Meet Me Halfway(18)

Layla cracked her door as I passed, her half-lidded, mascara-smeared eyes watching me. “I’ll deal with Rug, you go ahead and go.” Her voice was rough with sleep, and I instantly felt guilty for waking her up.

“Are you sure?”

“I was planning on taking Sadie to a dog park I found. I’ll bring Rug along with us. It’s fine.”

“She’d like that.” I moved again, then paused, looking back at her. “Are you still good with hanging out with Jamie tonight, or should I drop him at my parents?”

“Nope, we’re good. Now go before you get fired and have to take up hooking to pay the bills.”

I ran toward the door, flipping her off behind my head as I went.





“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you with your hair pulled up. I almost forgot how cute your ears are.”

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and praying to every deity of every religion to give me the patience to deal with this fool today. I hated it when anyone talked about my ears, but especially when he did.

My ears weren’t big by any means, but they stuck out from my head rather than lay flat. I didn’t use to care until my ex made a habit of referring to them as handlebars. I had a feeling Rob would be the kind of man to do the same.

I was currently standing at the copy machine on his side of the building because we didn’t have a machine capable of copying multiple sheets at the same time on our side yet. I’d been begging Evaline to get one so I wouldn’t have to come over here, but she didn’t want to until all the construction was done.

Keeping my back to Rob, I continued working, hoping if I ignored him he’d get the hint and walk away. The only consolation I had was that we were standing in the middle of the hallway so at least he wouldn’t try to touch me. Should I have known better at this point? Probably.

His thick fingers slid against the shell of my right ear and instant panic set in, making me flinch away and twist toward him. His eyes flared; his hand still outstretched.

Fuck, I hated reacting like that in front of people, it made me feel weak and stupid. And if there was anything I did not want to appear like in front of someone like Rob, it was weak and stupid.

The feeling of not having control over your body or emotions was one of the most humiliating and debilitating experiences. And one of the hardest to overcome.

“Please don’t touch my ears, Mr. Spencer.” Stepping back up to the copier, I grabbed my pages and shuffled them into a neat stack. I hadn’t finished, but I’d just do the rest one at a time on our small printer.

“I was only playing around, darlin’. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He smiled at me like my reaction to his touch was adorable.

“I would prefer it if you didn’t touch me.”

His smile fell, and he pulled back a little, flattening his lips and giving me a stiff nod. “All right. Well, I have your guard uniform in my office. Jim forgot to ask your size, but I’m pretty sure I ordered the right one.”

Because that wasn’t creepy as hell or anything. “I need to finish what I’m working on, can you set them in my box, and I’ll grab them later?”

His jaw flexed, and the skin around his eyes creased. He wanted to argue, I could see it in every inch of his posture, but someone, somewhere, smiled down on me. “Sure. Swing by and talk to Jim on your way down, he’s wanting you to shadow Saturday.”

My grip tightened on the pages, digging the edges into my palms. “This Saturday?”

“Why, do you have plans?”

I turned, ignoring his question, “I’ll talk to Jim about it, thanks.” He muttered a reply, but I was already halfway down the hall.

After confirming with Jim that he did, indeed, want me to take a six-hour training shift on Saturday, I ventured back to the alarm side of the building ninja style and found the uniform tucked into my box. Taking it into the bathroom, I tried it on so I could let him know if it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t decide if it was convenient or disturbing that it fit perfectly.





My day had drastically improved after lunch. I’d finished everything on my calendar, completed and aced a quiz during my lunch break, and since Evaline was out of the office for the afternoon, not a single soul bothered me. Solitude was the key to my heart some days.

Right at three o’clock, I was pulling out of my work parking lot, singing out of tune with the radio, and trying to hype myself up about my waitressing shift that night.

My schedule was insane but consistent. Monday through Friday, I worked for Evaline from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon. Friday night through Sunday night, I worked at a restaurant in town known for its chicken wings and beer. My shifts there started around four in the evening and ended whenever we closed, usually around midnight or one in the morning.

The hour in-between shifts gave me just enough time to grab Jamie from school, drop him off at my parents’ house, and change clothes before heading right back out.

On Sunday mornings, I worked another six-hour shift at a shipping company for a man named Ken, inputting driver timesheets and processing the week’s payroll. All of it added up to over sixty hours. That wasn’t taking into account any guard shifts I might occasionally pick up as well.

I was still a few minutes away from the school when my phone rang with an incoming call. I glanced down at the screen to see the caller ID showing Jamie’s school. Shit.