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A while passes where all I can do is just watch her.
The way she plays with her hair when she’s focused, how she twirls some strands around her finger and slow tugs, the gentle smile that pulls up her lips when she’s focused on something she enjoys — like any time she talks about her paper, or the aspects of being a pharmacist that she’s looking forward to the most once she gets her degree, or any time Charlie does something cute, which is pretty much all the fucking time — and how she chews her lip when she’s dealing with a vexing problem.
I could do this all day.
Just watch this woman and think about how, not long ago, I’d be asking myself: am I really thinking about settling down and what the fuck is wrong with me? And how, now, I look at her and think: damn, how lucky am I?
We haven’t even fucked, or kissed, and who the fuck knows, she may not feel exactly the same way about me as I do about her — which wouldn’t surprise me, she’s still so damn young compared to me, both in years and mileage — but even having her around to help is incredible. This woman makes a new life possible.
Damn, how lucky am I?
Real fucking lucky.
I get an urge then. It hits me hard and fast — I need to tell her, to talk to her, because holding these things back when someone like Moretti and his men are skulking around means I could die with regrets — and, at first, it’s so strong it sends me for a walk around the block. My heart palpitates, my breath comes shallow and rapid, and I bounce Charlie in his papoose while he looks up at me with questioning eyes. What the fuck are you waiting for, old man?
“This is big, little man,” I say. “Huge.”
He burps.
“Yeah, I got no idea why it’s got me so shook. I mean, I’ve been shot at how many times? Nearly died twice, too. I’ll tell you those stories when you’re older. But the question is: why am I waiting? I mean, how lucky am I that I’ve got her around? I need to tell her.”
We walk the block a few times while Charlie stares at me with the wide-eyed enrapturement of a four-month-old who has no idea why his caretaker is freaking out over a woman — practically a girl, considering her age — who fits so easily in his life and makes him feel so damn good.
Because, if I fuck this up, Charlie, we’ll lose that damn good woman.
Eventually, he calms me down, because he’s a smart kid. Somehow, we’re related.
I get back to the pharmacy and stand in the parking lot for a moment, eyeing Emily through the window and feeling like a weak-kneed teenager about to bare his soul to his high school crush. If only the guys in my old unit could see me now, they’d have a fucking fit.
Step by step, I start towards the door.
Enough waiting. It’s time Emily and I had a talk. Got the truth out in the open.
As I pass by her car, something catches my eye and I come to a full stop.
I turn. Carved into the paint of Emily’s car are the words Ur dead bitch.
My eyes go wide and I put my hand over Charlie’s — as much to protect him from the poor grammar as anything else.
One thing is clear: Moretti’s men are close.
“Well, little man, it looks like we’ll be getting back at the man who took your dad away real soon.”
No sooner do those words leave my mouth than my phone rings.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emily
“Em, you’ve been staring at that same screen for the last ten minutes. Do you need some help?”
I shouldn’t. It’s a basic patient records form, and I’m only updating our patient’s address and adding one medication — a short course of tetracycline — to his history. This is basic stuff, and it’s handwritten on the paper in front of me, but I can’t get my brain to move the information from the paper to the keyboard to the screen.
Because, in the back of my brain, warning bells are ringing; I may not be able to see Jay right now, but I can feel him. It feels the same way my body does right before I come down with a cold: everything feels vaguely wrong, and I just know that the day is going to be terrible. Once or twice I see a shadow that I think is his and I reach toward my cellphone to call the police and report him for violating the restraining order, but then that shadow turns out to be a seventy-year-old woman who absolutely isn’t a threat and just wants to know if she can take antacids along with her blood pressure medication. She can.
“I’m fine, Maggie, thanks,” I say. “Just have a headache. It was a rough night.”
“Oh?”
