Page 53 of Always Salty

I knew damn well and good what Dima was going to do with the man’s information.

I also knew that I didn’t really care what happened to him.

What I did care about was that he understood what respect was, and that actions had consequences.

Dima never replied, which completely bummed me out.

I was about ten hours into my shift when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I turned, fully expecting to see one of my coworkers when I realized that it’d been rather quiet for the last fifteen minutes.

They’d both disappeared and left me in the observation room all by myself.

I was sipping on my cup of black coffee—which I hated but someone drank all my damn creamer I’d left in the fridge—when I heard it.

The creek of a patient room door being opened.

The way the sleep center was set up was kind of like a star. The patient rooms were all set up in the points of the star, and the observation room was in between all of the rooms, able to keep an eye on everything that was happening in all of the rooms.

I turned and fully checked every room that was being used today and saw all the figures where they were supposed to be.

And because I was crazy, I pulled out the can of baked beans that’d followed me the rest of the night and started into the hall.

I was fully unsurprised when I made it into the hallway to hear a rhythmic banging coming from the break room.

The least they could’ve done was taken it outside.

Now I had to go in there and get my belongings later, and I wasn’t sure that they hadn’t infected it with their sex cooties.

Gross.

The hall was mostly silent besides the sex happening, and all the rooms were closed—except for the last door on the right. The room that wasn’t ever occupied because there were issues with equipment in that particular room.

But still, it was open and…

A black figure poked his head out of the space between the door and the doorjamb, and I couldn’t help the smile that stretched over my face.

“Dima.” I smiled. “What are you doing here?”

He jerked his head toward himself, and I hurried toward him.

He closed the door once I was through and then kissed me.

His hand closed around the baked beans, and I relinquished it to him.

His chuckle was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

“You’re safe now, killer,” he teased.

“Thanks,” I said. “It makes me happy to know that you are here.”

He pulled back, then gestured toward the table behind him.

My heart literally melted as I saw the McDonald’s and coffee.

“You went to my favorite coffee shop,” I said.

“Vanilla latte, single shot, decaf because you’re about to go to bed.” He recited the order. “You order that a lot.”

---