Page 17 of Coast

Who the hell was this guy?

Warning alarms started to go off in my mind, wondering if I’d possibly traded one bad situation for another.

I watched as the guy crept down the alley. No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t creeping. He was swaggering. The man swaggered.

His arm—and gun—hung down by his side as he reached the mouth of the alley, glancing one way, then the next. Even stepping out and walking a few feet in each direction before turning and making his way back toward me.

Where I was still frozen in the spot.

Well, no.

Not frozen.

I was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm from head to toe. My legs felt too wobbly to keep holding me up.

Without even meaning to, I slid down the wall, the brick pulling up the back of my shirt and scraping against my bare skin.

“Whoa, alright,” the guy said, reaching back to tuck away his gun, like this was some action movie.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

This was my real life.

And I’d just run for my life with a baby strapped to my chest from men with guns and a clear willingness to use them.

Only to be saved by an equally scary-looking dude with a gun that he handled with a casualness that made me think that he, too, wouldn’t think twice about using it.

Against me, my intuitive little Lainey started to wriggle and fuss.

“Shh. Shh,” I tried to coo, but even my voice was trembling.

Lainey, used to all the stops being pulled out to calm her when she was unhappy, started a full-on cry.

“Alright,” the guy said, moving closer, reaching down, and sliding his hands into the carrier.

“No—” I started to object.

But he was already lifting up Lainey with the ease of someone who’d done so many times before—one hand on her bottom and lower back, the other behind her neck and head.

“Let’s let Mommy have a moment, yeah?” he asked, voice not quite baby talk, but softer than his speaking voice. “I’d be crying if I had to take a run in the middle of the night too,” he told her as he swayed her body side to side. “Just trying to get some damn sleep, and you’re transported into some low-budget action movie. And not even in a fun location. Fucking sucks, man.”

Profanity aside, he was being really sweet.

And Lainey, likely mesmerized by a man speaking to her at all, had gone from a cry to a whimper, to complete silence.

She was okay.

In surprisingly good hands, even.

So I leaned my head back against the wall, sucking in a few greedy breaths, just praying the shaking would stop so I could… what?

What was the next move?

To just leave?

Go home?

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