Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Imogen

There's a whole lot of stuff that makes sense in the dark of night that come morning will have you cringing.

Waking up next to a stranger that helped you move out of your ex's shit hole place and carry a pathetically small amount of belongings into your new apartment was one of them.

Make that waking up to him staring at you.

My eyes flickered open and I blinked, not really processing what I was seeing. Just a flustered looking Lucas who jerked his eyes down, his cheeks going a very cute shade of pink. I rolled over with a groan, turned off my alarm, and remembered the oh so awkward conversation we'd had last night.

"We can't. I want to. Fuck, how I want to."

Was that me now? In my defence, I hadn't had sex in months, but was I going to start jumping on guys the minute they showed me a tiny scrap of kindness? I wanted to bang my head against the pillow, but instead I looked back at Lucas. My eyes searched his face, looking for traces of revulsion, but I didn't find them. He just looked worn out and… curious.

"Did you want a coffee?" he asked.

"Um, I'd kill for one, but where are you gonna get one from?" I scrubbed at my face. "I can't even remember if I packed the kettle."

"You didn't." That shy smile was back when my eyebrow jerked up. "I went up to the local servo to grab you one."

"Is this what you do for all of your security clients?" I asked, waving a finger around. "Because I gotta say, this is pretty incredible service."

"I'm not sure." He saw my look of confusion and then charged on. "I mean, I'm in IT, so they don't let me near clients often. Probably for this very reason." That last part was muttered to himself. "So, coffee?"

Figuring he was on safer ground, he met my gaze again, right up until I emerged from under the covers.

I couldn't sleep in my uniform, so I'd dug through my duffle bag and found a thin pair of shorts and a t-shirt to put on. They were well worn and comfortable as fuck, but just how see-through they were wasn't evident at night. His eyes dropped down and mine followed them, my hands moving, ready to slap down over my tits. I didn't think you could see the colour of my nipples through the fabric, but I wasn't sure. Trouble is, doing that was acknowledging something that was going unsaid, that Lucas was taking a very long, wide eyed, inspection of my body.

And part of me gloried in that attention.

It was something I'd gone without for so damn long, and with Lucas, I felt safe enough to enjoy it. Didn't stop me from dropping to the floor and ruffling through my bag before pulling on a sweater, though.

"Coffee sounds amazing," I said. "But I'm pretty sure I said I'd bring you one."

"Tonight."

"Tonight?"

I looked over my shoulder to see he was following me out into the living area, and the aged kitchen looked even worse in this light. He settled against the counter as I drank my coffee.

"The security in your apartment needs beefing up," he told me, all confidence now. "That front door replaced, at least, and a dead bolt installed."

"I'm not sure I'm allowed?—"

"It's an internal door, Imogen," he told me. "You could put a fist through it without too much effort."

And I was sold. Imagining me doing that made it easy for me to see someone else doing the same. Some crackhead, Mike… Phil. I swallowed a mouthful of coffee, then nodded.

"And lemme guess, this is all part of your service?"

"For you, yeah."

God, those blushes were too damn cute. Half the time Lucas was staring at me like I was the last piece of pizza, and the other he was too embarrassed to glance my way. When his cheeks flushed, it felt like I could count every freckle that dusted his nose.

"Well, OK, I guess I could…" I tried to think of something to do to return the favour before my eyes landed on the fridge. "Make you dinner to say thanks. Might be just lamb chop stew, but?—"

"That sounds amazing. So, do you have work today?"

"Shit, yeah." I put the coffee down and dove back into the bedroom, looking for a towel, toiletries, and a clean uniform. "And I need to get going. I haven't trekked out to work from this place before, so I don't know what the drive will be like on a weekend."

"You need to get ready," he agreed. "Let me give you my number. Call me if anything happens…" He looked up from his phone, somehow able to detect the shift in my bodily tension. "I mean nothing… Nothing will happen, Imogen."

He wasn't putting fear in my heart. It was there all along. I'd bought myself a couple of days grace with Mike going fishing for the weekend, but right now, I couldn't help but see my ex lurching towards the car. He was like a single-celled amoeba seeking something, but why? I'm pretty sure he couldn't answer that, but he did it anyway. My presence didn't mean anything, but my leaving did.

"But you'll be ready to help if it does." I held up my phone in recognition. "Thanks…" I thought of last night, almost able to feel the warmth of his body against mine. "For everything. You were right. Now's not the time, but most blokes I know wouldn't knock a girl back, no matter what she was thinking."

"I'm… not most blokes."

His wry smile had me echoing his expression.

"So you're saying I should've been dating IT guys? Got it."

I didn't know if that was true or not, but he went to the door, instructing me to lock it behind him before I raced through a shower and got ready for work. The bathroom was old, the silicone mouldy, but the tiles were clean and the water pressure good, so I was out the door not long afterwards. As I sat in my car, hand on the ignition, I knew. I just needed to get used to my new normal, and if that included cute boys sleeping next to me in a non-sexual capacity, then that was an improvement. Feeling newly optimistic, I drove off to work, making it there well before my shift started.

"Oh my god!" Jade said when I walked in the door. "How did it go? I've been waiting on tenterhooks all night to find out how the move went."

"Harder than it should've been, and easier."

"OK, stop with the mysterious bullshit and spill," Daniel said, appearing from thin air, because that's what he did. One sniff of drama and he was there. "Did you find some really hot removalists? Are they gay or like a bit of downlow action?" He grabbed my shoulders and pretended to shake me. "I need deets, girl, deets!"

"Mike was at my old place when I got home…"

I told them the entire story as quickly as I could, Jackie the manager coming out of her office to give us the hairy eyeball.

"Three hot guys rescued you from some old dickhead and then moved all of your earthly possessions for you with no expectations of anything?" Daniel shot me a withering look. "You bitches get all the luck. Maybe ask them if they have any friends who'd go for a guy with absolutely no gag reflex?"

"I'll definitely do that," I said as I opened up my aisle. Customers started placing their items on my conveyor belt and I rang them up, falling into a familiar rhythm, right up until they walked in.

"So you did actually have to work."

My focus at work was very narrow. Concentrate on swiping each item as fast as possible, smile and greet the next customer while taking the last one's payment. No one liked waiting in line at the supermarket, and so that impetus kept my attention on my immediate surroundings.

So imagine my surprise when Mike put a single bottle of Coke on the conveyor. Well, that and a belligerent attitude.

"You had a weekend shift, yet you managed to clear your shit out around your busy schedule."

Fawn, that was my default response. I looked around wildly and saw people, so many people, but didn't cry out. Why would I? Mike was a customer.

And so was Phil.

He placed a pack of kitchen knives and other items onto the conveyor behind Mike's Coke.

None of them were doing anything that contravened the conditions of entry, so I couldn't call security. I saw Jade further down the shop, but she was dealing with customers at the cigarette counter. Everyone was doing what they were supposed to, leaving me to deal with them.

They wanted to buy something? I'd ring it up for them, get them through my lane as quickly as possible, but when my hand went to the Coke bottle, Mike's wrapped around it. His fingers digging into mine hard enough to hurt, and that stunned me. I just stared at him, wondering what the hell had happened. He never did anything to physically hurt me, so why had he started now?

Because I both didn't matter and mattered completely, that's what was clear in his eyes.

Me, Imogen, the girl he'd asked out at school, was never of much interest, but the bitch who dared to clear out and leave him to his shit, did. I wasn't a person, I was thing, a thing with a high-pitched whine stuck in her throat. People were shifting restlessly behind the guys, wondering what the holdup was. They wanted to buy their damn groceries, and I wanted to serve them. That need had every muscle trembling, right before I wrenched my hand and the bottle free then swiped it across the sensor.

"$4.50, thanks."

The last bit was tacked on at the end.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you owe me more than that with the stunt you pulled," Mike snarled. "You pay for it."

When he walked out of the lane clutching the drink, that gave me the pretext I needed. I pressed down a button each one us had at our register to alert security that we had a theft happening. It was for a meagre amount, but the theatre of it seemed to deter others from doing the same thing. Jade's head jerked up and so did many others of my colleagues, all of them focussing on Mike. He got about ten steps away before male staff members ringed around him. That raised voice, his brashly declared innocence, it was all too familiar, but somehow it was a relief it was happening to someone else this time.

Because when Jade rushed over to see if I was OK, she understood.

"You alright?" She looked me over before I could answer. "Did he do anything to you? Imogen?" I just shook my head slowly, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. "How about you take a break?—?"

"She can ring up my order." God, if I thought Phil's voice was slimy before, it was positively unctuous now. Not content to allow the conveyor belt to draw his items forward, he picked them up and plonked them right next to me.

My eyes followed the shape of each knife, that and a big tub of Vaseline, all the way up to him. His smile widened, revealing yellowing teeth, some that had fine cracks in them, but it was that same hunger in his eyes that had me shrinking back, moving away from the register to allow Jade to take over. I felt his gaze burning into the space between my shoulder blades right up until I reached the staffroom. My phone was out and I was unlocking it without thought, staring at my contacts.

Who would I call, my parents? I imagined how the conversation would go. Mum, Dad, my ex walked out without paying for a Coke and his friend bought some items with a creepy smile. Friends? I didn't really have any now. Mike had encouraged me to make him my entire world, sulking each time I went out without him. So who did that leave? My cousins in Queensland? My old property manager? That girl I met in a pub and never ended up going out for a drink with?

And Lucas.

My thumb hovered over his contact. Give me a call if anything happens… I could hear his voice in my ears, as if he'd anticipated this along with everything else. I shook my head, then tapped the contact, listening to it buzz.

"Imogen?"

His voice sounded scratchy, as if he'd only just woken up, and that had me feeling a rush of shame, but my mouth was moving before I could think better of it.

"He was here," I said, unable to keep the emotion from my voice, though letting that slip was enough to get my brain engaging. Something in me needed to clarify, explain, minimise. "Mike, I mean. He was here and I just… need someone to talk to about it."

"Are you finished with your shift?" he asked, completely clear now.

"No, Jade told me to go on a break?—"

"Stay there. Don't move. Don't go back to work. Just stay there. We're… about ten minutes out. Hang tight, you can do that for me, right?"

I wanted to say yes. I needed to say yes, so that's what I did.

"Imogen." Jade walked in the door of the break room and any relief I felt died when I saw Jackie was in tow. "That was your ex, right? Can you fill us in on what's going on?"