Page 45 of Texting Dr. Stalker

I yawned and lay on my back, feeling sleepy and floaty for the first time in far, far too long. I should go into the house and climb into bed like a normal person. But the balmy evening, soft grass, and twinkling stars promised to keep the nightmares at bay. Even my shivers subsided as if I’d shook from other things.

Me:How long are you going to watch me?

X:You should go inside.

Me:How long?

X:All night if you want.

Rolling onto my side, I went to type back. To thank him for saying exactly what I needed to hear but sleep pounced, the phone slipped out of my fingers, and I drifted into dreams of cookies, unicorns, and protective ghosts watching me from afar.

* 14 *

Zander

Painful Nicknames

I WAITED UNTIL I KNEW FOR SURE she was asleep. Until her legs twitched and her body went loose on the lawn. Only then did I slip from my bedroom where I’d been watching her, grabbed the grey sherpa blanket from my couch (that came in handy whenever I passed out from a long surgery), and slipped out the front door.

I was halfway to her house before I realised why I couldn’t be seen on the street carrying a blanket, why I couldn’t sneak through her gate at almost four in the morning, and why I couldn’t go anywhere near her as Zander North.

Fuck.

My phone weighed a thousand pounds in my black pyjama pocket. Our second conversation and I no longer feared this would end badly for me, I knew it.

The expression that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach might work on some, but for me? The way into my heart was to let me care. To trust me enough to put your very life in my hands, and tonight, she’d done that.

She’d gone to sleep outside.

She’d trusted that I’d watch over her. She trusted a stranger with shady means of communication to guard her against all other men, including the one who’d covered her in bruises.

I wasn’t just in trouble, I was fucked.

Gran had always said I fell quick and hard. Give me anything injured, and I became utterly obsessed with making it better again. I’d devote every waking moment, every penny and effort, and if whatever creature I was trying to help died? Good God, it broke me.

I should’ve remembered that before I gave her the phone.

I should’ve recalled all the heartbreak of my youth when I wasn’t good enough to save a life.

And to make an already bad situation worse, she’d asked me to call her Lori.

A nameI’daccidentally given her.

A name I’d used on the rare times she visited, secretly loving that it got under her skin.

Ugh, this was a terrible idea.

I’d agreed to watch her all night like an unemployed fool. At least I wasn’t working tomorrow but still…what sort of idiot agreed to stand in the bushes and watch a girl sleep on the lawn when she should be safely behind lock and key?

What possessed her to reply to me? Why hadn’t she used common sense and told me to take a flying leap off a cliff or buy herself a gun?

Hugging the blanket, I stalked to the side door of my garage and snuck inside. I didn’t dare turn on the light and used my phone torch to locate the old motorcycle scarf that I used whenever I rode my Harley.

The sleek machine rested under its canvas cover, looking dejected in the middle of neatly organised shelves of tools and offcuts. I’d bought the motorbike the day I graduated. It’d been half a dare, half a rebellion.

I’d pledged my life to saving all those in need of saving, yet the weight of that pledge? It crushed me with responsibility. It’d driven me into rocky territory that made me test the boundaries of my own life. After a long day in surgery or an awful afternoon of losing a patient, revving my bike and zooming like a reckless idiot was the perfect antidote to the uber conservative, overly safe doctor in my waking life.

Yanking the cover off the bike, I ran my fingers over the chrome handlebars and inhaled the rich scent of metal and oil.

---