Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

He was down in Arizona now with my gram, and I never saw them. They sent cards and called on birthdays and Christmases, but they were checked out of the family. So much, for some whacked reason, they didn’t have it together enough to call and cancel the gift they bought for Jason and me. It, and the shot to the heart it carried, arrived five weeks after he died, when we would have arrived back from our honeymoon.

So for me it was Pete, it had always been Pete.

And looking in his eyes, I knew, since he only had one daughter, now passed, and no grandkids, it was always me.

So I took the hand he offered and let him lead me to the Compound.

He got me a drink.

He also got me the heck out of there before Shy came back with his woman.

Chapter Six

Tied to Your Strings

Two weeks later…

I walked up the stairs to my apartment, dog tired.

I was exhausted because I’d just had two days of back-to-back double shifts.

I had a shift the next day too, and though it wasn’t a double, I needed a break.

Thinking about tomorrow made me even more exhausted.

And as if being dog tired wasn’t bad enough, I’d had another run-in with Dr. Dickhead that day and it was bad.

Gossip was running amuck in the hospital that the nurse he was always banging in the supply closet was denying him his piece of tail until he asked his wife for a divorce. This did not make him happy. He was the kind of guy who wasn’t happy normally, but he was a lot less happy when he wasn’t getting it regular, and some woman trying to yank his chain just made things worse.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he was taking this garbage out on me and (mostly) only me. I had somehow earned his focus. Maybe because I was the newest and youngest nurse on the ward and thus fresh meat. Maybe he just had it out for me because he was a douche.

The constant focus of his douche-ness escalated that day when he laid into me in front of a patient. It wasn’t cool normally, but in front of a patient meant I couldn’t stick up for myself. I had to take it.

So I did and it was bad.

So bad, I wanted to turn my head to the patient, say, “If you’ll excuse me,” round her bed and knee him in the ’nads. I did not do this. Instead, he finished up, stormed off, and I knew it was as bad as it seemed when the patient asked, “Are you all right?”

I assured her I was, but it stuck in my craw that I was assuring a patient that I was all right when it was my job to make sure she was all right.

I was tired of his crap. I was just plain tired, and what made matters worse was that I didn’t even have Shy to talk to about it.

Work sucked. Not having Shy sucked more.

Everything sucked.

I had been avoiding him for two weeks, not taking his calls, not returning his messages, not hitting Ride and finding ways to stay away from my apartment just in case he popped by.

I didn’t know why I was avoiding him, but I told myself I was doing it because I needed to get my head together.

No, strike that, I did know why I was doing it. I just let that fester in that deep place inside me that I was never, ever visiting.

So I had no one to talk with about my work crap, and I had no one to talk to about how I was feeling about Shy, because I wouldn’t even admit to myself how I was feeling about Shy.

I was screwed.

I was also beginning to think I was an idiot.

These were my thoughts when I let myself into my dark apartment, locked the door behind me, dropped my purse and keys on the table by the door, and moved through the dark living room to the lamp by the side of the couch.

I turned it on then let out a small scream.

Shy was sitting on the couch, long, lean legs straight out, booted feet on my coffee table, arms stretched out and resting on the back of the couch, eyes on me.

“What are you doin’, sitting in the dark?” I asked, my hand at my throat.

“Are you avoiding me?”

I knew what he was asking. I couldn’t not know, but I didn’t know how to explain it to him so I stalled.

“Pardon?”

Slowly, oh so slowly, he lifted his booted feet from the table, set them on the floor, and pulled himself off the couch. Equally slowly, he turned and locked eyes with me.

All of this was pretty scary.

It got scarier when his voice, low and menacing, came at me just as slowly as he had moved.

“Are. You. Avoiding. Me?” he enunciated each word with precision, and that was even scarier.

“I’ve been busy,” I told him, and my heart jumped as I saw the muscle jump in his jaw.

“You’ve sung that song before, Tabby,” he reminded me. “Didn’t like it the last time. Really don’t f**kin’ like it now.”

“I’m on double shifts. A nurse is sick and another one is on vacation.” This was true but it only explained the last two days, not the last two weeks.

Shy was far from dumb. He’d see through that and call me on it.

He didn’t delay in seeing through that and calling me on it. “Your phone broke?” he asked.

“What?” I asked back.

He leaned slightly toward me and it took a lot not to lean back. “Is your phone broke?” he repeated, his voice back to low and menacing.

“No,” I admitted.

“So, explain, if you’re not avoiding me, you got a call from me, why you don’t take it? And, Tab, I’ll throw this out there now so you have plenty of time to come up with another excuse, when I leave a message, I wanna know why it isn’t returned.”

I stared at him and he stared at me.

I licked my upper lip, his eyes dropped to my mouth, his face got hard, and suddenly the room felt like a silent thunderclap rolled through it.

It was then I knew I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I know about her,” I whispered, and yes, that came right out, and yes, it sounded like an accusation.

“Say again?” he asked.

“I know about her. Your woman.”

His brows went up. “So?”

So?

So?

“So, you didn’t tell me about her,” I pointed out.

“Sorry, Tab, didn’t know I needed to report to you about who I f**k,” he fired back.

Ouch.

That hurt but with no choice, I worked through it and rallied.

“We’re tight,” I said quietly.

“Not that tight,” he returned.

Ouch again.

But I got it, I totally got it, and I had no choice but to power through it so, with difficulty, I did. “Okay, Shy, I get it and its cool. All of it’s cool. You were there for me and I appreciate that. You helped out a lot. Now you’re off the hook.”