Only, I didn’t find him.
He was nowhere to be found, and his house was just as empty as his bedroom.
Thinking that I could go outside and wait for him to come home so we could talk, I went to his hammock with a cup of coffee that I made in his coffeemaker and waited with a good book.
***
Two days later, with my mood much less pleasant, I stomped into my boss’s office.
“What do you mean I can’t go to work?” I screeched. “I’m not taking two weeks off!”
“You can, and you are,” my supervisor said stubbornly. “Now, I better not see you until then. Stay at home, recover, and take the time you need.”
So I’d had a moment at work last night. This morning…hell, I couldn’t even remember what day it was at this point. So sue me. I freaked out.
Who the hell wouldn’t after what I had gone through? But apparently my boss thought it was ‘for the best’ that I took the time off that I needed. Sure, I might’ve thought that it was a good idea had I not been avoiding going home.
Two days before, with Slate, had been a mistake.
Not one that I really regretted, but a mistake nonetheless.
At least, that was the impression I got when I woke up to an empty bed, an empty house, and no clue whether I should stay or go.
And, when I’d gone to read in the hammock, and woken up hours later to Slate arriving home, he hadn’t even complained that I was in his yard. He’d just gone inside with the groceries, hadn’t looked up at all, and hadn’t come back out.
Which led me to my bad mood at work.
Which then led to a freak out a few hours into my shift.
And then this.
I’d arrived the night after my freak out, two days after my near death experience on shift, and my boss was telling me—after I already arrived, might I add—that I was being sent home.
“You’re still getting paid,” Mell grumbled. “What more do you want from me?”
I sighed and covered my eyes with my hands. “I’m just having a really bad day.”
I hadn’t been able to sleep at all. In fact, what little sleep I did manage to get was interrupted by Slate coming home, leaving, and then coming home again.
Why he had to park his bike outside my bedroom window, I didn’t know.
But if I’d been talking to the man, I’d have asked him why.
But I wasn’t. Which meant I would be forever listening to his annoying bike, and his annoying self, doing shit that would bother the absolute shit out of me.
“Are you going to tell me when I need to be back?” I asked grumpily.
Mell grinned. “I’ll call you. But as of right now, you have a total of two weeks off.”
I sighed. “What the hell am I supposed to do for two weeks?”
“Go on vacation?” he suggested. “Enjoy the fact that you have two weeks off when the rest of us have to be in this disease infested place.”
I grinned.
That was one benefit of it.
I wouldn’t be getting the flu…hopefully.
***
Slate
“Rome, I’m not fuckin’ going to Disney World with you. I’m just not, so stop asking,” I grumbled.
“Yes, you are,” Rome repeated. “I have free tickets to the park for an entire week. You have no job and no life, and I’ve already confirmed it with Max and your grandmother.”
“What about the part about me being on probation?” I tried.
Rome rolled his eyes. “You think I’m stupid?”
I hoped he was.
But I knew he wasn’t.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m just hoping that you didn’t think of it so I can stay at home and live my life happily instead of going to a goddamn theme park in the middle of goddamn spring break.”
“Not spring break,” Rome said. “It’s winter break. February. Spring break is in March or April,” he pushed.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes as I tried to think of my next argument.
As I was going through all the arguments in my head, immediately dismissing them as not good enough to get him to agree, I heard a car pull up.
Knowing the sound of the car by heart at this point, I opened my eyes to see the woman who had occupied a good deal of my thoughts lately pulling into her driveway.
I frowned and looked at my watch, noticing that she was eleven hours early.
What the fuck?
Moving without thought across the lawn toward where she was viciously climbing out of her car, I paused halfway there to watch her struggle with the seatbelt that she forgot to take off before getting out of the car.
When she finally got it unhooked and nearly fell out, I realized that she was pissed way the hell off.
“What’s going on, Harleigh?” I asked conversationally, leaning against the tree casually while also crossing my feet as if I was just resting there.