Page 28 of Save Them

“You’re a twatwaffle,” I say lovingly, rolling onto my back to look at him better and spreading my hands across the tattoos decorating his chest.

“You love it, buttlicker. Just like I love you,” he whispers, his breath running across my skin. We lean in to each other, nuzzling our noses together and sharing a soft peck on the lips. Adam gets up afterward, running into the bathroom to grab a wet cloth to wipe me down with. After we’re both cleaned up and back in our sleep clothes, Adam takes off his prosthetic, setting it to the side of the bed and crawling in with me.

“Good night, beautiful,” he whispers into my ear, hooking his arm over my waist.

“Sweet dreams,” I whisper back, closing my eyes and letting the after-sex exhaustion whisk me away into a peaceful sleep.

While I don’t know what my future holds, for once in my life I’m not anxious about it. Sure, there’s a lot of uncertainty with the stalking and how this relationship will work long term, but there’s also something I’ve never had before, hope. Hope was dangerous for the lost, abused foster kid that I was, but hope is beautiful to the strong woman I turned into.

Chapter Seventeen

Riggs

"Mom," I try to interrupt, my frustration leaking out into my tone. "Mom!"

"What, darling?" She sighs exasperatedly, shuffling the phone against her ear.

Running a hand down my face and checking the time again, I sigh as well. "I've gotta head back into the shop and finish up my day. I'm not trying to be rude, but could you please get to the point of the call? You said this was an emergency."

"It's kind of an emergency in the sense that I needed to tell you now so you could ask the others," Mom mumbles, dancing around the point again. "Your sister and I thought it would be nice to have all of you over tomorrow afternoon for a BBQ. We need to meet Alayna, and it's been far too long since we've seen Rhys and Adam. We missed Declan's funeral because of food poisoning, and I just can't stop feeling so guilty for that. I left my sweet sons to say goodbye to my other boy without me there."

"You know we don't hold that against you, Mom. Declan would have been pissed if you and Hailey made yourselves feel worse by attending his funeral," I reassure my mom as best I can again. "I'll also talk to everyone when I get home from work. Speaking of work, I need to head back. I'll call you tonight and let you know. Love you, Mom."

"I love you too, Hudson. Give everyone a hug for me! Bye." Mom finally hangs up, not waiting for a bye from me. She's the sweetest woman, but she's also a space cadet sometimes.

Mom has always been quirky and far too friendly for her own safety. She moves a mile a minute and talks just as fast. Sometimes keeping up with what she's talking about is extremely exhausting because if you don't catch the point the first time she says it, good luck figuring it out. It makes conversations like this one, where I have a prior commitment going, frustrating as hell. She means well, always trying to stay in touch with Hailey and I, keeping us up to date on everything and checking in on us. After losing Hannah, it got hard for her to let us go and learn to not hover over us so much.

Heading back out to my work area, I toss on my face shield and fire my MIG welder up. This current project is being pushed for a fast completion which means if I don't want to be working overtime, breaks are out of the question.

Rhys has an interview this afternoon with a security company, and Adam is stuck working later today to cover one of his staff's supervision shifts at the indoor recreation area. That means I can't be late getting out today or Lay will be left alone, and we've all agreed that shit can't happen. A few minutes here and there like the other day when Lay decided to bake is okay, but longer than that is too much of a risk. All it takes is her being alone and her stalker noticing for us to lose her. While Lay can handle herself to a point, this fucker is a sick son of a bitch and will find a way to fight fucking dirty.

Adam, Rhys, and I have been organizing our schedules more than we’ve ever done in our entire lives. It’s become a life or death situation to just make sure someone is with Lay at all times. We’ve already intercepted shit from Kevin fucking Jennings before Lay could see it and sent it straight over to Jarrod and his team. She’s strong, but how much can one person be expected to take?

The gifts he leaves are fucked up, but the notes are so much worse. The gifts are showing up once, sometimes twice a day. Small boxes of cut up roses, pieces of bloodied cloth, even dolls with black hair and red paint smeared all over them. We’ve had to change Lay’s phone number for the second time, grab the envelopes addressed to her from the mailbox, and check her car every morning for folding letters and signs left on it. We knew he was escalating based on him leaving the fucking body of her former employee on her bed, but seeing the obsession he has with her in every note is starting to terrify me.

Everything gets sent off to the police, boxes and boxes of fucked up shit that Rhys drops off every other day. We forward all messages and voicemails from her phone, but they just keep coming in. I’ve seen zero progress on this fucking case and it’s starting to really piss off Adam and I. Rhys says that we need to trust Jarrod, that if we push them even less will happen. I’m trying to be understanding of where he’s coming from since he knows how these assholes work, but fuck! We don’t even have a police presence in the area for fuck’s sake.

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I focus on getting finished so I can get out of here on time. If I become too distracted, I’ll need to stop so I don’t end up hurting myself. Welding can be extremely dangerous if you don’t pay close enough attention to what you’re doing, and I would very much like to go home and not to a hospital.

Time flies when my attention is highly focused on the task at hand. Once the clock strikes three, I’m already shutting down and heading out. Nodding and waving to a few coworkers, I head out my car, stretching my neck and pulling out my phone. Rhys needs to leave by four to make his four thirty interview which gives me forty-five minutes to get home and showered before that.

Connecting my phone to the car bluetooth, I hit Lay’s name on my screen, pulling out of the parking spot as I do. It rings three times, making me nervous she’s not answering, which is fucking stupid because Rhys would have told me if something was wrong.

“Hello?” Lay’s voice comes through the car speakers, bringing an instant smile to my face.

“Hey, beautiful.” I speak loudly, making sure the car is picking up my voice. “I’m heading home from work, is there anything I can grab for you on the way?”

“Hey, Big Guy,” she responds, her words muffled by a yawn. “Can you grab me a coffee? I’m so exhausted I almost can’t keep my eyes open, and I still have so much to do this afternoon.”

“Of course. Are you feeling okay?” Holding back the panic that’s creeping up, I keep my voice as even and calm as possible. “Do you need me to stop at a drug store for anything?”

“No, that’s okay. It’s just some fatigue, Big Guy. The coffee should perk me right up,” Lay assures me. “I’ll see you when you get here! I need to call Poppy back before it gets too late in the afternoon. Bye!”

“Bye, Lay.” I hit end on my steering wheel, my knuckles white with how tightly I’m gripping it.

This urge to keep Lay in a protective bubble keeps getting worse and worse. It doesn’t matter what she says, I jump into protector mode, ready to do whatever it takes to make her feel better. I get panicky when it’s something I can’t fix or a threat that I can’t just erase. At this rate, I’m going to have a heart attack by my next birthday.

Grabbing coffee takes me about ten extra minutes, which means I pull into the driveway with about twenty minutes to get a shower in. Adam and Rhys think I’m crazy for not even leaving Lay alone while I shower in the same house as her. They don’t seem to understand that it just takes one minute for something awful to happen. Everything could be fine and then sixty seconds later, your life has changed forever. It happened to my sister, it can happen with Lay.

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