After Hours (InterMix)(37)
“My sister did,” I said, praying it was true. “Everything’s under control. Quit hassling me about it.”
He stepped close and I let him take the ice pack away. He squinted at my bruise, and I studied his eyes. They were nearly a color today, a frozen lake reflecting a clear blue—
“Ahhh, ow.” I fidgeted as he pressed my brow bone, the spot tender.
“You break anything?” Press, press, press.
“I don’t think so. But my head might explode if you keep poking me.” He let me go and gave me back the ice pack. I nearly missed his body when he stepped away. Reeling and tired, I tried a joke. “Think this’ll earn me some cred with the residents?”
He smiled. My heart suddenly felt as swollen and bruised as my face.
“Want me to lie for you?” he asked. “Tell everyone you got that shiner doing something tough, on the ward?”
I wandered past him and found a marker in the drawer. I wiped lunch off-campus from beside my name and wrote general in its place. “Nah. I’ll seem more badass if I leave it a mystery.”
He followed me into the hall. “I will get you to tell me who this guy is.”
Holding the pack in place, I shot him a one-eyed glare as the keypad beeped. I pushed in the stairwell door. “I’m a grown-ass woman.”
“And some shit who calls himself a man gave you a black eye.”
I stopped short on the landing between floors. He was two steps behind me, and our faces were nearly level. “What are you gonna do if I tell you, Kelly? Hunt him down and beat the crap out of him?”
“Likely.”
“Which’ll solve what?”
“More than some slap on the wrist from the cops, if I know the type.”
“Well you don’t. You don’t know me or my sister or her problems. You don’t know anything about us, so butt out. We don’t need rescuing.” Amber did, but that was my job. Today hadn’t been my finest moment, granted, but if any dog was going to snarl and bark and bite on her behalf, it was this bitch. Guys only ever made things worse.
When we reached the third floor, Kelly said, “Lemme take you out for a drink after work.”
I sighed, pausing with my keycard in hand. Did I really want to sit on a stool in some dive, with my knee touching Kelly’s, and numb myself with a drink and a big reassuring wall of muscle? Yeah, a little. But no way in hell did I think it was smart. Over my shoulder I said, “I’ve seen plenty of you already this week, off the clock.”
“So see some more.”
“Quit trying to save me.”
“Who said I was?”
I tapped my card to the lock and pushed in the door, aiming myself down the hall to the ward.
“You really wanna head to bed after the second half of your shift, look at yourself in a mirror and try to fall asleep, thinking about all this shit? Come out for a drink.”
I punched the code to let us into the deserted lounge. “No.”
I marched toward the rec room to find Jenny and catch up with my duties, to get lost in all the details that wouldn’t allow me to think about anything else. About Amber or Marco or Kelly Robak.
“I’ll meet you at my truck at seven twenty,” Kelly said.
Just before I veered off for the nurses’ booth, I mouthed a f*ck off in his direction.
And damn him to hell, he smiled. “Seven twenty it is.”
* * *
The cops from Amber’s town called me around four, and one of them came out to Larkhaven and I gave him my statement in the staff parking lot, where he took a couple of digital photos of my ripening bruise. I hoped something would come of it. Anything. But even if the system was in our favor, I didn’t trust Amber to not suddenly drop charges.
At least work was quiet. And at least I had the next day off. During Saturday shifts we didn’t have to do any inventory, which saved a ton of time. Kelly and a couple of other orderlies were escorting some of the Starling residents to the campus chapel, one of the rare opportunities the men got for a field trip. I’m sure the change of scenery motivated them far more than a chance to get good with the Lord, but then again, living in a locked ward, a few minutes’ fresh air and sunshine were probably a damn-near religious experience. And praise Jesus for an hour free of Kelly Robak.
Once the last meds of the shift were distributed and my notes logged, Jenny told me to go ahead and keep an eye on things in the rec room. The subtext being, You’re a mess. Go watch TV with the patients until hand-off.