Page 184 of Unexpected Heroine

I deserve to know him.

I don’t know if he deserves to know me, but I have to believe he does.

Despite my very first encounter with him on the night of my rescue being intimidating, to say the least, he seemed kind. And Tomer speaks highly of him.

That said, I’m not sure how much stock I should put on Tomer’s opinion of someone.

If only we knew where that building was. The place where he works. Redleg Security. My father’s company. That night, I was so out of it I only recall a few tiny details.

Wait a cotton-pickin’ minute.

My palm hits my forehead.

Duh, Lettie.

There’s a little invention called the internet that can tell me so much about him and the company. Including how to get there. Plus, there’s a Redleg guard outside who I could ask.

I bolt off the couch without saying anything, my phone in hand. Freya and Stella both mirror my movement. It’s comical how we’re all standing in a semi-circle looking at each other now. No one is speaking. They have no idea what’s going on in my head and yet they’re matching my energy.

So I laugh. Instead of having me committed, they join me.

When we’re done chuckling, I announce, “I changed my mind. How about we take that drive now?”

Can hearts really explode? Like right out of someone’s chest? Has that ever happened? If it’s theoretically possible, it might be happening to me.

Once I got the girls into the car—Stella and Freya, not my boobs—some of the excitement I was feeling about this little road trip began to wane. It was quickly replaced by utter terror.

Not on the off chance that he might be at work on a Sunday but simply because I’m out of the apartment.

Which reminds me of how fucked up I really am and how much therapy I need. Next thing I know, I’m considering asking them to drop me off at the women’s shelter. Might as well get me checked in immediately before my heart catapults clear out of my body.

I keep telling myself that everything is fine and dandy. There’s no reason to be alarmed, especially since we have a bodyguard following us, it’s broad daylight, and my two best friends are in the car with me. Plus, I’m not drinking anything, so I won’t be roofied. Although, I suppose a syringe to the side of the neck would be just as effective if movies are to be believed.

Related ADHD wondering... where do the criminals in all those movies get the drugs that they inject into their victims? Do they know someone who works in a hospital? Are they nurses? Doctors? Because that stuff is inventoried. They don’t just let you walk out with whatever you need to put someone under. What’s that stuff? Propofol? Yeah, hospitals don’t just let you leave with propofol.

Maybe criminals can make it. Is that something that you can cook in a bathtub? Like meth? What ingredients do you use for that? Why am I thinking about this shit?

At times like these, I miss my llama. Drunk llamas were a simpler time.

Where was I?

Ah yes. About to have a nervous breakdown or suffer an explosion of the heart because we are about two minutes away from the Redleg Security headquarters.

Once we were in the car, I told Stella and Freya where I wanted to go. As you would expect, they were concerned but ultimately supportive.

“Lettie, you know I love you.” Stella glares at me over her shoulder from the front passenger seat. “But if you brought us here so you could see that fucking lying snake, I’m gonna skin your ass.”

From the driver’s seat, Freya looks at Stella with a scrunched-up face as if she smelt something foul. “That is not an expression.”

“I just made it one,” Stella insists.

“You can’t skin an ass. It’s already skin. Isn’t the purpose of skinning something to remove the hair?”

“No. Skinning is when you remove the skin from the body. If there’s hair on the body, the hair comes too because you can’t have hair without skin.”

I watch their exchange from the backseat, my gaze fluttering between them. It’s hard to decipher whether they’re bickering like an old married couple or if this is foreplay. Their flirty antagonism is blossoming.

Lettie from a week ago would’ve been overjoyed at this development. Positively punch drunk. However, today’s version of Lettie wants to punch something.

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