Chapter 105: It’s Him
- RAYA -
Soon the peaceful shelter of Dex’s home is surrounded by lights. Police officers, an ambulance, emergency personnel... the quiet, moonless night has been lit up spectacularly, and there is something so incredibly tragic about it. I can’t stop feeling guilt that this happened, and the exposure of all these people with their attention and scrutiny aimed at Dex and his home amplifies that. He is being questioned and analyzed and his innocence judged because of me.
While I stand by and watch, listening to the police question Dex, I see the man who Dex chased being carried out of the woods on a gurney. It’s from quite a distance that the first responders are bringing him out, so I can’t see his face. I can’t know for sure that it’s him.
Before I know it, my feet are carrying me forward to find out. I need to know. I need to know if it’s the neighbor that I ran into several times... never knowing at the time that he was secretly watching me in my home. My mind flips through memories of those encounters—in the laundry room, the hallway, noticing him looking out his window—scanning those images for the details of his face so I can compare them with whoever this is.
"Raya," Dex says, attention torn from the officers when he notices what I’m doing. He grabs my hand. "You don’t want to see."
"I need to know if it’s him," I tell him, pleading with him silently.
I won’t be able to sleep tonight not knowing—not that sleep will come easily now anyway. But I won’t be able to stop wondering about it... if it was truly him who somehow tracked me down here or if it was someone else completely unrelated.
Dex stares at me, making an inward decision as his lips press together and a muscle feathers in his jaw. He takes in a slow breath, preparing to let me do something he isn’t comfortable with. Then his hand slips out of mine, letting me go while he stays where he is in the driveway close to the house.
The gurney is rolled over the bumpy ground until finally arriving at the end of the driveway where the ambulance is parked, and I meet them there. It’s him. It’s my neighbor. I can already tell by the hair—by the graying color and the way it’s haphazardly parted.
His face is bloody, but unfortunately he’s awake, and he notices me. When he does, his eyes dart away. There is a chilling fear that paralyzes me until I see that—until I see how he wishes not to be seen. He is embarrassed or ashamed or maybe he is just not comfortable with having his gaze met. He wants to do all the looking without having anyone look back, because then he is confronted with the depth and truth of that person—because then he is confronted with their soul and his is confronted in return.
"You’re a coward," I say bitterly, grimacing as I continue to stare at the man who probably watched me for months but can’t handle being looked at for a second. He hears me, but he still doesn’t look. His gaze is distant—aimed at the sky and the stars.
I want to tell him that if he had hurt Dex badly—the knife finding a critical artery or organ or something else devastating—I would have killed him. It’s a threat that feels more true than anything, the necessary violence sprouting with a bitter, acidic taste in my mouth as I hold it on my tongue, not giving it the shape of words. But it’s still there, and it’s still true.
They lift him into the ambulance, and I stand there staring now at his shoes and the dirt they picked up in the woods. I hope Dex broke his nose. I hope the nameless man is in a ton of pain. I’m guessing he is—otherwise he would have run away by now.
When they close the ambulance doors, I finally walk away. One of the many police officers is walking up the driveway at the same time, holding an evidence bag with a knife in it.
"We’ll need both of you to come down to the station to give statements," I overhear one of the officers telling Dex.
"I told you everything. If you need anything else, you can speak to my lawyer."
"You need stitches," I remind Dex, watching the ambulance back out of the driveway. "We need to get you to a hospital."
Dex doesn’t say anything, probably because he wants to argue with me. But I have also just given a good reason for the cops not to insist that we provide them further statements now. It’s late. We’re both tired.
"Thank you for coming so quickly, officers. I will come give a statement if you need it, but not until he gets his arm taken care of."
"And not tonight," Dex adds.
"Can you drive like that?" I ask him, turning to walk toward the truck and leave all of this behind now that the threat has been removed from the woods. "Would you like me to drive?"
Dex chuckles softly, turning to follow me. "I can drive just fine."
When we pull out of the driveway, watching the police officers get back into their vehicles, I let out a heavy sigh.
"It was him. You were right," I mumble. "I hope you did some serious damage. You don’t have a broken hand or anything do you?" My eyes snap to his hand resting in his lap rather than curled around the steering wheel. I hadn’t even thought of that possibility. With as stubborn as he is, I doubt he would have told me if it was broken.
"No," he chuckles, grabbing the steering wheel to prove it. "I can’t say I’ve been in many fights, but thankfully I know how to hit someone without breaking my hand."
"Maybe you should teach me."
His smile falls then, eyebrows pitching upward with that look of worry or concern or whatever emotion it is that makes me want to scratch his beard and behind his ears and tell him it’s okay. He looks like a puppy—a sexy heartthrob of a puppy, but still a puppy. It’s strange, I know.
"Maybe I should teach you," he agrees quietly. "You should know how to defend yourself."
"Yeah, who knows what other creeps might pop up out of nowhere. Two in one weekend."
——————
After getting Dex’s arm stitched up and watching multiple nurses fawning over him in the emergency room, we finally make it back to the house around midnight. It feels like another night entirely.
"You don’t need to come to work tomorrow. Take another day, okay? You can have as many as you want, but at least take one more," he says once we’re inside. "You already have the doctor’s appointment, so just visit with Rory afterward. Or come home and rest. Or bring her back here... whatever you want to do that isn’t work."
"Why don’t you stay home, too?" I suggest, looking at the thirteen stitches he received.
"I would," he smiles, "but Lawson won’t be there. That means I need to be."
"What did your uncle say about Lawson?" I ask, realizing we didn’t get to have that conversation yet.
"He just said he would take care of it," he says vaguely. When I frown, giving him a quizzical look, he goes on. "I think it has to do with unsealing the court documents of his prior sexual harassment cases. They were settled confidentially. I’m not sure exactly, though. Uncle Saul is handling the details. Whatever it is, he assured me that Lawson will not be wanting to show up to work."
"Oh." So apparently his uncle is some kind of legal expert. "I guess that makes sense. I can’t believe Lawson could have those things happen before and not have to face any repercussions. I would have never known. He always seemed like a... like a gentleman."
"It’s awful, I know. Let’s not talk about it," Dex says, pulling me up the stairs. "I want to take a shower, and I know you’re tired. What time is your appointment?"
"Um... 9:30."
Once we’re in the room, he strips off his shirt and throws it aside, unbuckling his pants as he approaches the bathroom. I shamelessly watch, sitting on the bed next to Moira. Instead of closing the door like he always has before, he leaves it open, and I watch him shuck his pants off, dropping them heavily on the floor and creating a trail of discarded clothes that lead to the shower.
It’s not an appropriate time to be having these thoughts... the thoughts of that dream where we were in that very shower. It has been one hell of a weekend, and who knows what the coming week is going to hold?
Dex is right. I’m tired.
But there’s a part of me that discards that weariness, stripping it off just like Dex stripped off his clothes. That part of me doesn’t sleep—it creates these fantasies in my sleep.
Now I’m here, in waking life, watching the man of my dreams undress and get into the shower. The man who just chased down a stalker tonight and beat him up. The man who has done so many incredible things for me. Who would waste the opportunity to make one of those sexy dreams a reality just for a little sleep?
