At the exit, Ally waits with a jacket draped over her arm and a to-go cup from the bakery in her hand.“Oh thank God,” she breathes, rushing forward to hug me.“I was about to smuggle you out myself.”
Ledger shoots her a look.“No you weren’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I was or wasn’t about to do,” she snaps back, but the worry in her eyes softens the bite.
She wraps the jacket around my shoulders, helping me ease my arms into it.“Cold out there,” she murmurs, adjusting the hood.“And you’re too pale.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, touched by her concern.
Ledger opens the exit door and steps out first, scanning the parking lot like a soldier clearing a battlefield.
Ally leans toward me.“He’s been like this all night,” she whispers.“Every noise in the hallway?Hand on his gun.Every doctor walking by?Death stare.I thought they were going to ban him from the building.”
I glance at Ledger and make out the outline of the firearm under his shirt at the waistband of his jeans.I didn’t notice it before.Granted I’ve had a lot on my mind.
Yeah.I can see it.He’s tense, coiled, dangerous.But not toward me.
Toward the world.Toward whatever or whoever took my memory.
“I don’t think he slept,” Ally adds softly.
“Me either.”
We reach the doors, and the cold air hits my face.Riot steps closer, not touching, but close enough that his body heat brushes the side of my arm.
His voice drops to something low and protective.“We go straight to the truck.Eyes up.Tell me if anything feels off.”
“Off?”I echo.
“Like someone watchin’,” he explains without hesitation.“Like a tail.Like a shadow that ain’t supposed to be there.”
A tremor runs up my spine.
“Riot,” Ally says, crossing her arms, “maybe don’t scare her within the first sixty seconds of discharge?”
Riot, I search my mind trying to understand why Ally calls him that.I feel like I should know and yet, I don’t.
He doesn’t apologize.He doesn’t even look sorry.He’s in guard-dog mode, and no amount of chastising is going to shake him out of it.
The truck he leads us to isn’t his bike, thank God, but a black pickup with a lift and dark-tint windows.It looks like a well-cared for work truck.He’s always wearing his leather vest which is why I half expected him to bring his motorcycle.It’s clear he’s in a club, Kings of Anarchy according to the patches.
I don’t ask what he does for a living.
Ledger opens the passenger door and offers a hand.“Up you go.”
The chivalry of it shouldn’t affect me.But something tightens in my chest, something warm.Something like déjà vu.
“I can get in on my own,” I remark.
He raises one brow.“Sure.Or you can let me help so you don’t bust your ass.”
Ally snickers behind me.I glare weakly at both of them.
But I let him help.His hands bracket my waist lightly, just enough to guide me up without putting pressure on the bruises along my ribs.
The second his hands touch me, the world tilts.
Not in the concussion way.In the this feels natural, almost like home kind of way.
