Tab: If I thought that were true, I might actually feel bad.
Okay, I see what’s happening here…
I actually don’t, but I learned from a young age that negative self-talk is a soul-killer. She just wants me to try harder. That has to be it.
As if I wouldn’t.
I bite my lip to think of the perfect good night reply, so then I can plan how to woo Tabitha Riley. Maybe I’m not used to rejection, and if that’s the case, I’m certainly not going to start getting used to it now.
Me: Good night, Rapunzel. Sweet dreams. One day, you’ll let your hair down for me.
Tab: Night, Levi.
I wish I could see her reaction. Is she smiling? Annoyed? At the very least, I’ll probably be the last thing she thinks of before she closes her eyes.
The car seat hugs me as I sit back, staring up at the building. I travel from the top to the bottom, knowing that somewhere in there, Tab is probably in her room either swooning or thinking I’m crazy. Once I get to street level, I spot a few employeescoming out of a side entrance. They light up cigarettes, a blaze of orange against the shadows that quickly fades.
For a brief moment, I think about paying them to keep their eye on Tab for me, but I don’t know them from Adam and I wouldn’t risk her well-being like that. The urge to make sure she’s okay coats me like a second layer on my skin, slowly seeping into my pores.
Wait a minute…
I wake up my phone and scroll through my apps. There. I smile as I open it. The guy at the store said he downloaded some sort of family app on Tab’s phone, and I have the same one. My lips twist into a bigger grin when I see another phone listed. Pressing on it, I have a few options, and one of them is to find their location.
Once I do, a map pulls up on the screen. Hallelujah. Thank god I added her as a family plan. Here’s my access. I’ll be able to know where she is whenever I want. A sense of calm sweeps over me.
Tab Riley, you, ma’am, aren’t even going to know what hit you.
7
Tab
Istare at the underside of my blankets before whisking them off in an aggravated flourish that looks like I’m a matador in the ring with a bull. It felt like that all night, except the bull wasn’t a bull, it was sleep, and he certainly didn’t charge at me, he was playing hide and seek. Levi kept popping in and out every time I tried to count sheep. Instead, I counted his handsome face bobbing up and down like a bobble head strolling down a football field. Then when sleep did come, it dissolved into X-rated snippets of Levi’s limbs tangled with mine. Hot breaths. Moans. Touches that singed my skin.
Good lord, I need help.
I pull my pajamas off and start the shower. In a way, I’m glad my libido is back. I haven’t felt anything downstairs since the fire, and I honestly hadn’t noticed I’d been missing that until last night.
Blowing out an exaggerated breath, I hold out my left arm, inspecting it in the bathroom mirror. My burns hurt this morning. A low throb of pain. Sometimes, the stinging feels likeit can go straight through to my bones, but fortunately, this is topical. I’m due for pain meds.
Even though the injury itself looks so inconspicuous wrapped in bandages I hold my breath every time we take them off. Wishing, hoping, that they’ll be in a state of healing. But we never know.
I take the clingwrap that now has a permanent place on the bathroom countertop and cover my entire arm before stepping under the hot spray. I hiss when the water hits. As always, the heat makes my burns worse, as if like finds like, and intensifies the inferno. Despite that, I make myself stand there, water dripping off me and draining. A cleansing of sorts.
I do this every morning as if I can wash the fire away. Sometimes, I close my eyes and picture the old bathroom and pretend I’m still that Tabitha Riley. The one who had her shit together. Fifty percent owner in a successful business. Friends she loved. Busy but fulfilled in the best ways.
Then when I open my eyes, I realize I’m in Micah’s castle in the sky and it all comes crashing back down again. How did I get here? Who knew that stupid, faulty wiring that just finally decided to catch that day would do so much damage? Physically and mentally.
I think of all the things that had to line up so that we were both in the apartment when it caught fire. The fact that I sent Raeann back up to the apartment so she could be creative. The fact that I followed her up there after having a splitting headache that day, letting the team close up. Both asleep, we had no idea what was happening. The chaos that one spark was about to let loose into our lives.
So, yeah, every morning I stand under the shower and try to rinse the unfairness away, but it never works. It clings there like this wrap I have to put on my bandages, like a leech bleeding me dry.
After the dreams last night, I should also hope the water does one more thing, because I could use a baptism.
Not that I will actually ever know whattheLevi Soucy is like in bed but if he’s half as good as my imagination, he’s…got nothing to worry about. It’s his fault I dreamed what I did anyway. If he hadn’t told me that ridiculous nickname…
Who calls themselves Big Dick Levi?
I snort, shaking my head, then turn, letting the hot water hit the top of my head and soak my hair. Of course I had fantasy after fantasy. It’s like Levi implanted a subliminal message into my brain, and it latched on like a very horny parasite.
