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I woke up the day after my attack sore all over and greeted by a nurse wanting me to rate my pain. Ha, how can I rate my pain, everything hurts, I think even my big toenail hurts. She helps me out of the bed and makes me shower and clean myself up. She has covered my cast on my arm with a bag that keeps the water out. She stays in the bathroom with me so that if I need any help she’s right there. She steps out only for a couple of minutes to change the sheets. When she comes back into the bathroom I’ve finished my shower and am attempting to towel dry myself, but bending over hurts, breathing hurts.
She helps me to towel dry myself off and then she wraps my chest apparently, I’ve got a few cracked ribs, I don’t remember them hurting yesterday. She comments that I’ve had a visitor at my side all night, which is another new thing with this hospital. Apparently most of the domestic violence cases are treated and if they’re kept over night the security guards check on the person every half hour or so. She helps me dress in the ugly hospital gown, and then she helps me back into the bed. I’ve apparently been out of my bed long enough. They’ll try helping me to get on my feet over the next few days. My vision isn’t as blurry now, but I can still feel the swelling in my eyes. He had left while the nurse was with me but now he reenters the room carrying two large coffees. He’s a good six feet tall and he has deeply tanned skin. His eyes are a deep brown that match his hair and his well trimmed beard. His hair is trimmed in a crew cut allowing for little ringlets on the back of his head to show his natural curl the way it’s combed back there’s a natural wave. His body completely fills the uniform that he’s wearing his thighs look as if they’re straining the pants, as well as his biceps are straining the cuffs of the uniform shirt. Goodness he’s sexy. As the nurse leaves he thanks her for her help. His voice is deep and carries a deep, caring southern draw to it.
As the medicine that the nurse gave me starts to work I’m casually glancing over at him. It suddenly strikes me that I recognize this man. He’s the cop from Luke’s’ school, the one that shows up everyday at the same time as I do. I’ve only been fantasizing about him for three months and now that I get to meet him I look like shit. Ugh. His voice is deeper than I had imagined it being. He doesn’t talk much to me and soon I doze off thanks to the pain killers. I spend the next day or so in the hospital and every time Mr. handsome cop is in my room when I wake up. My sister and her husband come by to visit one day and he disappears for a while. The visit with my sister is good she lets me know that Mr. Handsome cop is her husband’s best friend. She says that he’s refused to leave my side since he found me in the house.
My memories are still somewhat fuzzy, but I suddenly realize that I haven’t seen my son yet. I question Kathy about Luke and she says, “He’s fine he’s visiting with Anthony right now.”
“Anthony?” I ask really confused now as I don’t know any Anthony’s.
“Yeah, Chris’ friend. He stopped by the house to check on you when you didn’t show up to pick up Luke at school. Well, it didn’t really happen like that, it took some time for the address to click with him, but he’s the one who found you. And he and Luke have formed a unique bond in just the short time they’ve known each other.” She informs me, but I know she’s keeping something about this Anthony character to herself. I ignore the hidden stuff, because after I left Jeff three months ago I’ve not only sworn off men, but especially cops. None of Jeff’s friends would help me get away from him or even take my abuse seriously, why would he, he’s a member of that thin blue line where crossing the line of the law gets a little blurry.
As the hours tick on and it’s getting close to the end of visiting hours Anthony and Luke come in carrying two pizzas, one is mine and Luke’s favorite ham and pineapple. The other pizza is the men’s favorite I can tell by the way Chris and Anthony dig into the pizza. Anthony has changed out of the cop uniform and is wearing a button up long sleeve top with a tee shirt underneath it, paired with a pair of blue jeans, cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat. Anthony really surprises me when he pulls out a few packets of French dressing from his pockets my favorite to top a good Hawaiian pizza. The interesting part is he likes it on his pizza too. Chris can’t help but mention how much we have in common and how we are meant to be together. I feel the heat of his eyes on me and when I look his way I see a slight glint in his eyes. He flashes me a half-lipped smile, kind of like his impersonation of an Elvis grin.
We kick Luke, Kathy and Chris out of the room with the remaining pizza, thanks to the help of the nursing staff. Luke wanted to stay with me the whole night. I can tell he hasn’t slept much since my attack. I know it’s bringing back memories, and he doesn’t want me to go back to Jeff. Well that’s not going to happen. I just wish I could relay that confidence to him. Medicine time comes, and I know my time awake is limited, thanks to some good sleeping and pain pills.
Anthony hasn’t said much since everyone left. He’s slipped into the chair next to my bed and I catch him staring holes in the door. I wonder what he’s thinking about, that’s when I realize that in an ankle holster is his back up pistol. Now it makes sense, he’s not comfortable that Jeff won’t come in the hospital and try to kill me. Now I really can’t sleep not even with the help of the medicine that I’ve taken. It makes me drowsy and I close my eyes, before I know it the nurse is coming in to do morning rounds with the doctor. He informs me that they’re releasing me in a few hours. Thankfully last night Kathy brought me some clothes to wear when I get discharged, since the one’s I had been in had been turned over to the detectives for evidence in the case. Anthony carries the bag into the bathroom and sets it on a stool in there. He gruffly says, “I’ll be right out here if you need anything.”
I can’t wear a bra and the bandage that’s wrapped around my ribs feels like a bustier only my breasts spill over the top of the wrap and my sister only brought me a pair of jeans, socks and tennis shoes. She forgot my freaking tee-shirt. Luke must have distracted her at least she remembered my deodorant, and toothbrush. I call to Anthony and he’s quickly at the door asking, “What’s wrong, Lilly?” I hear the concern lacing his voice.
I open the door and invite him into the bathroom which gets a low growl from him along with a shocked eye raise. Apparently, he’s fighting internally with himself. I explain that my sister didn’t pack a tee-shirt for me which now gets me a chuckle and a smile, but his smooth deep voice is suddenly a whisper so that only I can hear.
He say’s, “Would you like mine?” Just feeling the heat of his voice on my ear has me weak in the knees.
I can only nod in response to his question. I decide quickly not to mention the whole forgotten underwear issue, that’s just an area he’s never going to be in, and it’ll make me even more uncomfortable. He takes a step back from me and starts to unbutton his shirt placing it on the small countertop and then pulls his tee shirt over his head in one swift motion. My head starts to imagine him stripping like that for me in the heat of a passionate moment. Yeah right, I haven’t had that kind of sex since I got pregnant with Luke. I don’t realize but, I’m staring at his chest his well-formed pecks those bulging biceps that look like they could restrain a two-hundred-pound man. I don’t even think that my hand could wrap around his wrist. Then I notice the tattoo on his upper shoulder it’s got a woman’s name and then a set of dates. I think that’s his mother’s name or else he’s like fifty years old. He hands me the shirt and grabs his button up throwing it on quickly and excuses himself out of the bathroom so that I can get dressed. I quickly pull on the jeans, socks and when I pull on the tee shirt he gave me; it looks like it could be a dress on me, barely covering my ass but a dress enough.
The scent on his tee shirt surrounds me in a comfort. It takes another hour or so to get me discharged and out to his truck, it even smells like him. We drive, and I realize that we aren’t going to Chris and Kathy’s house, no he informs me when I question him where we’re going, his place. He and Chris have decided in the best interest of my and Luke’s safety that I stay at his house. I only respond with “Oh, OK.” And turn and watch the houses as we pass them. I’m defeated, men are making decisions for me without my opinion.
We pull into the driveway there is a gated yard in front of us. He rolls down the window and enters a code onto a keypad and the gates open. As we drive the rest of the way down the driveway to the house he explains that he’ll give me the code and that both Kathy and Chris have the code and only them. When we enter the house it’s not your typical house it has multiple bedrooms, and bathrooms. He explains that it only has one bedroom with a connected bathroom and he’s giving it to me.
He shows me around the house where the security alarm is located, where he’s putting Luke up, which is the closest room to my bedroom. Like an idiot I ask him where he’s going to sleep, if he’s anything like Jeff he’s sleeping in the bed with me. He shows me another hallway with two rooms off it; one of which has workout equipment and the other has a king size bed, there’s a small bathroom on this hallway and it’s also nearer to the front entrance than the room I’m staying in. Inside his bedroom there’s a gun safe more like a gun locker as it’s almost as tall as he is. He gently puts a hand on my lower back and leans in saying “I don’t expect anything of you. I just want you and Luke safe.”
He guides me to the kitchen, I wonder if he heard my stomach growl, because that breakfast at the hospital only lasted an hour or so before it wore off. In the kitchen he shows me where all the dishes are and encourages me to let him know if I want to prepare something special and need something he’ll be happy to stop by the store for me. I still feel a bit over protected, more like a prisoner. So, I respond to his kindness with a stipulation of my own. I tell him that if he wants to keep me caged up in this house I need my computer, so I can at least work.
“Work?” He responds, it looks like he’s confused that I have a job. So, I spend the next few minutes telling him what I do for a living working from home and such. I notice a small frown come across his face and I know what’s coming, it’s the same shit as Jeff. Jeff didn’t know that I was working since I used PayPal for a holding account for my money.
Suddenly he clears his throat and says, “He busted your computer.” Shit, I had my life on that thing. He follows up by asking me what kind of software and computer I had. As I start to rattle off all the software that’s going to clean out my savings account. I can’t even afford the computer it was top of the line I bought it with the life insurance Luke’s dad had sent to me when he died. Damn it.
He excuses himself and steps out of the room he’s got his phone already pressed to his ear and is talking to someone. He tells me to make myself comfortable and says that my sister is going to be here soon with Luke and some of our things. He shows me how to let someone in if I know the person at the gate. Then he says that he has an errand to run and he’ll be back in about an hour.
I watch as he leaves, and I am virtually locked into the house. At least I have the security code to the door and gate, but my car is over at my sister’s house. At least he’s not hovering over me and he hasn’t put any moves on me like Jeff would have.
Thirty minutes later my sister and Luke show up, it makes me happier to see them. Luke goes straight to the room that Anthony has put him up in and starts playing. It’s the first time I really get to talk to my sister in days. She hands me the bag she’s brought over for me; she’d even washed all my clothes. I tease her about forgetting my underwear and the tee shirt. She points to the tee-shirt that I’m practically swimming in. She recognizes it as Anthony’s she’d given it to him as a joke and she’s happy that he keeps wearing it even if its under a button up. She asks me if he stripped in front of me. I’m embarrassed to admit that he only took his shirts off I hadn’t told him of the underwear faux pas. She finally asks me, after a few minutes of staring at me while I relive the moments in the bathroom and how sexy he looked half naked, “So, you saw the marks?”
“Wait, what marks?” I ask her curious as to what she’s talking about. She tries to deny that she was eluding to anything. Its just he’s apparently got scars that he hides from people and doesn’t usually take his shirt off in front of people. I realize that he had faced me the entire time and when he left he’d already covered up his back with his button up.
My sister left shortly after her slip up about his marks. When Anthony showed back up he brought a mysterious package and dinner. Of course, dinner was Chinese food, what cop doesn’t eat Chinese food. We ate and listened to Luke talk about his day at school. The thing that felt kind of normal was that we sat at the table like a family and had a conversation that was natural, not forced.
After dinner I put Luke down while Anthony went to his room for a bit. I had curled up on the couch in the den and was working on reading a book by an author I knew when Anthony came back out of his room, he was carrying something in his hands that I didn’t recognize at first, but as he came closer I realized he was carrying a laptop. It was the exact same laptop that I had before. I was sort of excited that he’d got it for me, but deep down I knew he was going to ask me to do something in return for him. It was the way Jeff worked. He’d buy me something I couldn’t afford for me or Luke and then in return he’d collect when he needed something like for me not to rat his ass out for hitting me.
As he walked closer to me he grabbed a portable table and sat next to me on the couch. As he powers on the computer he’s sitting so close that I can smell the woodsy scent of his deodorant. He’s trying hard not to touch me or even wrap an arm around me as he starts showing what he’d spent the afternoon on.
It becomes obvious he’d pulled a few strings and bought a new computer from the store and taken it to work and had one of the tech guys transfer my data over to the new laptop. It had all my files that I thought would be lost forever on it. I was so happy that I didn’t even realize what I was doing. I’d pulled him into a hug and planted a kiss on him. Fuck, I’m not going to fall for this guy, all he wants is something for himself.
He’s practically frozen by my actions. I can feel him grabbing onto the couch and squeezing the cushions. I can now tell that he’s fighting with himself over what he wants and what he needs to do. He gets up under the guise of needing a drink and I can hear him pacing back and forth in the kitchen. He eventually says goodnight and goes to his bedroom. By this time, I’m totally engulfed in catching up on emails and emailing clients about a possible delay in their projects. I offer them a discount on their quoted prices as a courtesy, I’ve explained that my computer had been broken and I’d had to go to the hospital.
The next few days it’s just me and Anthony during the day and Luke with us at night. There is a tension to Anthony that I can’t figure out, but I know that it has to do with the kiss I planted on him the other night. I really fucked this up. During the weekend he takes me and Luke to a local fun house so that Luke can get out of the house for a day. During the day he explains that he’ll be going back to work on Monday and he wants my permission to take and pick up Luke from the school. I’m not sure about the whole arrangement, but for now I’m not feeling one hundred percent, plus the extra time will help me to work on the projects I’m behind on. I agree to it on a temporary basis, and he’s totally fine with it. I can see in his eyes that he’s debating on asking something, but he’s not asking it now.