Page 18 of Whiskey Shivers

I broke eye contact and looked away as Mark said, “Oh, what can I do for you Mr. Johnson? My fiancé and I were just talking.”

Hex’s eyes flicked to me. I felt like my face was burning up with equal parts anger and embarrassment now. I mean,had he overheard anything Mark had said to me just now?

“Ah, nothing,” Hex said genially. “I just came to bring Miss Legare the things she asked for out of her classroom.” He held up my things and set them aside on the nearby chair in my room, saying, “Took me a bit to break into your filing cabinet. Sorry I had to. We couldn’t find your faculty keys. They might have been taken into evidence or something.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry it was such an inconvenience—”

“No, hey, not at all.” I looked up at the sharpness in Hex’s tone. My eyes met his and despite Mark’s presence in the room, Hex said clearly, “You are never an inconvenience to me.” Then as Mark stood, he attempted to lessen what he said, sort of, by saying, “That’s what friends are for.”Or was he..?

It was hard to tell.

“Right, well… I, uh.” Mark cleared his throat. “Why don’t you just call me when they’re ready to release you. We’ll sort the rest out when we get you home.” I jumped slightly when he squeezed the top of my thigh and caught Hex’s body language subtly change out of the corner of my eye.

“Leaving already?” Hex asked, his tone made out of winter.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from full-on choosing violence with Mark. I so wanted to snarl something about him and his bullshitjob. I wasthis closeto just full-on snapping but I couldn’t… not without having any place to go. Not without having some sort of plan in place.

Mark made his excuses and left me sitting in that damn hospital bed, his stupid,stupidwords lingering in my heart and mind, ravaging the shit out of them both.

I had turned my head to stare at the sky outside my window and sniffed.

“You alright, Fable.”

An angry tear snuck free and trickled down my cheek. I sniffed again, wiping it away with my good hand.

“No, I’m angry,” I said. “But not at you.”

I turned back to a kindly look from Hex, a small hint of something like pride in the way he smiled at me.

“How are you even with that chode?” he asked and I wheezed a laugh.

“I don’t even know who he is anymore,” I confessed quietly. Hex took my hand between his, massaging it, working his thumbs across the back of it.

“Yeah, well, I heard everything he said in case you were wondering.”

I closed my eyes and sighed out, defeated.

“Don’t judge me for staying,” I said. “I don’t know anyone else out here and I don’t have anywhere else to go. I have to figure some things out, but you better believe I’m so done. I don’t think there’s any coming back from that. I-I-I can’t.”

“Shhh, easy there, darlin’, you don’t owe me a thing. Certainly, no explanations or anything like that. Your life is your own and I get it – believe me.”

I sniffed again, my nose running along with my high emotions.

“Hang on there,” he said, and he got up from where he’d replaced Mark at my bedside… but that wasn’t right. Honestly, if anything, the place at my side felt like it belonged to Hex – not Mark. It honestly felt likeMarkwas the usurper, which was problematic all on its own. I mean, Mark was the one I was supposed to be engaged to.

I looked at the container on my bedside table that I think was typically reserved for dentures but had my jewelry I’d come into the hospital wearing in it. I’d had to argue with them to let me keep it, and I kept meaning to have Mark take it home but…

“You want some help with that?” Hex asked, taking up the container that was somewhere between a very 1950s blue and green. That’s to say, a color that’d been popular in the fifties. It was frustrating just how much my brain was scrambled and I didn’t know if it was all the pain medicine or the blow I’d taken to my head or what.

“Yes, please,” I murmured. “Keep it safe for me?” I asked as he opened it and saw what was inside. “The nurses keep trying to lock it in some hospital safe but I don’t want that. I keep meaning to have Mark take it home but I always forget. He’s here so infrequently—”

“Yeah, I noticed that too,” Hex muttered under his breath, but to his credit, he didn’t say more. He just put the container in the pocket of his leather jacket.

I reached out with my good hand and ran my finger over the zipper at the outside of the cuff of one sleeve of his coat and said, “A little warm for this out there, don’t you think?”

He chuckled and said, “I ride. I’ll take a little warm over road rash any day.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” I said with a bit of a smile. “That you ride, I mean. You seem like you’re the type.”

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