Page 67 of Indigo Sky

The telltale meow of a cat trailed behind her voice, and she sighed. “Oh God, okay. Come on. Let’s get you some food.”

Warmth seeped into my chest as she talked her way through feeding her pet. I loved that she had one. I loved that she had that kind of simple, pure companionship. It said a lot about a person to care for another living thing without the obligation to do so, and I smiled when the cat uttered a single, soft mew before going silent.

“Sorry,” Kate finally said.

“It’s okay,” I replied, turning into the driveway behind my dad’s station wagon. “Cat comes first.”

“She thinks so,” she muttered, followed by a laugh. “Anyway, uh … so back to that guy. He came into the club this one time. Spent a lot of money while I was onstage, then hired me for a private dance. He, um …”

Her voice was tight. She sniffed into the phone, and I wondered if she was crying. I hated that she might be, and I shut the car off a little too aggressively.

I hurriedly pulled the phone from my breast pocket, tucked it between my ear and shoulder, and said, “You don’t have to tell me. It’s—"

“He went too far,” she said, rushed. “He didn’t … you know … rape me or anything, but … yeah, he went too far. I screamed and ran out of there. Saul got rid of him. But he never really went away. He followed me. He—he broke into my house a couple of times, robbed me, a-and, um, that’s, uh, that’s basically the gist of it.”

She had spoken so quickly, too fast for me to get a word in until she was finished, and I stood there on the porch, stunned as I stared into my reflection in the front-door window.

“Holy fuck, Kate.”

“I-I was home the last time he broke in. I hid in my closet and called the cops. He ran away, but I knew who it was. So, they arrested him, and that was that.”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

God, what a stupid fucking thing to say. I shook my head at my insensitivity, jamming the key into the lock, but what the hell else was there to say? That I wished I could’ve been there to tear the motherfucker apart, limb from limb? That, if it had been up to me, he’d have been serving time six feet underground and not in a state prison, getting his three square meals a day?

She ignored the flimsy sentiment anyway. “Saul and Sam got a little, um … crazy after that. They didn’t want anything like that to happen again, so they doubled down. Saul made sure there were always at least two bouncers on-site. They became stricter about the intoxication rules. Of course, they haven’t always been able to stop everything. There are still assholes out there. But … they do what they can.”

“And you’re saying this is why Saul gave me the third degree?”

I walked through the living room and to the stairs, making sure to remain quiet as I made my ascent.

“I’m saying Saul is very cautious when it comes to us, and he has this fatherly protective thing about him. But that being said, he wouldn’t trust you to be alone with me at all if he truly thought you were a threat.”

It was a confusing way of putting it, and I wasn’t sure I completely understood. But before I could ask, Kate was fast to clarify.

“What I mean is, he might get all over you about, you know, dating me or whatever, but if he really thought you were a problem outside of … typical relationship drama, you wouldn’t even have a job.”

I quietly closed my bedroom door before huffing out a chuckle. “Well, that makes me feel better.”

“It should.”

I put her on speakerphone as I slid my suit jacket off and laid it over my bed. Exhaustion dropped heavily onto my shoulders as I stared at the rumpled blanket and the indentation on my pillow from where my head lay night after night. The adrenaline of getting home safely had kept me going for a while longer, but now that I was home, I suddenly felt like my eyelids were made of sandpaper, and keeping them open long enough to unbutton my shirt was becoming a more and more painful ordeal.

“I guess I should go,” Kate said after a few moments of silence. “I need to sleep, and you do too.”

I nodded, my head feeling like a fifty-pound ball of lead. “I really do.”

“But I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, so full of hope, like there was a chance I wouldn’t be at work.

“Of course.”

“Okay.”

I could picture her smile. Bright. Perfect. I closed my eye as I slid my arms from the shirtsleeves, imagining the way she looked right now. I missed her. How the hell could I miss her when I’d just seen her?

“Hey, Revan?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah?”

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