After Hours (InterMix)(44)
Yet even with my surrender now a firmly adopted course of action, I still couldn’t bring myself to go after him. It didn’t feel right.
After all, what kind of a chase would that be?
* * *
Kelly finally cornered me just after Wednesday’s hand-off meeting. The shift had ended on a sour note, when Lonnie goaded John B. into a major manic episode, so bad we had to settle him with lorazepam and usher him off to meet with one of the docs. I’d grown nearly fond of Lonnie the last couple of days, and now all I could do was shake my head, a matronly gesture I realized mid-lament that I’d picked up from Jenny. Jeez, that hadn’t taken long. Might as well cave and order my beige orthopedic hoof-shoes from the medical supply company. The transformation had begun.
When the meeting wrapped and people started filing down the stairs, Kelly clasped my wrist discreetly and muttered, “Talk to me after you sign out.”
The hairs rose along the back of my neck, signaling danger, but I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t just a little bit pleased. Just a gigantic bit turned-on.
He released my hand and we headed slowly for the door. “What about?”
“We both got two days off.”
I tapped my keycard to the panel. “That we do.”
“What’re you doing, tomorrow and Friday?”
I could’ve lied. Could’ve told him I’d promised to watch Jack, put off my inevitable surrender another week or more. But the end of that shift had sucked. I was exhausted and frustrated, and weirdly, turning myself over to Kelly sounded heavenly. No spa day, to be sure, but get me out of these scrubs. Get the insurance codes out of my skull and lock me in the custody of a man so solid and alert that I could quit jerking my head at every sudden noise, quit counting the paces and seconds it’d take to prep a syringe and jab a raging patient. Keep me away from Amber’s problems before I caved yet again, deciding it was my job to tackle them.
Sorry, imagined telling her. Can’t fix your life for you this week. Promised I’d f*ck this guy from work.
“I’m not doing a thing,” I told Kelly.
He paused before the keypad at the bottom of the steps, just the two of us in the stairwell. “Come over.”
“Okay.”
I had to laugh at his reaction, such obvious surprise. “Were you anticipating more of a struggle?”
“Yeah.”
“Was that no fun for you, my giving in so easily?”
“I’ll show you what fun is for me,” he said, looking me up and down. “Tomorrow, after lunch. Two o’clock. I’ll pick you up.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll drive myself.” No way I was stranding myself at Kelly’s for an entire weekend. He could talk me into bed against my better judgment. Surely he could talk his way out of giving me a lift home just as easily, prolonging my shift as his sex slave. I needed some kind of escape hatch. Some semblance of free will.
We went back to pretending to just be coworkers, waiting until everyone else from our shift signed out and exchanged good-nights. As he wiped his name from the board, Kelly muttered his address to me, then his phone number. I scribbled both on a Post-it branded with an antipsychotic drug logo, and we exited without another word.
The entire walk across campus, I thought I could sense something at my heels, stalking me. I half expected to feel Kelly’s arm lock around my waist as he toppled me to the ground like a wounded gazelle. But nothing.
A quick glance at my online bank balance told me my first check had cleared. It was literally the largest chunk of money I’d ever received at one time, and it made me giggle with relief.
At twenty-eight, I finally felt like an adult. With a steady job and a livable salary.
I’d had a rough childhood, and grown up quicker than most. I’d earned a certificate and nursed my grandma through her final years, tackled her funeral arrangements. Those occasions had brought relief, too—proud relief and guilty relief, respectively—but I’d not arrived at those moments feeling like I’d had much control over my journey. I’d bumbled my way across the finish lines, exhausted and reeling. I’d survived them. But looking at the number in my deposits column . . . I’d fought for this. I’d done the best job I could and been compensated fairly. This, I’d earned.
To celebrate, I drove to the grocery store and bought some proper food, plus a minifridge, since we weren’t allowed to keep alcohol in the common kitchen, what with so many of the residents being in recovery. Sitting at my desk with a can of beer and a turkey sandwich, I glanced around my little room, thinking this wouldn’t cut it for long.