“Has the media been here at all since you got home?”
“They showed up this evening,” I say. “They left after my landlord, who also happens to be my next-door neighbor, got home and told them to go away.” I don’t tell him about Tom threatening to shoot them. I don’t want him in trouble or want to blow his cover if he is in Witness Protection.
“I should have thought about them showing up here.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” I shrug before wrapping my arms around my middle. “I’m not sure if you know; I talked to Detective Frank before I left the hospital. I already gave him my statement.”
“I know,” he says, and I nod then nibble my bottom lip, wondering why he’s here if he knows his partner already talked to me. “Wanted to come check on you myself, make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” I reply quickly, hoping he will feel like his job is done after seeing I’m good and leave.
“All your lights are on,” he points out, and I look to where he’s looking and see he’s not wrong; every light in my place is on, including the little one over the stove.
“What are you doing?” I ask his back as he starts across the room.
“What are you watching?” he asks, not answering my question as he takes a seat on my couch.
I look at the television and point out unnecessarily, “Cake Boss.”
“Got any beer?”
I blink at him then look around to make sure I haven’t somehow found myself in a new dimension. “Beer?”
“Or scotch?”
“Does this look like a bar to you?”
“No.” His lips twitch.
“Okay then. No, I don’t have beer or scotch.”
“Water?”
Oh my God, what the hell is going on?
“Why are you here?”
“I know what you saw last night,” he says quietly, and my body gets tight. “I know how going through something like that can fuck with your head.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” he states, still talking quietly. “You don’t need to be alone right now.”
He’s probably right about that, but between being alone and being with him, I choose being alone.
“I’m fine.”
“Every light in this place being lit says otherwise.” He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and testing the boundaries of the shirt he’s wearing as his muscles flex. “You wanna talk about it?”
“No,” I answer immediately. I don’t want to talk about what happened, because I don’t want the memories to come back to the surface. I know it’s not healthy, but I’m hoping if I don’t talk about it or think about what I went through, the memories will just fade away.
“All right, we don’t need to talk. We can watch some TV and hang out for a while. When I know you’re good, I’ll go.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m really okay,” I say, wondering if he feels obligated to look after me because he’s a cop.
“You look about ready to fall over.”
My eyes narrow on his. “Are you telling me I look like crap?”
“You’re beautiful, darlin’. Still, you look tired,” he tells me gently, and my stomach knots at the word beautiful. “Come sit down.”
I glance at my couch that is not very big but looks even smaller with him sitting in the middle of it. “You’re sitting in the middle,” I tell him.
He gives me a strange grin then moves over to the cushion, next to the arm. “Better?”
No, it’s not, since he’s still sitting on my couch and still in my house, where I have to look at him. My couch could be big enough to fit an entire football team and it still wouldn’t be big enough.
Understanding he’s not going to leave, I go to the fridge and grab two bottles of water before going back to the couch, and then hand him one as I take a seat. “I’m really okay to be on my own.”
“Sure you are,” he agrees, like he knows I’m lying.
I don’t respond. I pull my legs up under me and stare at the television, trying to ignore the fact that Cobi Mayson is sitting on my couch, something that is really flipping hard to do. His presence feels like it’s suffocating me, his masculine scent even from a few feet away, assaulting me and making me want to lean closer to dissect it.
“Your car is in police impound.” At his words, I turn to look at him. “There are a few dents, but nothing major. It’s still drivable. I’d have brought it back to you myself, but you have to be the one to sign it out.” He would have brought it to me? Why would he do that? Just like, why did he send clothes for me to leave the hospital in, and why is he here now? “You can pick it up anytime.”
“I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
“You got a ride to get it, or do you need one?”
“I have a ride,” I say, knowing Brie who I also work with will be more than willing to pick me up in the morning for work and then I can take a cab to get it in the afternoon. “Thanks for letting me know about it. I spaced that I didn’t even have it here.”
“No problem, and I get that. You’ve got a lot on your mind. I’m sure you would have remembered sooner or later.”
“Yeah, like tomorrow when I was walking out of the house to go to work, which would have been too late to remember,” I say jokingly.
He stares at me with a strange look in his eyes, then rumbles, “You’re going to work tomorrow?”
“Yes.” I frown at his tone.
“Do you think that’s smart?”
“Since I have bills to pay, I think it is,” I respond, and his jaw clenches.
“I think you need to take a couple days before you get back to work.”
“And like I told you earlier, I’m fine.”
“Hadley, you were in the hospital last night with a concussion. You got stitches in your forehead and bruising that I can’t see but know is there just by the way you’re holding yourself. You need to take a couple days to recover before you go back to work.”
“Since it’s me who was in the hospital, and me who has bruising, I’m the one who knows what I am and am not capable of, and I’m going back to work tomorrow.”
“Are you always so fucking stubborn?”
Yes.
“Fuck, you are always this stubborn. You don’t even have to say it for me to know.”
“You don’t know me, Cobi,” I point out, and his eyes darken when his name leaves my mouth, that darkness making a few parts of me light up in a way they never have before.
“I will.”
What the hell does that mean?
“I need to go to bed.” I stand, grabbing the remote and turning the TV off. “Thanks for coming to check on me.”
“Hadley.” I walk toward the door then look at him when he says my name. “Stop, I’ll be cool. Just come sit down.”
“I’m tired.” It’s not a lie; I’m exhausted. I just don’t know that I will be able to fall asleep when I get into bed. “I’m going to bed. I appreciate you coming, but you can go now.”