I shake my head. “Naw, man. I’m not more than twenty feet from Ally. But thanks.”
“I gotta hit the restroom,” the uniformed cop beside him says. “I can grab you a shitty coffee on my way back, man.”
“Great. You Jude?”
“No thanks,” I say.
There are some chairs against the wall. Craig moves over there. I don’t. I can’t see Ally from out in this hallway but I’m certainly not sitting down. I stand with a view of the window in the door.
“No sign of Daystrom. He get ahold of her yet?”
“No. We’re heading home after this. I’ll be in touch if I hear anything.”
“Right. Man, I don’t think he’s gonna do anything to hurt her in there. You can relax.”
I eyeball the guy. “If your woman were in a room with her ex, a good-lookin’ rich guy she was deathly afraid of the last six months, only to find out he wasn’t after her and tried to avenge what he thought was her death because he loves her, would you relax?”
“Fair point,” he says.
The other cop returns a minute later with coffee for me even though I didn’t want one and it’s another fifteen minutes before Ally comes out.
I try to get a read on her face. She comes right to me and kisses me. “Let’s go home,” she says.
49
Ally
Sunday, Three Weeks Later
I’m alone for the first time in weeks. Jude is working and I’m getting ready to host a big family dinner. Jude’s family is coming along with Uncle Niko and Stana as well as Niko Junior who I haven’t met yet. There’s also my circle coming - Carly and Aiden and Sonia and her two girls and Stacy are also coming over in a couple hours. Oh, and Rex. I’m planning on doing a little matchmaking there and will have him sitting with Sonia and the girls. I can’t wait to meddle there and see if they’re a match.
I invited Ash, but he’s got a full plate with his mother-in-law not feeling very well, plus they’re vegetarians and I was planning to make a big roast beef dinner, so I’ll just have them all over another day. There’s a new girl in my department that Aiden approved George to hire to help me with the graphic design (and she’s already taught me stuff) who started last week. We really hit it off. She’s divorced with no kids, but always wanted some so I’m thinking about trying to set her and Ash up on a blind date.
I’ve had multiple emails from my mom and it has felt so good to start to catch up. Jonah did knock on her door to ask about me and she covered, saying she didn’t talk to me, just like we discussed. A cop even showed up to ask if she thought I was missing, but she thought it might be the dirty cop, so she went off on a fake-tangent about me being flighty and always going off on adventures. She didn’t pass any messages back to Tori about that because she didn’t want to stress me out.
She’s sent me all sorts of snapshots of their vacation and Jude and I are talking about going back to Ohio for a visit in a few weeks. I’m going to take that time to go through my storage unit, too and we might rent a truck and drive it all back. I’m also planning on calling up Scotty King to take him for dinner, so he can meet my man and see that I’m okay. I still have his number memorized.
Today has been a great Sunday so far. I’ve cleaned the house and yesterday went to the salon and got a black with pink ends ombre. I love it. So does Jude. He was all over me last night.
I’m debuting a blue dress with pink daisies on it and I’m wearing flipflops with a pink and blue pedicure.
I’ve all but officially moved in. In fact we’re going back to the corporate apartment one day this week to clean out the rest of my stuff. Mr. C is putting it and the other corporate apartment he owns in the building up for sale.
It turns out Jude’s neighbor is getting ready to list the place next to Jude’s so I’m planning on pitching it to Carly today. I know they love Aiden’s condo, but I’d love to be neighbors.
It’s been a great couple weeks. I’m rocking my job. I’m great at this relationship thing. Jude has been super-protective of me, but things have been really calm so I can only hope they’ll stay that way. Wade must have gone on the run; I haven’t heard a word.
I’m just trying to be positive and move forward.
I had a good talk with Jonah at the hospital the day after he got shot. He joked at the end that he got shot twice. Once with a gun and then shot down by me. He made it clear he wanted me back and I made it clear that I have very, very much moved on.