He extended his hand out to wrap around my wrist. “Text me when you get there.” His heavy eyes stayed on me the entire time. “There’s a spare key under the garden gnome in the front yard.”
Ahh, that would explain the garden gnome’s existence. He’d seemed so out of place in the plants that hadn’t been tended to in way too long.
“Will do.” Taking a few steps back toward my car, I wiggled my fingers at him. “Be safe.”
~ * ~ *
I tried to tell myself that there was nothing to be mad at.
I did.
I shouldn’t have been worried that Dex hadn't come home that night, that he never texted me after I messaged him that I made it to his house. He was a big boy. He could do whatever he wanted.
I swear, I really tried not to be mad, but I was.
Falling asleep on the couch was nothing new. Being paranoid that someone would break into the house that was in the middle of nowhere—without a friggin’ alarm!— was too much. I kept envisioning those men who had taken Sonny showing up. When that disaster ended, I'd start thinking of serial killers with masks on breaking a window and killing me, and then flaying my skin off to mount on their wall. Dramatic? Maybe a little.
So maybe my lack of sleep was part of the reason why I was so annoyed—not mad—that Dex hadn’t made it back. Or texted me.
I'd sent him another message that he didn’t respond to.
Feeling weird being at his house by myself and not wanting to deal with it any longer, I left a note on top of his dining room table telling him that I was going to run some errands. First, I stopped at the YMCA and swam as many laps as I could push through. Then I ended up going to the mall and bought new pants and a couple of shirts so that I wouldn’t be walking around worrying about clean cardigans that covered what my tank tops didn't. After that, I watched another movie and went to work.
Almost immediately, I regretted making it in.
I'd been in the middle of trying to look up videos on how to fix the thermo fax when a little hussy—I say little but she easily had three or four inches on me while I probably had about five pounds on her—appeared. She came inwearinga mini-skirt that looked like something made for someone my height—or a ten year old’s—and thick red hair that made me a little jealous. And she was carrying a vest that looked familiar.
Her thin, pretty face pinched into a scowl when she stopped in front of my desk, looking at me through the dark tint of her huge sunglasses. “I need to drop this off for Dex.”
“All right,” I told her, already extending my arms out to take it as my annoyance factor went up about twenty degrees.
“He left this at my house last night,” she added. Why she mentioned that I had no idea.
Why I felt a twitch at my eye, I had no idea either.
I just blinked at her, taking the vest from her hands before I stood up, my stomach fluttering. “All right.”
“All right,” she repeated in a low voice. “Later.”
And just like that she was gone.
Then, just like that I got even more annoyed.
I’d sat there worrying about goddamn Dex doing something stupid to help us out with the Reapers, while in the meantime he was off at some woman’s house? I swear even my butthole tensed up in frustration as I carried Dex’s jacket to the back and hung it up on a chair in the break room.
I knew it wasn’t worth the effort worrying about a grown ass man like Dex. I knew it, but still, I’d lost sleep over it. Asshole.
“Skylerbothersthe fuck out of me, too.”
I turned around to see Blake standing at the doorway to the room, hands shoved into his pockets. “You know when you meet someone and you’re immediately annoyed?”
He laughed. “It’s her face, and maybe those windshield sized sunglasses she’s always wearing.”
They really did look like tinted windshields, the visual made me grin at Blake as I ignored the fact he'd hinted that she'd been in before. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s probably it.”
Blake's easygoing expression melted into a worried one as he crossed the room toward the vending machine. "I heard about Sonny."
Ugh. I frowned at the reminder.
