by P. Jameson
“You gave him the good stuff. He shouldn’t be back until midweek.”
Lola frowned at her. “But he’s scheduled an appointment?”
Hazel nodded. “For tonight. The last one before close.”
Something was off about this. Yesterday, the Daybreaker was a day early for his scheduled pickup, but she’d let it slide. Now he was back for more already. There must be some explanation. Perhaps he was sick and needed the extra nutrition.
“I’ll talk to him when he comes in,” she murmured, thumbing through his file. “Get to the bottom of it.”
“Heads up,” Hazel whispered. “Your guy just walked through the door.”
“My guy?” Lola lifted her gaze and immediately blushed pink when Hazel’s words sunk in.
Her donor was here. As if she’d conjured him with her imaginations. He nodded at the security guard and Lola quickly looked away before he caught her staring. Hazel grumbled something under her breath and then strolled off to one of the procedure rooms.
Lola tried to compose herself and pretended to look busy as he made his way from the door to the front desk. She was getting worse about this. She hadn’t seen him for days, and he made her so damn nervous and giddy now. It was hard to act natural and professional when her instincts told her to jump on him. Literally. And ride him all the way home.
She waited for him to say, “Mornin’” before she looked up from her paper pile, attempting a cool smile. With her nerves, it probably came off more like a rabid hyena trying to hold in a giggle.
“Mr. Jacobson,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “How are you today?”
His gaze narrowed on her, and he didn’t rush to answer, so her question kind of hung in the air like a limp twig.
“Please,” he gritted with a twist of his lips. “Call me Hatch.”
He’d told her the same thing every time he came in. But for some reason she couldn’t break the habit. Calling him by his nickname felt personal to her, when it was probably just run of the mill for him. She had a feeling everyone called him Hatch. If she was going to use any other name besides Mr. Jacobson, she wanted it to be his first name. Michael.
Michael. It was what she called him in her head.
Smiling, she said, “Are you here to make a deposit?”
He stared at her, mouth slightly open, like he was considering his response. Glancing to the window and back, he murmured, “Is there time? I can come back after lunch if that’s better. Don’t want you going hungry.”
Aw. Of course he was just being polite, but her heart got all feely anyway. And it was fifteen after noon. So really, the answer was no. But she and the other nurses always took their lunch in. The bank was too busy not to rotate break times.
Normally.
Inside, she frowned at the empty seats in the waiting room. It was odd.
Lola took a deep breath, exhaling another smile. “It’s no problem at all. We’ll make time for you. Just let me grab a form.”
Hurrying to the back, she pulled his file and prepped a new intake form.
“Awfully quiet around here today,” he called through the door.
“Yeah,” she answered, leaning halfway in the filing cabinet to dig through the folders. “You came at a good hour I suppose. You’ll be in and out of here in no time. Easiest deposit you ever made, I’d say. A tiny blip in your day.”
She walked back to the front with his file in hand, but when she met his gaze again, he held the oddest expression. For a single solitary moment he was… raw. As if all his defenses were down. A firewall that had been momentarily breached. Like until that second, she’d only seen him with his guard up. And that thing was six feet worth of cinder block and steel.
The way he looked now… his storm cloud eyes were soft, seeking. But what they were looking for, she wasn’t sure. His harsh brow had eased, the crease between his eyes smoothed.
The change left her staggered. It was so sudden and so different, she found her steps slowing while she tried to dig deeper and see more. The way he looked at her made all the nervous feelings go away, because well… the way he looked at her…
Michael cleared his throat roughly, and like that, all the walls came back up, closing her off. Sealing away any clue as to what he was thinking.
Maybe it was better if she didn’t know.
“Here you go,” she murmured, pushing the form over the counter toward him. “You can sit to fill it out if you want.”
She passed him a pen and his hand brushed hers as he took it, drawing a gasp from her throat that she expertly covered with a faux cough.
“I’ll stay right here,” he said, as he bent over the page.
Lola watched him as he quickly filled in all the necessary fields. He knew his way around the form, he’d been in so many times. She admired his forearm as it flexed with his writing, her gaze traveling up to where his arm disappeared beneath the sleeve of his gray t-shirt.
Don’t ogle him, Lo. It’s bad form. He’s not yours.
But he felt like hers. He really did. Deep down inside.
Forcing her eyes back to the page, she watched him fill out the remaining information. And as usual, he checked the box marked donate. Her heart always made a weird little leap and then a happy sigh when he did that. She was a sucker for a kind and generous man.
Maybe he didn’t think much about it, but he was doing mankind (all factions of them) a huge favor allowing his blood to be donated to Daybreakers for consumption. People like Michael were known as Slakers. Volunteers who were sympathetic to the fact that blood drinkers needed something that couldn’t be bought from a grocery store. The same way normal humans might fail if they weren’t allowed food, or shifters might fail if not allowed to change form, blood was necessary to the survival of the Daybreakers. Slakers donated of their own free will so that the drinkers wouldn’t be forced to make desperate and violent choices in order to survive.
The fact that her man cared about a group of people he shared no plight with, left her heart full. Maybe it gave her hope that they’d share some kind of future together. Since she was different than him too, not quite a normal human, but not Daybreaker. Like, maybe his heart could accept her—with all her differences—someday in the future. And she could stop hiding who she really was from just one person. If just a single person in the world could see the real her, it would be a dream come true. And she’d really like it to be him.
It gave her hope, and that was more than she could ask for these days.
He passed the chart across the counter and she leaned forward a little so her voice would only be heard by him. “Can I just say, I think it’s really wonderful what you do for the drinkers.”
His face contorted in a fierce frown that had her jerking backward before he ironed it back out to normal.
Shit. Wrong thing to say.
She looked away.
“The… the box,” she stuttered gesturing to the intake sheet. “You… um, donate.” She shook her head, quickly tucking his form into the file folder and handing it back to him with a forced smile. “Never mind. You know the drill. Just give that to the nurse and you’ll be out of here lickety split.”
But he didn’t take the file.
She wiggled it a little, still not meeting his gaze.
She let off a nervous laugh. “I just… like to see people helping people. That’s all I was saying.”
“You consider them people?”
This brought her gaze back to him with a frown. “Of course. Don’t you?”
He didn’t answer her question exactly. “There are some who don’t.”
She swallowed hard, nodding. “I wish there weren’t. I wish people could just be people, without all the subtitles. I wish we could be ourselves and it’d be enough. No matter what walk of life you came from.”
He cocked his head, thinking for a long moment before a ghost of a smile curved his lips. So faint she could almost believe she’d imagined it. He took a step backwards toward the dep
osit room. Then another, slowly retreating as he eyed her. She felt naked under his gaze, like he was doing the same thing she’d been trying on him just minutes ago. Digging, rooting.
He shook his head slowly, his lips twisting in a smirk. “Aw, Lola. Wishes are like stars, baby. They’re everywhere you look, but it doesn’t mean you’ll ever touch one.”
With that he disappeared behind the door, leaving her stunned. Did he just call her baby?
Chapter Three
Hatch closed the door and settled on one of the reclining bays. A nurse he recognized was unpacking her lunch in the corner, but she glanced over her shoulder and murmured disappointedly, “I’ll be right with you.”
“No rush,” he answered as she hurried out of the room through a back door.
He assumed she was going to scarf her lunch down before she drew his blood, and that was just fine by him. He planned on sticking around the bank as much as possible until Drak and the others could track down what was going on with the Skins.
In this particular instance, his watching out for Lola fell in line with his actual paying job. The vamps paid him to be a security consultant. They’d wanted a human, with human thoughts and abilities. In Drak’s words, your differences make you an asset to our cause. Hatch thought maybe he was bullshitting him, but the Daybreaker was always asking his opinion on matters, personal and otherwise. So maybe there was something to be said about coming at a problem from all sides and angles. Pooling ideas and strategies to form a workable solution.
Hatch stared at the door he’d just come through and his heart did a loop-de-loop.
His girl was on the other side.
She looked so pretty today, she almost did him in. He had vision of himself falling at her feet behind that desk, and pulling her close, his cheek pressed to her belly in a hug while she stood there holding his damn file.
Her dark hair was always pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head, but today small tendrils of hair had escaped and framed her delicate face. Her dark lashes were so long, they fluttered without even trying. And her big brown eyes glowed happily.
Until the end.
Perfect pink lips had smiled at him until…
She’d caught him off guard with her comment about donating. For a moment he thought she knew of his connection to Drak and the Daybreaker council. But she’d only been referring to him being a Slaker.
She thought he was some do-gooder when really he was doing it to be closer to her. He was a fraud.
Hazel walked in from the back, pulling a latex glove over her hand and letting it pop as she released it.
“Asshole,” she greeted with a raised eyebrow.
He smiled wryly. “Hi, Hazel. Are you the one sticking me today?”
She sighed, a genuinely happy grin growing on her face. “Absolutely. And I’m going to really enjoy this after what I endured for you last night.”
Hatch frowned. “Tell me.”
“I brought wine and tears to her door. I had to cry, Hatch. I had to bond. Tell her my sad story. And for what? There wasn’t a hair of danger to be found.”
“Oh, that sounds horrible. I’m so sorry you were subjected to that.”
He’d give his left nut to be able to spend a night sharing secrets with Lola. Learning hers. Learning why she refused to call him Hatch. Mr. Jacobson sounded so formal. And even though he couldn’t be close to her, he wished she wouldn’t treat him like every other person who came to the bank.
Hazel narrowed her eyes. “Are you being cute? It was awful.” She reached into the cabinet for a draw kit and began prepping to take his blood.
“Was it, now?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Well… I mean, I suppose it could have been worse. Your boo keeps her cabinets stuffed with good chocolate. So there’s that.”
Hatch snorted. First time anyone had referred to Lola as his boo.
“You know, you don’t fool me, Hazel.”
She grinned, a sarcastic shit eating thing. “Not trying to, Hatch.”
“You liked your girl time last night.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she muttered, clipping a vial to the needle. “So what’s all this about anyway? Why the mysterious phone call and the increased babysitting?”
Hatch held his arm out, palm up, and made a fist. He tried ignoring the needle, but sweat broke out on his brow anyway. He hated the damn things. He’d take a blade, a shock, hell, a bullet, any day of the week over a needle. There was something about them he could barely stomach. It wasn’t the pain really. But they were cold and sharp and sterile. They felt like distance and solitude. They weren’t passionate like the slice of a knife or hot like the burn of a bullet.
He thought of Lola. Her sweet smile when she’d looked up from her stack of papers. The way her full lips curved deep, one side taking the lead slightly over the other. He’d come everyday and take this needle to see that smile, and that was the truth of things.
Hatch relaxed into the chair and let Hazel go to work on his arm.
“The Skins are making a move. Don’t know how or when, but we’re watching them. Drak isn’t even blinking for how hard he’s watching them,” Hatch murmured as the cold, sharp prick stung his arm.
Hazel shook her head. “Politics,” she muttered. “I hate politics. The council should just take it to the courts. Tell them about the skin drinkers. They’re breaking the law for fuck’s sake. Lives are in danger.”
But it wasn’t so cut and dry. And lives weren’t just in danger. Some had already been lost over this. Hatch didn’t want to think about the bodies he’d helped recover or the ones he’d made look like an accident just to keep the humans unsuspecting. Because he knew what would happen if they found out Daybreakers were responsible.
It would be all out war. Daybreaker against human. And the humans… they would lose.
Drak promised they would put a stop to the rogues. He had to trust him.
“I’m a fraud,” Hatch sighed.
“What?”
He met Hazel’s puzzled gaze. “I’m a fraud. Lola thinks I donate because I have a soft spot for the vamps, when really I’m just here to see her. She thinks I’m noble. That I’m good.” He shook his head. “I don’t like deceiving her.”
Hazel was quiet as she adjusted the tube pulling blood from his arm.
“She’s not wrong,” she said quietly. “You do have a soft spot for the vamps. You could give blood without being a Slaker. Mark the humans only box. But you don’t. You come here just as much for them as you do for her.”
She gave him a pointed stare when he opened his mouth to argue.
“You know it’s true. And… how much more noble can you get, telling your heart no to keep the woman you love safe? Pretty sure that’s some romance novel shit right there. Next thing I know, you’ll come riding in on a white steed all decked out in metal. You’ll scare the hell out of everybody though, so let me know ahead of time so I can grab some popcorn and watch the show.”
“Aw, Hazel,” he lazed. “You’re always going to have my back aren’t you? I could kick puppies and you’d still stand up for me.”
Her face twisted in a shocked frown. “No! What the hell, Hatch? I draw the line at puppies.”
He snickered at her response. She was predictable as the sun.
“Monster,” she growled.
As she went about finishing the draw and logging it, he couldn’t help staring at the door that separated him from Lola. He had to sit here for fifteen minutes to make sure he wouldn’t faint. The last time he tried to ignore those warnings, he’d face planted before he reached the door. But as soon as his time was up, he was going to find more reasons to talk to her. And when he ran out of excuses, he’d leave. But he wasn’t going far. Not until Drak called with an answer to why a Skin was haunting the bank.
“You want to tell me what’s up, or am I just supposed to follow orders like a dog?”
“That,” he answered.
“Fine.”
“Just be on
watch, okay? Anything suspicious, don’t ignore it. I’ll be around.”
Hazel eyed him, wary, but finally serious about his concerns. “Okay, cousin. Okay. I’ll keep her safe.”
Hatch gave her a nod full of gratitude. “Thank you,” he said, and his voice shook with emotion he couldn’t hide. But Hazel would ignore it. She was good like that. “Thank you.”
Chapter Four
It was a quarter to six and Lola still couldn’t get the smile to stop creeping up on her face. It was annoying the hell out of Hazel, but how could she help it?
After he finished his deposit, Michael had stuck around the office for a while. It was all small talk. Easy flowing chatter in between phone calls and paper work. But it was something. Something he’d done a time or two before.
He’d made her laugh. Asked about her work. Held the door open for a sweet little grandmotherly type. Asked about her job and listened when she launched into longer than necessary explanations. He’d stayed until they hit a busy patch and then ducked out with a wink. Even if it meant nothing, just the normalcy of talking to the man who held her heart in his palm left her feeling lighter.
Lola sighed happily. Maybe grandpa was right. He’d always told her romance had a mysterious way of working out. He was a wise old bear shifter who had never stopped believing in her. Follow your heart, Lo. Especially when it tells you to do crazy, wild things.
The last two nurses waved as they hurried out the door, and Buddy the security guard headed back to do his nightly sweep of the rear exits, leaving just Lola and Hazel to take the remaining appointment of the day. Emile Maxim. He’d be here any minute and they’d get to the bottom of his frequent visits. Lola had already decided if he was going through a rough patch, she’d approve him for a little extra blood. They’d had their best month in donations, so there was plenty to spare.
Hazel set his file on the desk and finished tucking the rest into the cabinet. She yawned loudly, not bothering to stifle it, and Lola let off a laugh.
