Page 56 of The Hangman's Rope

“Yeah,” I muttered.

We were all on the same page, and there wasn’t anything about us that’d gone soft in the face of my Sweetpea’s pain. No, we were hard as fucking diamond on the issue and I think allof us were on the same page when it came to what needed to happen next.

Chapter Sixteen

Lorelai…

I sat silently in the cab of Hangman’s beat up old truck, staring out the passenger side window; a death grip on his hand on the bench seat between us. He gripped mine back as the tears slipped down my cheeks and I sniffled here and there. I didn’t want to go home yet, but he was right… I needed help. Help I couldn’t get from him or hiding from the world, and so we were on our way to the hospital to see the nice doctor lady from that first night.

I didn’t want to leave, though. I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to lose him.

“It’s for the best, Sweetpea,” he’d murmured against my forehead, his beard and lips soft against my skin.

I don’t know what it was about those little touches that he gave me. The closeness of having his arms around me, but it felt like… it felt safer than anything I’d ever – than I’d ever been.

It felt like nothing could reach me when Hangman was around. I trusted him. I don’t know why, but I did, and now it felt like he was pushing me away.

“Will I ever see you again?” I asked him as he put the truck into ‘park’ in the hospital’s parking garage.

“Oh, baby. I’m just a phone call away…” he murmured and he reached into the front pocket of his sleeveless flannel shirt and extracted a battered business card.

I took it, the phone number on it in bold black print. Centered, with nothing else around it. No name, no logo, no business, or address.

“Don’t cry, Sweetpea. You’ve been so fucking strong to this point, and I need you to be strong just a little bit longer for me, okay?”

I nodded, but I couldn’t help but feel like the rug was being pulled out from beneath my feetagain…and the whole world was falling as I hung frozen in time, paralyzed with fear, unable to move as everything crashed and broke around me.

I stared at him and he at me for a long time, in the quiet of the running truck, in its parking spot. It was dark and getting darker still with the setting of the sun. I had slept most of the day away, and I’d needed it. I didn’t realize how much until I’d woken to Hangman dressed and sitting on the side of the bed, watching me with that sad and almost wistful look in his golden-green eyes.

He'd discussed the plan to get me home with me and I’d readily agreed that it was best, but then he’d dropped it on me that it had to be tonight and that had been one very hard and bitter pill to swallow.

“Will you judge me if I want you to kiss me?” I asked before I lost my nerve.

He looked surprised and asked, “Judge you for what?”

I looked away and sighed, trying to find the words to explain myself. About how I felt like I shouldn’t want such things after…

He tipped two fingers against my chin to turn me to look at him, and I had expected it would be for me to explain myself,but then his lips were on mine and my eyes fluttered shut and I simply lost myself in this moment.

I hung onto it with everything that I was, with both hands, as he kissed first my top, then bottom lip, so carefully and so chastely. I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth and he groaned, leaning into me, his arms going around me and my heart swelled with a gladness that felt out of place when I still felt so numb from the medication of the night before.

We broke apart, and I felt myself flush with a mixture of desire and anxiety as he opened his truck door and slipped out of the cab.

He stood outside, back to the truck, taking in some deep breaths and shuddering like a dog that’d just walked out of a lake, he came around the back of the truck to open my door.

I swung my legs out and looked up into his so very serious face as he said, “I need you to try for me. To go back to your old life… but I mean it, Lorelai. I’m only a text or phone call away.”

I nodded and slipped out of the passenger seat to my sandaled feet, and I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his chest and trying not to sob.

He put his arms around me, smoothed a hand down the back of my hair and murmured into it, “Remember what I showed you, if you need it to help you sleep at night.” I nodded. It was an unconventional thing, a coping mechanism, he called it, and honestly, I didn’t know if it would work or not – but I was willing to try.

“Okay, c’mon,” he said, pulling back from me. “Before I can’t do this.”

I looked up at him, startled, because it was the first thing he said that let me know he was having just as hard of a time with letting me go as I was him.

I took his hand and let him lead me to the employee entrance down here. He knocked twice, paused for several heartbeats, and then knocked three times more, deliberately.

The doctor opened the door and she looked so scared.

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