Finding Faith (12 page)

I let out a laugh at the image of Luke. The tension I had been holding since walking out of Faith’s department flowed out of my chest with relief that George and Faith weren’t anything serious.

“All right, game on buddy,” I said while looking out the window, this time with a huge smile on my face.

Finding this out was almost as good as my first lay. Almost. Since Faith was mine already, nothing would beat that. The only thing that could possibly be better would be keeping Faith in my bed.

“I have to get Luke to try to stick his penis in someone else and I’m home free,” I said distracting myself from getting another hard-on.

The scowl on George’s face was gone, replaced with a goofy grin. “That shouldn’t be too hard. You could probably put a pie in front of him and convince him to screw it.”

We laughed at Luke’s expense the rest of the ride back.

Back at the station, shouting echoed into the hallway as we came in from the ambulance bay. Luke was bellowing, “You’re going down Mo foe!”

James countered with, “Not a chance pansy ass.” Then rapid gunfire erupted from the TV.

They were playing Call of Duty on the Xbox 360 that was given to us by a thankful citizen. The other guys were sitting in a semicircle in front of the TV enjoying the show.

I found my chair, plopping down into it exhausted from the satisfying extracurricular activity I had done not too long before.

George roamed into the kitchen and started picking at the food that had been left out for us from dinner saying, “Hey, Luke, guess who Killer was talking to today?” He had a shit eating grin on his face that only meant one thing, trouble.

“Who?” Luke’s attention was still on the game, eyes unblinking, blasting away at a wall that James’ man had run behind.

“Your dream girl.”

George still had a smirk on his face, waiting for the reaction he was baiting for.

“You sneaky bastard, get out of there. You afraid?” Luke let more shots go, ignoring George.

“Luke, did you hear what I said?” George had a roll in his hand, tossing it up in the air and catching it like a baseball. That was a sign that someone was about to get pegged in the head.

“Yeah, my dream girl,” Luke started to repeat, finishing it in slow motion. Then he went quiet like the light bulb went on.

“What? Hell to the no! When did he talk to her? God dammit, so not fair,” he said throwing his game controller, stomping his foot before jumping up and down a couple of times.

“Ha, you suck. Eat bullets and die sucker!!” James yelled, wailing away at the TV like Rambo as Luke had his girly tantrum.

“Ha, mission accomplished,” George said biting into his roll, ripping a piece away like a dog with a piece of raw meat.

Is that what I looked like with Faith’s neck? Man, I sure hope not. The thought disturbed me slightly, then I remembered her smile and my cock twitched in agreement that she liked it. Hell, I loved it.

Luke interrupted my sex dream with his whiney voice. “What the hell, John. When did you see her? You never talk to anyone when you go to the hospital unless you absolutely have to.”

He threw himself into his recliner, shaking his head and crossing his arms across his chest.

“Man, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything to you about not paying attention. Damn.” He punched his thighs with his fists. Better his thighs than my face. Why was I so worried about these guys? She was mine before they even knew she existed.

I got up from the recliner feeling good about things and headed into the kitchen, passing Luke as I went and said, “Game on, bud.”

“I’m so close. She wanted me at the bar, I know it! If you hadn’t shown your rugged lumberjack face I could have had her in the bathroom,” Luke protested, his voice even whinier than before.

“What fantasy land are you in? She never even talked to you. I saw her go in the complete opposite direction of you,” George said, hunched over his plate of food.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he added. “I’d say by the way she came out of that darkroom you’ll have to practically walk around naked with a massive hard-on bigger than your arm for her to notice you. She was so flustered. I’d never seen her like that before,” George said, eyeing me as he chewed his mouthful of food.

George was trying to catch himself a second fish. Luke wasn’t enough. Do I respond or ignore him? That was a tough call.

Luke came into the kitchen and eyed me. He leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, a quizzical look on his face. “Dude, what did you do with her in there? Did you bone her?”

“Luke, I’m not even going there with you. The next thing I know you’ll be having dirty dreams with me in them, and no thank you,” I said, clasping him on the shoulder.

I was thankful that James had convinced Colin to play him in another game so no one was paying attention to Luke.

“Come on, you gotta tell me. I need to know what my dick is missing,” Luke answered.

“Did you really just say that to me?” I was staring at him in disbelief. I had to put my fork down so I wouldn’t stab him in the throat.

“Yeah,” Luke said, as he pulled out a chair at the table to sit with us.

I looked down at my plate so I could regain my composure. When I looked back up at him through slits I asked, “You wanna do some pie while you’re at it?” I had to remind myself that Luke was a moron.

“Pie? Sure, I’ll do some pie. Who wouldn’t? But only if it’s warm. I don’t want blueberry, though, because it wouldn’t be pretty if the seeds got stuck in the one eyed-monster,” Luke said, completely serious.

George and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

It’s official. I went crazy. How did I not punch John in the face for following me into the darkroom, or at least give him a good knee to his family jewels? No, instead I had sex with him. He did give me three orgasms, but that’s beside the point.

Then, to make matters worse, I got John’s number from Mike and texted him that we needed to talk. I regretted sending the text the instant I pushed the green button.

I didn’t have time to be worried about him when I was going to see the hospital board in a few days to find out their decision. My lawyer seemed to think I was in the clear, but I was still concerned. He told me I didn’t have anything to worry about. My blood work and hair sample showed I was clear of all drugs. The ledgers never showed a discrepancy in the number of narcotics used on the days I worked. No one else who had made a statement made any sort of accusation or said they witnessed me do anything wrong. It was only Brad’s word. The lawyer felt I was going to be let off and told to be more careful with whom I associated with.

As I rolled over to get out of bed my phone beeped. It was a text from John.

Can’t do lunch. Sorry, sweetie. How about dinner?

Sweetie? When did I get the moniker sweetie? Probably when he stuck his magic stick in me. I need to ask Grace what she thinks I should do.

I sent Grace a text to come over, the door was unlocked. A minute later I heard, “Hello, what’s the emergency that I had to leave my nice, warm bed?”

I gasped, “Oh, no! You don’t have a guy over there do you? Is it Mike?” I whispered as if someone would overhear us.

“Actually, yes it is,” she said proudly, standing up straighter and sticking her chest out even farther.

“How was he? Wait, never mind, I don’t want to know.” I shook my head. “Does he have a big package? Wait, no, no, never mind I asked,” I rambled, embarrassed that Mike was over there knowing that we were probably talking about him and his package.

Grace rolled her eyes and said, “Relax, it’s not what you think. He came over after his shift to drop off my phone that I had left at the hospital. Then he hung out for a while. We both just ended up falling asleep, unfortunately.” She let out a disappointed sigh, making her shoulders heave up and down.

“I think he’s afraid to touch me. He didn’t make a move the other day either. What am I going to do?” Grace asked, a sad look in her eye.

“Grace, he’s a really nice guy that’s all. You don’t have to sleep with a guy the second you’re alone with him.”

How did this turn out to be about her? I almost forgot why I had called her. And who was I to dish out that kind of advice?

“Focus, Grace. Back to me so you can get back to him.”

She trained her eyes back on me and I kept talking.

“I asked John to meet for lunch. I thought it would be safe in daylight out somewhere in public. Well, he can’t meet me until later and asked me if I want to do dinner. Should I go?”

I stood staring into Grace’s face, which had ‘are you stupid’ written all over it. “Yes! Why wouldn’t you? He’s a total hottie, who, by the way, still loves you. Not to mention you already slept with him, so what’s the big deal?”

“He doesn’t love me, and how would you know I had sex with him?” I asked. I had my hands on my hips, giving her my meanest look, trying to confuse her.

“Faith, did you forget who you’re talking to? I’ve seen you after you’ve had sex, and to be perfectly honest you weren’t that quiet. I had to toss cassettes around and drop stuff to muffle the noise so George wouldn’t hear you two. I was starting to get afraid that he thought I was having the beginnings of a grand mal seizure. Good thing he’s such an old man.”

She started to laugh. “If denial is the game you want to play with yourself go ahead, but the truth will slap you in the mouth eventually,” she said, waving a hand at me.

I furrowed my brows at her. I’d never heard it put like that before. “Don’t you mean slap me in the face?”

“No, mouth,” she said sure of herself. Grace always did make sure to say things exactly how she meant them, even if it meant a common saying.

“What do you know, Grace?” I eyed her cautiously. She usually had a reason behind everything.

“I don’t know as much as I think I should know considering I’m your best friend. He only told me that he was an ex of yours. How important of an ex are we talking about, Faith? Is he an I-only-dry-humped-you-in-high-school ex, or the could-have-been-my-husband ex?” She arched a brow, daring me to answer her.

When I didn’t she said, “I have a fairly good idea by the way the darkroom was torn apart. Not to mention the little love bit on your neck.”

She eyed my bruise, innocently batting her eyelashes.

I could feel my face turn bright red.

“Okay, I think you better go back to your human blanket. I’ll talk to you later,” I mumbled, pushing her back toward the front door.

“He’s more like a throw your grandma crocheted that you don’t use since he’s on the couch, but I can take a hint. And we will talk about you and John again.”

Before she walked out the door, Grace turned to Faith and whispered, “Don’t be stupid and chase this guy away.”

With Grace finally gone, I texted John back.

Dinner will work. 8 at Francesca’s
.

I held my breath in anticipation. When I didn’t get a response I let out a gust of air in relief. It would be easier to handle the rejection if I didn’t see it until later instead of being a text stalker.

But I thought too soon.

John: Nope, 7 at Spiaggia. I’ll come get you.