This client's name was Jeff Yates. He was a favor from a friend.
When Jeff was a small child, he'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Now, at the age of twenty-six, he was still suffering from the same episodes, but had them better under control.
He'd moved to Hostel from Austin, Texas about a year ago, and the woman that he used to see as a psychologist had been my teacher, and my mentor, during college. She'd called me and asked me to take on Jeff as a patient, and I'd agreed.
It was only after he'd come to see me for the second time that I realized how hard he'd be to deal with.
He also didn't know the word ‘wait.'
I wasn't even sure he knew the word ‘stop.'
"Can you get the blinds for me while I go let Jeff in?" I asked him. "He doesn't wait well."
Tate's eyes held mine for a few long seconds, and then he nodded in understanding. "Yeah."
As I left the office once again fully dressed, I felt Tate's movement behind me. As each section of blind was raised, and my little world was exposed, I felt marginally better.
I could deal with the blinds closed with Tate. There was no way for me to feel scared in his presence.
Jeff, however, was a completely different story.
The man gave me the creeps, and I was on the verge of dropping him as a patient.
The only thing that kept me from completely freaking out was my old mentor and teacher. We'd compared notes, and I had a better understanding of how Jeff's mind worked.
That likely wouldn't be enough, though.
Not with the way he gave me the chills, and made me feel like I was a sitting duck in the eyes of a predator.
Jeff was smaller, about six inches shy of six foot.
He was lanky, had long hair, and looked like he didn't step foot out of his house much.
He lived with his mother, or at least that was what he told me, but I had yet to see her.
Steeling my nerves and opening my office door, I smiled warily at Jeff.
"Nice to see you, Jeff. Won't you come in?"
Jeff did, and glanced in the corner at Tate the moment he breached the room.
"What the fuck is he doing here?"
Tate's eyes narrowed on Jeff.
"I was just leaving," Tate said carefully. "See you in a couple days, Ms. Hanes."
Then Tate was gone, glancing over his shoulder twice at me, and then at Jeff.
He must've felt it, too.
I shivered and turned to my patient.
"Won't you sit down?"
Jeff went horizontal on top of the couch.
"I need to tell you what I dreamed about last night."
And then he proceeded to tell me a tale of a dark-haired woman that was dead on the side of the road, that had a remarkable resemblance to me.
Chapter 11
I hate it when those voices in my head go silent. I never know what those fuckers are planning.
-Tate's secret thoughts
Tate
"You're doing her, aren't you?"
I turned to find Ariya standing directly next to the door I'd just exited. She was half in, half out, of the pediatrician's office next door, holding the door open as she openly glared at me.
I frowned.
"What?"
"The woman," she gestured to Hennessey's office. "Knew you always had a thing for her."
I inwardly winced.
I had, yet I'd been able to curb that ‘thing.'
Yet today, I'd lost control. Today, I'd finally given in to the one thing I'd wanted for a really long time, and I was glad that I did.
I was glad.
"Ariya," I paused. "We're not talking about this," I said. "I'm there for my mandatory anger management classes that were assigned to me from the judge that was in charge of my release."
Ariya didn't take the hint.
"Was our relationship always a lie?" She looked back into the office, let the door close, and crossed her arms over her chest.
She was still turned slightly to the side, keeping an eye on whatever-or whoever-was in there. Maybe her sister's kids. Though, Ariya worked somewhere. Maybe it was there.
"Ariya," I sighed and took off my ballcap, running my fingers along my short hair, then resituated the cap on my head.
My fingers still smelled like Hennessy. God, so fucking good. Even thinking about her-tasting my fingers with the slick of her still on them-was making me hard all over again.
I needed to focus.
"It was, wasn't it?"
I gritted my teeth and returned my focus to her.
"We weren't a lie. I loved you once, but we were never good together," I admitted. "We fought like crazy, you hated where I worked, and that I didn't make enough money for us to do anything. You disliked how I dressed, and the way I shaved my hair. You seriously had something to complain about over everything I did, and that's not including the fact that we broke up at least once every six months."
That was no lie.
Out of the years that we'd been on again, off again, lovers, we were ‘together' for a short year at most.
Most of the time we were off again, which was no exaggeration.
She'd broken it off three times while I'd been deployed. Then, I'd get leave, come back home, confront her, and we were back together.
That happened two more times before I finally decided that enough was enough. I didn't contact her at all while I was away the rest of the time, but the minute I got out and came back home again, we were back together.
Well, together being a loose term for what we had. It was more like we were fuck buddies, and that was all there was to it. Then I'd gone to prison not long after that, and I'd not seen her, or spoken to her, again until I got home.
I didn't get one single letter from her.
Not one.
So where was her accountability in all of this?
She'd been the one not to follow through with her promise to talk to me after I'd been sentenced-even though she'd told me repeatedly that she would.
I couldn't tell you a time that we were happy together.
We'd gotten together in high school. It'd been fun.
However, nowhere in my memory could I remember a time when I said ‘She's it for me.'
It hadn't happened. I knew that Ariya wasn't mine, and would never be.
We honestly didn't like each other enough for that to happen.
"That makes this better," she muttered.
Before I could question anything else, a little girl came out of the door, her eyes downcast. The little girl, about three or so, had deep bags underneath her eyes, and hair the color of the deepest red that I'd ever seen.
"M … "
At hearing the first sound, Ariya spun on her heels, scooped the little girl up in her arms, and took her inside.
Confused at her words, and sudden departure, I walked to the truck and got in, thinking for the life of me that I wished I knew that particular back story.
Ariya had always been an odd girl to me, and always would be.
That'd been partially why I couldn't find any common ground with her.
Everything that I liked, she loathed.
Slamming the door to the truck, I belted my buckle in place and headed off to my second appointment for the day-my parole officer.
Four hours later, I was knee deep in mud that felt like I was stepping in warm shit.
It smelled like shit, too.
"Why the hell would you drive in here?" I muttered. "Sometimes it's good to use common sense."
Baylor looked at me like I had a screw loose.
"It wasn't mud when I drove on it, dumbass," he shot back. "And that fucking man over there is the dumb one. Who the hell would think that they can drive on fucking water?"
I didn't have an answer to that. Not a single one.
Hooking the last of the chains in place, I slugged through the knee-deep mud to the back of the truck, pressed the button for the winch to start pulling forward, and hoped that this would work.
We were in luck. It did.
Ten minutes later, I was calling in to dispatch and relaying my location.
"I'm not going to be back until I can get a shower," I told dispatch. "And lunch."
"10-4."
Instead of driving all the way home, I drove to the gas station to get some chicken, and nearly ran straight into Hennessey the moment I opened the door.
"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me," she declared, placing one hand over her heart.
I grinned. "Just openin' the door, darlin'."
She rolled her eyes and stepped to the side, but instead of taking her order, I made one of my own.
"You might as well come out so I don't accidentally brush up against you." I gestured to my clothes.
She blinked. "How the hell … "
I snorted. "Baylor tried to pull someone out, and in the process, got his own truck stuck. I had to go get him out, and this was the result."
"I hope you got paid enough for towing them," she mentioned.
I nodded. "He got charged for two tows."
She snorted out a laugh and stepped outside.
"Wow, it's even worse from the back," she mentioned once she was behind me.
I laughed and walked inside without another word.
When I came back out, it was to find her leaning against her car, watching me.
She was snacking on a chicken taquito, a lovely fried morsel that I would forever love due to its deliciousness, and obviously waiting for me to come out.
"You mind?" I gestured to the hood where she was leaning.