“Nope. This makes my day.”
I shook my head. “Please don’t tell anyone about my status.”
“Never - you know that.”
I heard the cry of her baby, Felicity. “I’ll let you go, you’re a great friend and you’ve been a huge help, Simone. I miss you and can’t wait to see your little girl again!”
“It was no problem, and I’ll be back in Jacksonville in a few weeks…but you’ll probably still be in Gainesville.”
“I’ll do my best to make it up there. Take care,” I said, and ended the call.
With my phone in hand, I pulled up the contact for Ines’s Mom. It went straight to voicemail. I left a message asking how Ines was doing, and asked her to text or call me when she had time.
My backpack sat next to an armchair in the living room. I unzipped it to grab my laptop and headed back to the kitchen table where my notes were. The conversation with Simone had helped me more than I’d thought it would, since I was able to focus on my studies.
A knock sounded at the door and I glanced up at the microwave, surprised to see three hours had passed. Rafferty had mentioned bringing back food, so it was too early for it to be him, but maybe he’d changed his mind.
I opened the doorbell app on my phone, saw footage of someone dropping off a package and leaving. Normally I would wait to grab the package, but the delivery reminded me of Friday evening when Ines told me she’d ordered her favorite perfume that was on sale and she didn’t want it sitting out in the sun.
I opened the door. As I straightened from grabbing the box, Porter moved in front of me from the right (which was out of range for the doorbell camera), as though he’d been waiting against the wall.
“Don’t freak out. I’m here to apologize,” he said, stepping forward.
I held up the box. “Stop right there, Porter.”
“Lexi, it’s almost ninety degrees out here. I got limited time since I’m on my lunch break.”
I wanted to tell him to stop calling me Lexi, but I shook my head instead. “No, you aren’t coming inside. You apologized. Now leave.”
“You don’t even know what I’m sorry for.”
I set the box on a nearby endtable. “It doesn’t matter, Porter. You told the cops that I was responsible for the accident. That’s going entirely too far.”
His head tilted just a touch. “That’s not what I said. Let me inside.”
I shook my head and pushed the door to close it.
“Typical stubborn bitch move. You should have listened, Lexi,” he said, then rushed toward me, grabbing my biceps and kicking the door closed behind him once he was inside.
I lunged backward, which freed my arms. My hope was that he’d move into the living room. If he did that, I could bolt out the door and run down the breezeway to the manager’s unit.
Unfortunately, Porter trudged closer to me and I had to switch my plan.
A naïve part of me thought he just wanted to say sorry, but every instinctive alarm bell was going off in my head.
“Brantley tells me you’re a virgin.” He shook his head at himself. “How is that even possible? Your daddy’s a biker. I can’t imagine nobody’s gone there with a hot piece of ass like you.”
“Get out,” I said, my tone steely as hell.
He chuckled. “Sweetie, you haven’t even heard me out. I had to wait an hour for your ‘friend’ to leave.”
“How do you know that?”
He smirked. “I have my ways.”
I had slowly backed my way to the kitchen.
Rafferty’s dad had told me I needed a gun - now I wished I had listened. The small of my back hit the kitchen counter.
