Page 25 of X's and O's

Like how I was thirty and had so little experience with men it was embarrassing.

Things I’d never told anyone had spilled out of me onto the page, only for Levi to read.

Well, Levi and whichever guard it was monitoring the pen pal program. But I’d always easily blocked that out because something about the way Levi wrote made me want to tell him all my secrets.

I pulled my leg out of Toby’s grasp, annoyed. “I’m not sick because I’m worried about Levi getting out of prison.”

“I am.”

“Don’t be. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself and make my own decisions. The only thing I’m worried about is that he’ll get denied.”

Toby’s mouth dragged down into an unhappy frown, but as always, he was brutally honest. “I hope he does. I’m scared for you.”

I’d made the right decision in not telling him what happened at that house on Olympic Drive then. I doubted he’d be too happy if he knew the real reason I was sick with worry was because I’d watched a psychopath kill a man in cold blood, and now there was a good chance that psycho was going to come after me, now he’d had time to realize leaving a witness behind wasn’t very smart.

If anything, I only wanted Levi out more.

Maybe I’d romanticized the whole thing, but he would protect me. I was sure of it. The safest place for me right now would be for Levi to be by my side.

Holding my hand. In my bed.

Telling me he found me as beautiful on the outside as he did on the inside.

Because I was so sick of men telling me I was a nice person. Or that I was a good friend. Or I had such a pretty face, if only I could lose some weight.

I wanted someone who wanted me as much as I wanted them.

Toby went to work, and I eventually dragged myselfout of bed, showered, and put on clean clothes, but only so I could sit outside and stalk the postman.

Logically, I knew a letter from him wouldn’t arrive today. I’d given him my phone number and told him to call me, but I didn’t know if he would.

By the late afternoon, I gave up waiting and called both the courthouse and the prison to see if anyone would give me any information about how it had all gone, but nobody could tell me anything, and I ended the call and went back inside, giving up for the day.

I made Toby dinner, his favorite lemon chicken, and he brought me tiramisu, my favorite dessert. We exchanged small smiles, and without either of us apologizing for the strained conversation that morning, we were back to our usual selves, watchingGrey’s Anatomyon the couch and continuing the age-old argument of whether McSteamy or McDreamy was the hotter doctor.

Toby turned in at eleven. But I stayed up until two, alternating between staring at the TV or my phone, neither holding my interest, but too afraid to close my eyes and let the nightmares back in.

At some point, sleep caught me, and I woke up on the couch with a stiff neck.

Toby waved a mug of coffee in front of me. “You still too sick for work, girly-pop?”

I glanced at my phone, praying to see a missed call from a number I didn’t know, but there was nothing. I sighed. There was, however, a text from Francine asking if I was coming in today, with a prayer hands emoji and a reminder of the staff meeting at nine.

“I’m better,” I told Toby, while texting the same thing to Francine. “I’ve got a meeting to get ready for.”

I was okay. I was. I had to be. I couldn’t lose this job.

I gulped down a few mouthfuls of coffee and then set the mug down on a coaster. Down the sunshine-yellow hallway in my bedroom, I stood in front of my closet.

My uniform wasn’t hanging there.

It was ripped to shreds somewhere in Paul’s house.

My throat felt like it was going to close over. Everything about his murder was going to lead back to me. They’d find the tatters of my uniform with the logo on the pocket and then they’d ask Francine who took the job at the Jeddersen house, and it would be a short skip and a jump to my doorstep from there.

Levi was going to get out of jail, only to find I’d been put in it.

Even if X and Scythe had cleaned the scene the way they’d said they were going to, and the cops weren’t waiting for me with handcuffs swinging off their fingers, how the hell was I going to explain to Francine that I needed another uniform? She’d only given me one, saying I’d get another after I was off my trial period.