“I have dog treats at my place,” she stage-whispered to Sarge. “They’re really for Cocoa, my neighbor’s dog, but you can have one when we get there.”
Pretending I hadn’t heard that, I intentionally broke my gaze from hers and chose to look down at my plate.
“Ann is really nice,” she said.
Not following her line of thought, I lifted an eyebrow in question.
“Ranger Diden,” she clarified, looking at me like I was supposed to have known that.
Yes, I knew her first name was Ann, but we all usually called each other by last names, especially since we had two Johns, two Amys, and two Davids.
“She taught me so much about the history of the park, and I love the topography maps you guys have on display,” she said while taking her glasses off and wiping them with her shirt.
I stopped paying attention to what she was saying at that point. Pulling the hem of her T-shirt down from the bottom to wipe her glasses effectively caused the fabric to slide lower across her chest. As she leaned forward a bit, I suddenly had a clear shot of quite possibly the best pair of tits I had ever seen—and I was only seeing part of them.
“Don’t you think so?” she asked, startling me out of my deep gaze.
Thankfully, Iris’s gaze had been on her food when I looked up, so she hadn’t noticed my staring.
Having no idea what she was talking about, I chose to reroute by not answering.
“I’m glad you had fun. Diden likes giving tours. It’s her favorite part of the job.”
“I could tell, and I’m happy to have benefitted from it,” she said, now smiling up at me. “She asked me about the break-in. She seemed really concerned. She also asked me a bunch of questions about Steve’s letter. She offered again for me to stay with her. Apparently, she was a big collegiate wrestler and won a state championship or something.”
I hadn’t known that, but then again, I didn’t exactly try to get to know my colleagues outside of work. I knew Diden was probably just trying to be nice and offer protection for Iris, but if she needed to stay somewhere other than her own place, she would be staying with me. I didn’t know why I had this overly acute sense of protection when it came to her, but I did.
Sarge whined loudly next to her, giving his best effort to con her into sliding him a fry.
Instead, she just leaned down to kiss him on the top of his head and scratch behind his ears. In return, he leaned up to lick her face, effectively getting slobber on her glasses.
“I just cleaned these, buddy,” she sighed, taking them off to clean them again.
Not wanting to risk getting a hard-on—again—at lunch from watching her shirt slide down—also again—Ichose to get up and dispose of my food tray and throw my trash out.
Fifteen minutes later, we were at her apartment complex. We swung by the front desk first to get the new key the apartment manager was supposed to leave for her.
She walked in to get it, but when she came out and slid into my car, she looked defeated.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as she hopped back into my SUV, and Sarge immediately sniffed her from the back seat as if she had been on the most exciting adventure in the four minutes she was out of the car. “Sarge, leave her alone.”
“Apparently, the maintenance supervisor had a family emergency, so he won’t be able to change my door lock until tomorrow,” she said, sighing.
Well, shit. There was no way I was letting her stay at her place until they replaced the lock. Was the same person likely to come back? No. But I also didn’t want to take that chance, especially since she lived alone and didn’t have any other form of backup security.
“You can go ahead and pull around,” she said to me, looking down at her phone. “I need to pull up the schedule and see what shifts Leah and Christine are working, because I don’t want to stay with one of them if they’re on the overnight shift.”
I should have nodded and let it go. That would be a better idea—a safer idea. But I found myself needing to be the one to make sure she was safe and covered.
“We’ll go to your place and grab some more clothes,and you can stay with me again tonight,” I told her, even though I knew this definitely wouldn’t be easy on me. But it would be easier on her, and that mattered more to me than my own discomfort.
“Hector, you’ve already let me stay with you one night. I don’t want to be a burden or overstay my welcome.”
“Iris, I wouldn’t have offered in the first place if I wasn’t okay with it.”
She stared up at me, trying to gauge my sincerity or perhaps to decide whether she even wanted to stay with me another night. “Okay. Thank you. I know it’s highly unlikely, but if this really was a targeted break-in, I don’t want to take the chance they could break into Leah’s or Christine’s places too.”
She turned to me, her hands twisting in her lap, and rushed to add, “Not that I want you to be a target either…It’s just that…well, you can protect yourself better.”
