The kid was yanked down with the body but quickly got back up and ran to her mother.
The mother who was busy trying to keep another child out of another kidnapper’s clutches.
I arrived just in time to snake my arm around his neck and choke him out.
The man let go of the kid quickly and started to clutch at his neck.
Most people in this particular situation didn’t stop to think. Didn’t plan out how to get away. No stomping on the insole of someone’s foot. No using the elbow that was close enough to use. Nope, they panicked. Just like this guy was doing.
It helped that I was at least a foot taller, and probably a hundred pounds heavier than him. So there wasn’t much fighting he could actually do at this point.
The moment he stopped fighting, I dropped him to the ground, too.
He landed with a meaty thump right beside the stunned mother.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, but I didn’t spare her the time or my attention.
I backed away and looked around to make sure that I’d gotten them all.
“You missed one.” Belle absently reared back and kicked the one I’d punched in the back of the head. The man slumped back to the ground, unconscious all over again.
I looked backward and grinned. “Thanks.”
CHAPTER 6
Never ask a woman who’s eating ice cream straight from the carton how she’s doing.
-Pro tip
BRUNO
“Looks good as new, Bruno,” the doctor informed me as he patted my chest.
I patted my chest where my pacemaker—the new one I’d just gotten a few months ago—lay underneath my chest.
It didn’t feel weird to me anymore.
Hadn’t since I had first gotten it when I was fifteen.
But it still looked weird as fuck.
“I can return to regular exercise?” I asked.
I’d already returned, but it was good to make sure, just in case.
“Yes, sir,” Dr. Haygood responded. “Just don’t be dumb.”
I rolled my eyes.
I wasn’t going to be dumb. At least not on purpose anyway.
After offering my hand and settling my bill, I walked out into the hallway and nearly ran right over a pacing brunette female.
My heart skipped a beat when the woman—Belle—jumped back like she’d been burned.
“Oh.” She placed her hand over her heart. “What are you doing here?”
She looked at the sign behind me that read ‘Dr. Lawrence Haygood, Cardiologist’ and raised her eyebrow.
I patted my chest. “I have a pacemaker.”
Her head tilted. “I realize that young people need them, but I didn’t realize that you had one. You don’t look sick.”
I shrugged. “I’m not. Anymore. But I was at one point in time. I got one when I was fifteen.”
Her brows rose. “Interesting. You never would know.”
I shrugged.
“What are you doing here?” I countered.
She crinkled up her nose.
“Well,” she hesitated. “I need to see a gynecologist. My yearly was due about three years ago. You know how I am with touch?” She looked at me as if I would understand. And I did. If regular touch was bad for her, then what must a touch like that be like? Torture, likely.
“I do,” I confirmed.
“Well,” she hesitated again. “I made this appointment months ago and forgot about it. The only problem is, I really need one. Three years is too long. And then I found out that the doctor is someone I know. So now I’m out here weighing the pros and cons of going inside.”
I frowned. “Someone you know?”
She winced. “Benji. My date that stood me up. Kind of. He’s the gynecologist.”
Understanding dawned. “Yeah, I’d totally skip that one.”
She sighed in frustration.
“I would. I really would. But my periods have gotten so heavy over the last six months that I think I need to see someone about them. Get something for them. Anything, really. It brings me down for like days every month now. And everyone else in the area is either booked solid for a half a year, or they’re a woman. And I don’t do women.”
“You don’t?” I wondered.
She shrugged. “I think it’s a man’s firmer touch that I’m more okay with. Women tend to have delicate touches. Which weird me out.”
That I sort of somewhat understood.
“So go.” I paused.
“You would?” she asked.
I thought about that for a moment and then shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like you have much of a choice, do you? You either go, or you don’t.”
Belle grinned. “So you can go with me… right?”
• • •
I wasn’t sure why I’d gone to her doctor appointment with her.
I’d known what it was for, and honestly, I would’ve probably been more inclined to stay outside had the man that wouldn’t take no for an answer not been her doctor. Apparently, over the last few days that had passed since the bar incident, Benji hadn’t taken a hint. He’d only tried all the harder to make up for his mistakes.
The man that had missed his date, called to apologize a few hours later, and gotten told in no uncertain terms by Belle that he was rude and needed to learn proper phone etiquette skills. She then refused to answer every call after that.
And, just like me, that attitude had turned the doctor on, and now he wouldn’t take the hint that Belle wasn’t interested.
That had to be why I’d tagged along to a gynecologist appointment.
Had to be.
There couldn’t be any other reason.
It was as we were sitting in the waiting room that I realized what, exactly, a ‘pap smear’ entailed.
“I’m not sure I should go in with you,” I admitted. “We barely know each other.”
And this would be incredibly awkward.
“Just stay behind my head. There’s a draped sheet. There’s nothing that can be seen from that end.” She paused. “My dad had to go with me to my first appointment. For some reason I was in such a frantic state about it when I first went that nobody but my dad would do. I realized after the fact that it wasn’t that bad, but yeah. My dad is my go-to in situations that freak me out.”
That had to be awkward.
“How old were you?” I asked curiously.
Before she could answer, her name was being called.
And before I could try to get out of going in all over again, she grasped me by the fingers—her whole hand fit around two of my fingers—and pulled.
She was surprisingly strong, and though I could’ve protested, I didn’t.
I stayed with her and all but dragged my feet all the way into the exam room.
“What’s that look for?” she asked as she started to strip her shoes and socks off.
I shook my head, something weird forming in my stomach when I saw her bare toes.
They weren’t painted like normal girls.
They were multiple colors. And some weren’t painted at all.
They were cute. And I’d never in my life thought toes were cute before.
But there I was, thinking it.
“You sure don’t talk much, do you?” she asked.