“You know someone in the FBI, right?”
To that, I got some noise that sounded like a grunt and a growl mixed together.
“I need you to fix something for me. I’ll owe you,” I told him and this time, I wasn’t half-joking when I said it.
“Shit,” he said and there was a beat of silence that went by. “What do you need?”
So I told him everything that had happened, only in more detail than I had before. Then I explained to him how Hunt and I might have really fucked this whole thing up. I was just scared that Jessica would end up going down for a murder that I’d done. And I knew that even though they let her go, didn’t mean she was off the hook. That said, I wouldn’t understand how anyone could think she created the carnage in that room. She sure as hell didn’t have the strength to push a built man over a balcony.
I had been too scared to ask her if she’d mentioned anything about me being there. In fact, we hadn’t talked about what happened after I shot her boyfriend really at all. While I didn’t think she would have told them, I wasn’t all that sure. If she thought it might get the heat off of her, well, I couldn’t fault her for that.
“This isn’t going to be fucking easy,” he said in a very unhappy tone. “But I’ll see what I can do. Keep this phone, give me twenty-four hours.”
Then he was gone.
-26-
Jessica
I overheard him talking to his mom about love. I shouldn’t have stopped to listen but I couldn’t seem to help myself. And I knew it was her on the other end of the phone by the softness he held in his voice. I knew it right away.
For a moment, it felt like I was so close to her but she was still too far away. I really, really just needed one of her hugs. If I had one then I’d know that everything would be okay.
That didn’t distract me at all from what he was asking about though.
Love.
Why was he asking about that?
It could have been that he was just as confused as I was about all these feelings. Maybe, just like me, he’d never felt them before.
I think I was still too messed up to even let love in right now. I wouldn’t so easily jump into some kind of fantasy and let myself believe that there was a happy future out there for me. And no, it didn’t matter that things felt different. That some could even say this was destiny. But I didn’t believe that for a second because I wasn’t one of those people. Destiny. Fate. Written in the stars. All that stuff was made up by people that wanted to believe that there were other forces at work.
And sure, if I never went out on that date with Ray— if I hadn’t moved in with him— then none of this would have happened. Only I didn’t forget the fact that Silas had said he’d been searching for me all these years. Or that his friend had been so close to tracking me down. Like really close. So close that if Silas hadn’t had that job or whatever and hadn’t been in the condo, I would have been back in his life soon enough. I mean, if I had made it through the night with Ray, that was.
So there wasn’t anything grand out there pushing us together.
It was a lifetime of waiting and hoping.
For him, at least.
All he wanted to do was make sure I was safe. He hadn’t been out there looking for me because he had deep romantic feelings this whole time. No. Of course not. That would be weird. And honestly, might creep me out a little.
I moved on before he ended the call.
I shouldn’t have listened to as much as I had.
It left me wondering how exactly he was feeling about this whole thing.
Did I even have a right to wonder that when I couldn’t come up with an answer myself?
That kiss though. I never knew something so simple could make me feel so alive.
I couldn’t deny that I wanted more.
IwishedI’d gotten more.
Then again, it was kind of perfect the way it was.
