Page 90 of No Cap
—Hollis taking deep breaths
HOLLIS
The door to my apartment opened, and a little piece of my heart broke off and traveled toward him.
But the moment I registered his face, I took a deep breath.
The last thing I wanted to do today was listen to whatever had put that look on Quincy’s face.
I’d had a bad day.
“I’ve had a no good, very bad day,” I said tiredly as I pushed my way inside.
It’d started with my former boss, Marla, throwing me under the bus, telling everyone I’d been the one to get the X-ray wrong when it’d been her—the woman was rusty to say the least.
Then it got even worse when I’d gotten my food from the security guard that Quincy had gotten me. When I’d left the food on the counter in the break room, it’d been gone, along with the lunch Quincy had packed for me. Thrown away by some asshole I felt for sure was Marla.
Then it’d ended with me walking out of work and being immediately served papers about being sued.
By Taite DeRosa.
“Why?” Quincy asked, reaching for his phone.
I gave him the papers, and he started to flip through them, his eyes hot.
“He’s saying you caused him ‘emotional damage’ on…” he read through. “You were with me, in bed, all night.”
I was.
My cheeks flushed. “I can’t very well give them that information.”
“Well, they will take the word of a cop,” he said. “He’s saying that you purposefully cut his brake lines, honey. That’s a police matter. Why wouldn’t he go to the cops?”
“Because he can’t prove it.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. But there’s no way I can get all the way to San Antonio from here in the time to cut his brake line and cause him to wreck.”
He pulled up his phone and Googled how long it would take to get to San Antonio from here.
“At peak time, it would take you four hours and eleven minutes. But with you getting off of work at the time you did, traffic in Dallas would’ve been bullshit. I’d say you could easily add another forty-five minutes to that time. You could probably make it in four hours if you pushed it. Say, going eighty-five?”
The hilarity of that statement was missed by him.
I still laughed my ass off, though. “Quincy, have you seen my car? It doesn’t go more than seventy, and that’s pushing it to the max. Not to mention, I have that Progressive thing that watches my every move when I drive. It would ding at me if I went too fast. I think you could probably get those records from them.”
He chuckled. “You’re right. You have a lawyer?”
Why would I have a lawyer? Normal people didn’t have lawyers.
I shook my head. “No.”
“I know one,” he said. “She’s a shark. She owes me a favor, though. She’ll get this thrown out before it even gets to court.”
He immediately started back toward the coffee table where he’d been spread out looking at his cases again. I’d had to force myself not to glance at them this morning, but one in particular caught my eye, and I couldn’t stop staring at the photo of the woman lying dead on what looked to be dirty concrete.
Why did she look so familiar?
“I should make it go to court,” I grumbled. “Then I can tell anyone who’ll listen what an asshole he is, how he yelled at my friend, and made her want to kill herself.”
He pulled me into his arms, forcing my attention off of the dead woman, and then pressed a kiss on top of my head. “You don’t want to go to court for his stupid bullshit. You can, however, counter sue. Emotional damage goes both ways.”