Page 440 of A Matter of Time

This, the litany repeated from whisper to yell. And I had the connection I so desperately needed.

TWENTY-TWO

Ihad to pee. I sat up in bed, and for a second, I had no idea where I was.

“Go back to sleep.”

I looked down at Sam, who was on his side next to me. Seconds before I had been in the warm cocoon of his arms, and now I was sitting up, cold, weighing the need to relieve my bladder against how icy the floors would be, how freezing the air in the bathroom would be, and how much bitching Sam would do when I tried to warm myself with his skin when I got back in bed.

“Or go pee already.”

I grunted and got out of bed. I would actually write it down this time, the need to purchase a pair of old-man slippers. Socks just weren’t going to cut it. There needed to be much more insulation between me and the hardwood floors in the middle of winter.

I whined all the way to the bathroom and all the way back, and I realized that I didn’t even remember getting in bed. I had been so exhausted after making love to him the second time that he’d probably had to carry me. Not that he ever minded.

“Where are you?” Sam yawned loudly, which brought me out of my head and into the present.

“I’m right here.” I smiled, coming back around the bed, ready to dive in until I heard a floorboard squeak in the living room. “What was that?”

Sam went from groggy to fully awake in seconds. When he slid his gun out from under his pillow, I put up my hands in disbelief.

“What the hell?” I stage-whispered.

He glared at me, whispering back, “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but he put a finger to his lips for me to shut up and went immediately to the doorway.

“Don’t,” I said softly. “Just stay here.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, baby.”

But I was terrified. My luck was not good lately. Anything could be out there, and I hated it when he went into dark rooms alone. I gave him a three-second head start, then followed him. The front door was wide open, and that scared me to death. How did we not hear the door open?

“It’s clear,” he yelled out to me as all the lights in the living room and kitchen flicked on.

I pointed at the front door.

“Yeah, I know. Just…calm down. Sit on the couch and let me look around.”

I did as I was told, feeling like I was in a horror movie where something was going to jump out at me at any second.

“I don’t see anything,” he called to me from the second bedroom before checking out the door that led to the tiny square of concrete that had been listed as the “patio” when I moved in. All you could see from it were the “patios” of my neighbors.

I waited for him, frozen on the couch as I looked from window to window in the living room. When lightning paled the sky, I thought I saw something moving out on the fire escape. My yell brought Sam down the hall, fast.

“What?”

I pointed at the window that I saw wasn’t all the way lowered.

He darted across the room but stopped when he got there. “J, it’s wet over here.”

I felt the shiver slip down my spine. “It’s open, right?”

He turned to look at me. “Yeah.”

“Shit,” I said, getting up to join him.

“Stay there,” he ordered me, throwing up the window.