her movements.
“I’m a bad catch,” she admitted after I’d professed my love for her.
I laughed. “You’re not a bad catch. What makes you think you’re a bad catch?”
But before I could hear an answer, I finally, finally fell asleep.
***
The next time I woke, the rain was gone, and apparently so was my fever.
Oh, and there was something else gone, too.
The girl that talked with me throughout the night.
The girl that had made me laugh with delirium. The girl that had shoved me in the shower around two this morning when my fever had gotten so high that I wasn’t making any sense.
The girl that had lain next to me all night long and talked to me for hours and hours as she waited for me to fall back to sleep after the shower.
The girl that was gone, and I had a feeling wouldn’t be coming back.
I got up and slowly made my way out of the room.
“Hastings?” I called.
Nothing.
I poked my head in the open second bedroom, which was more like a broom closet, and felt my eyes widen when I saw all the cameras that were aimed at the street and the grounds. I didn’t miss the mess, either. She was right. She really needed to clean up all her random papers off the floor.
Wow.
There was also a computer beside the camera equipment that had a Word document up. There were half-finished thoughts on the screen, all of them looking to be hastily typed down ideas. One of which being ‘fever and lover.’
I didn’t have any idea what that could be about, but since I was being a snoop, I couldn’t very well ask without admitting that I’d read some of her work.
Sadly, after a few more looks around her house, I couldn’t find her at all.
Going back into her office, I wrote down my name, phone number, and a ‘thank you for watching over me’ before posting the sticky note to her computer monitor and walking out of her door.
Hopefully she would call.
Because of what I could remember last night, I really would like to get to know her.
Sadly, the tree falling through my roof thing really did happen the night before.
Opening my front door, I found my place full of men.
Saint was the first one to spot me.
“Hey, man. Feeling better?” he asked as he took me in.
I shrugged.
Though I felt better, I still felt like shit compared to what I normally felt like.
“Getting there.” I looked around. “Umm, when did this happen?”
‘This’ being a tarp over my roof, plyboard over the hole in my wall, and a fan blow drying my carpet dry.
“That would be the duplex complex’s manager. Her name is Hastings.” There was a long pause as Sa
int said, “But you already know Hastings, don’t you? She said that you slept over there.”
They all thought that we ‘knew’ each other. But we didn’t ‘know’ each other. At least not in that way.
“Where is she?” I asked curiously, not saying anything to his comment.
“Oh, she just coordinated all of this and had to leave to visit with someone.” Saint shrugged. “She was like a boss, though. Telling each of us what to do and where to put things. Glad you weren’t fuckin’ hurt, though, man.”
I felt a pang of disappointment that I had missed her in my place.
“Me, too,” I murmured, feeling another wave of exhaustion hit me. “Me fuckin’, too.”
Chapter 5
You can take a seat in the punk ass bitch section.
-Coffee Cup
Sammy
I knocked on the door and wondered if what I was doing was a bad thing.
I shouldn’t be there.
I shouldn’t be knocking on her door.
It’d been two days since the storm. Two long days since I’d seen her last… until this morning.
I shouldn’t be thinking the thoughts I was thinking after seeing her today. But I was. And I couldn’t stop thinking them. Not even when I tried.
The sight of her this morning was burned into my brain.
Hells bells, she’d been in a pair of tight, barely-there shorts that had a unicorn printed on them, a black tank top with ‘I’m Magical’ printed on the breast, and white tennis shoes. Her hair had been up in a ponytail with the long black strands trailing all the way down to mid-back, and she’d been wearing an American flag fanny pack.
Honestly, she should’ve looked weird.
But goddamn, she didn’t.
She looked fuckin’ magical.
Like no fuckin’ joke, if I could get my mind out of the gutter after seeing her, I definitely wouldn’t be where I was at that moment in time.
And her words from the night of the storm kept replaying through my mind. I’m a bad catch. Nobody wants me. I’m a fuckin’ weirdo.
Though that night I had contradicted all of those things that she’d said, the more I thought about her saying them, the more upset that I got. To the point that I’d contemplated walking over here a hundred thousand times.
But seeing her dressed like my wet dream? That’d been my final straw.
Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 9) Page 4