Page 19 of Coast

“Yeah. Well, I was walking back. There was no parking anywhere. Even though there’s nothing around here…”

“There’s a new bar over that way,” he said, nodding his head.

“Oh, that explains it. Well, I was walking back and I heard men speaking. I should have just… kept walking. But I turned my head and I saw them.”

“Saw them doing what?”

“Pushing a man on the ground. He was already all bloody. And… and…”

“Gun. Bang. Body.”

A little chill moved through me at how casually he was talking about murder. But that was quickly overshadowed by how my stomach lurched at that word. Murder. That was what I’d witnessed. Right?

“Yeah.”

“Where? Show me,” he added before I could say anything.

Not really having any choice, I followed him out of the alley. My gaze slid down, seeing his gun in his waistband, reminding myself that he could handle things if someone was still around.

“I think… there,” I said, waving toward a gap between buildings up ahead. “Yeah, that’s it.”

The broken glass on the ground was what my foot had stepped on, alerting the men to my presence.

My heartbeat started to thud loudly in my ears as we drew closer. I took slow, deep breaths, preparing myself for a dead body.

Sure enough, there was a prone figure on the ground where the men had been standing.

“What are you doing?” I yelped as he moseyed down into the lot. With my baby still pressed to his shoulder. To check out a dead body.

I couldn’t seem to unstick my feet. Not even to go grab my baby back.

I just watched as he nudged the body with the tip of his slide, then crouched down beside it.

He reached out with his free hand.

“Shit,” he snapped, getting back to his feet and striding back toward me.

“What? What is it?”

“He’s still alive. Just barely. Come on. We gotta go.”

“We can’t just leave him there if he’s alive!” I yelped, trying to turn back.

But Coast’s arm went around my lower back, pulling me with him.

It was the wrong damn time for my body to get all tingly at his touch, at his calm demeanor in the face of chaos.

It wasn’t a trait I was exactly proud of, but I had a tendency to overreact to things right at first. To catastrophize and let my confusion, fears, or uncertainty get the better of me. Instead of taking a step back and looking at the situation at a distance to see it for what it was, not what my knee-jerk reaction wanted me to believe it was.

It was refreshing to be around someone who just… pulled me along with their calm, steady current instead of letting me get pulled in my own riptide.

“We’re not leaving him,” Coast said, reading my mind. “But we can’t be seen with him either, can we? Where’s your car?” he asked.

I pointed, and we walked quickly toward it.

“Here,” he said, his voice softer as he gently pulled Lainey from his shoulder and set her in my arms. “Get her in her car seat.”

I didn’t stop to question him. I just did as he said.

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