“You can come stay with me.”
I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
“I’m serious. We can go to work together. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
“What the hell are you going to do if some mafia guys want to come hurt me?”
He smiled a little and tilted his head. “I’m not as useless as you think.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” He nodded to himself. “It’s a good plan. We can stick together until this is all over.”
“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “Absolutely no way.”
“Why not? I have a spare room. You’ll have your own bathroom. We’ll be like roommates.”
I didn’t know how to explain how bad of an idea that was. I spent all last night and all this morning daydreaming about him, thinking about his kiss, about his hands on my skin, on my body, and now he wanted me to move in with him. It would be a mess, such a damn mess, because I knew that as soon as we were alone in the same room, I’d do something stupid.
And I couldn’t handle that, not right now. Not when he wanted something I could never, ever give him.
“I just can’t.” I stared at the dashboard, unable to meet his gaze.
He said nothing for a moment, then reached out and put a hand on my thigh. I bit my cheek and looked up at him, staring into his eyes, but I didn’t move his hand away. I liked the weight of it, the feel of him, the way he touched me—it made me feel safe in some crazy way.
“How about this,” he said softly, “I’ll drive you to work from now on.”
“Our schedules don’t match up that perfectly, do they?”
“I have some leeway. I’ll move things around the best I can, and when I can’t, I’ll come anyway.”
“Dean—”
“Do this for me. I’m going to worry if you won’t at least let me try to give you a damn ride.”
I let out a breath and nodded once. I figured getting a ride to and from work wouldn’t be so bad, and anyway it would make me feel better. “Fine, okay? You can drive me to work.”
“It’s a date then.” He pulled his hand away and put the car in gear.
“Not a date. Just a ride.”
“My favorite. Or your favorite? Probably your favorite.”
I rolled my eyes as he pulled out and took me home. I climbed up my stoop and looked back at him as he watched me head into my apartment, and I wanted to call out to him, to invite him into my place, to tell him to come up and keep me company, but that was exactly what I wanted to try to avoid. I waved once then shut and locked the door behind me, practically jogging into my place, and barring and locking all my doors and windows.
The apartment felt so empty, and almost oppressive, and I knew those guys were out there, waiting for me—but so was Dean, and that helped.12DeanFiona was quiet on the ride into work the next morning. Her shift started a few hours before mine, so I figured I’d drop her off then grab a few case files to peruse at home before my shift started in earnest. She smiled at me and squeezed my hand before we stepped out of the car—then disappeared inside without looking back.
I let her go. I figured we didn’t need the gossip, although that was starting up already. You can’t do anything at Mercy without someone noticing and commenting sooner or later.
I went up to my office on autopilot, nodding to a few colleagues as I went, thinking about the mafia, thinking about Maria, about her threatening Fiona, about everything bad happening all at once—and stopped dead in my tracks as I opened my door and found the place a wreck.
The desk was shoved to the side. Its drawers were ripped open and papers, charts, and folders were thrown around. My computer was smashed to pieces, my filing cabinet dented and destroyed. It was completely wrecked, everything ripped to shreds, all my notes, all my papers, my case files, my everything, destroyed.
“Fuck,” I said, not moving, not able to bring myself to move.
This was bad. Not because they’d come for me—I expected them to come at me sooner or later—but because destroying my files like this meant a patient might get hurt. I had active cases in there, years and years of patient care, and my notes were incredibly important to those people, and now it looked as though some of it was going to be lost forever.
Surprise turned to rage.
Maria knew better. She knew what doctors did and how important our jobs were. She knew that ripping a doctor’s office into pieces meant hurting the lives of countless patients. The violation was one thing—having my office broken into didn’t feel great, of course—but the loss of my notes, and the way that might affect a patient, that was too much to bear.