Page 11 of Hazel and Elijah Find Out: First They F*cked Around

“I need to set timers to remind me to move around,” I mumbled to my empty office, flicking off the lights. After putting my phone in my pocket and zipping up my jacket, I pulled my office door closed, exiting into the hallway, but it bounced off the doorjamb instead of latching. It’d been doing that. The only way to close it was to grab the handle in both hands and pull with all my weight. My step faltered as I added it to the mental list of things I needed to fix.

I strode to the exit. The only illumination was through the windows from the floodlights on the building’s exterior, but I was so familiar with the space that I could have made this walk without any light at all. They strobed slightly. I chewed on my lower lip, wondering if I should hire an electrician, but then wondering where that money would come from. And then I’d need to find an exterior siding person. And then an HVAC technician. The list went on and on.

Maybe I could find someone willing to trade their services with mine.

The list was growing long. It wrapped around me and squeezed. Suffocating.

I wasn’t lying to Remi; we were fine financially in the sense that I was clearing expenses with just enough to live on, but absolutely nothing else. If I didn’t have my personal cost of living—pesky things like mortgage, car insurance, and food—then I could put more into the building’s needs.

Maybe I could move into the basement of the building. I shuddered at the thought, considering all the dusty boxes packed down there, some of them probably older than me.

“Nope,” I whispered to the empty clinic. “There’s got to be a better way.”

The night sky was dark blue with bright stars as the storm door slammed shut behind me, and I absentmindedly tugged on the handle to be sure it was locked up. A cold gust of wind carrying the smell of dry leaves and wet soil caught my hair and blew it across my face. I gathered the strands over one shoulder.

That’s when I saw the man leaning against the hood of his car, directly under one of the lampposts.

Gasping, I stopped halfway down the paved walk to the parking lot. My keys were in my hand. I was about to whip around and run back into the building when he raised his hand in a tentative wave.

“I texted, but I’m guessing you didn’t see it.” His voice carried across the distance between us, gentle and deep.

I took a couple of deep breaths as the instinct to flee deflated from my muscles. All the tension gushed out of me.

“Yeah, I didn’t see that.” Pulling my phone from my pocket, I read Elijah’s message,I’m outside the clinic, just under the only other correspondence between our phones. I almost laughed. How had he sent it in the only thirty-second window I hadn’t been fixated on whether he’d text?

“I know it’s late, if your…” He stood and pulled the opening of his jacket more tightly closed. “We can schedule another time to talk.”

I chewed my lower lip at the formality of his words. They sounded nothing like the lover I’d experienced, with his sweet whispers and dirty groaned appreciation. I swallowed, but the pressure on my sternum didn’t lighten.

With a few strides, I stood under the same halo of light as he did. The rest of the world was swallowed in darkness, and all I could see was him. His chestnut-colored curls peeked out of a black stocking cap. As I neared, he leaned away.

I didn’t want to see the ways he pulled back from me, so I stared at the parking lot’s cracked asphalt. “No, we can talk now.” Apparently, formality was catching because I said, “What can I help you with?”

“First, my dad doesn’t have any more leverage on you, does he?”

“No, he tried, but no,” I answered. “Thank you for the warning, by the way. You really helped me out.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry he put you through whatever he did.”

I looked up to find him watching me with careful eyes.

He sighed and shrugged deeper into his jacket. “Can you explain that text message?”

I puffed out a breath. “How did you know it was me?”

“Obviously the area code was from here, so I asked Ransom and Sterling if they knew whose number it was.”

I was grateful for the cold already turning my cheeks pink, because I was definitely blushing. “Sterling, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Solid detective work.”

“Thank you.” His mouth tugged up on one side, scrambling the few brain cells I had strung together. “So, Hazel, why is some other guy’s nice girlfriend asking me to auction off my body?”

“I’m not a nice girlfriend.”

He squinted, casting sharp swooping shadows from his eyelashes across his cheekbones. “Are you trying to set me up as your side piece?”

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