Out of Nowhere (Balls and Brawn Bodyguard #4)

17. Chapter Seventeen Dex

Chapter Seventeen: Dex

D ex woke up to the ringing of his cell phone.

“Hello?” he asked hoarsely. He was so tired.

“They’re going to take my baby away from me when it’s born.”

Sitting up in bed, Dex rubbed his eyes. Prying them open, he looked at the clock on the nightstand, calculated the time difference, and groaned.

“Anna, what are you doing on the phone? It’s way past the hour you’re allowed to talk.”

“Did you hear me say they’re going to take away my baby?” Anna hissed. She had recently gone from ignoring her pregnancy to being ambivalent about it. The paranoia was new.

“No they aren’t, Anna.”

“They are! They think I can’t take care of him.”

Him.

“The baby’s a boy?”

Anna sighed. “Yeah, I had an ultrasound yesterday. I haven’t told Mom or Dad yet, though. I’m afraid they’ll start making plans to put him up for adoption when he’s born.”

“So, you want to keep him?”

“I don’t know, but I get to make that decision!” Anna said fiercely.

Dex shook his head in frustration, hand tightening on his cell phone. Working hard to sound soothing, he said, “I haven’t heard anything about a plan to take away your baby. You’re just overwrought and worked up. Please try to be calm and let the people there take care of you.”

“Mom and Dad put me in here like some kind of a criminal.”

“You agreed to go.”

“I only did meth a couple of times.”

“Well, that was a couple too many. Besides, that’s not the only reason you’re there, Anna. You were fixating on that guy, right? The baby’s father. Just like you did with West.”

“I didn’t call to be lectured at. I called because they’re planning to take my baby from me when he’s born.\”

“No one is planning that. Mom and I wouldn’t let them, and neither would Tom. He’s family. How are you even calling me right now?” The residents were required to turn their cell phones in when they entered the facility and had to sign them out when they wanted to make a call, which had to be before six p.m. Dex had to call the front desk and leave a message for Anna to call him when he wanted to talk and they hadn’t scheduled a conversation.

“I took a new person’s phone before they could turn it in,” Anna said, adding defensively, “It was the only way I could call you without them listening in.”

“You stole a phone.”

”I borrowed it. I’ll give it back.“ She paused, then, lowering her voice, whispered fiercely, “Dex, I don’t like it here. I shouldn’t even be here. Why can’t I fall in love without people attacking me?”

“Have you talked about it with the therapist there?” Dex asked patiently. Anna still didn’t seem to understand that her brand of love was completely overboard and obsessive. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for her though, being in California all alone. Tom flew there when he could, but he had a job, and he might make everything worse by coming on too strong. Their mother was too busy with her committees to bother, although Dex knew she frequently talked with Anna on the phone.

“He says I’m obsessed, and I’m not!” Anna’s voice rose in agitation. “Dex, you have to get me out of here. You’re the only one I trust.”

“You signed papers agreeing to stay there for the rest of your pregnancy because you agreed you needed to get better for the baby’s sake. It’s a nice place, isn’t it? Mom said it was.”

Anna snorted. “All she knows is what she’s seen in the brochures.”

“Your dad wouldn’t leave you there if it wasn’t a reputable place.”

“They put on an act for him. He doesn’t know what goes on here.”

Suddenly uneasy, Dex asked, “What are you saying, Anna? Do they physically abuse you?” He’d heard about places—nursing homes and mental hospitals—where bad things happened. Could some of what Anna was saying be true?

Silence, and then a noise as though Anna had dropped the phone. “I was only talking to my brother!” Her voice came from a distance. Dex could hear another female voice, but the words weren’t clear.

“I only borrowed it!” Anna said heatedly, and then, “Fine, Nurse Ratched, have it your way. I’m going to bed!”

Sounds of someone picking up the phone, and then, “Hello? Is anybody there?”

“Hello. This is Dexter Price, Anna’s older brother. She called me.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Price. This is one of the night nurses. I just came on shift. Your sister took a new resident’s phone out of their bag. We only just realized it.”

Rubbing his eyes with his finger and thumb, Dex said, “Anna claims she can’t sleep, worrying that her baby is going to be taken from her after it’s born.”

“She’s been agitated the last few days. I’m sure she’ll settle down for tonight.”

“Thank you.”

Disconnecting the call, Dex lay down and tried to go back to sleep, tossing and turning for nearly an hour before finally deciding to get up. Frustrated that he couldn’t do anything for his sister and feeling restless, he decided to go ahead and take his run. Seo-jun usually arrived between seven-thirty and eight, but Dex couldn’t wait for him. The sun was just coming up over the ocean when he headed to the beach and began stretching, his mind blanking out once he started to jog on the hard sand next to where the surf broke. Anna’s problems, his mother’s daily texts about calling Penelope—a bone she refused to let go of—all of it melted into the background as his feet pounded the sand. He ran farther up the beach than he’d intended to, and by the time he trudged through the heavy sand to the back of the mansion, he was exhausted. The pool looked incredibly inviting, and he was tempted to strip off and dive in, but, with his luck, Kasey or one of the other women on their team would walk out and catch him bare assed, and he’d never live it down.

Sliding open the glass door to the lower floor, Dex entered the airconditioned hallway, shucking his shoes into the pile by the door before making his way to the locker room. Now that he’d had a long run, he felt better but couldn’t help but wish he’d waited for Seo-jun. He cherished their time together in the mornings. He couldn’t deny to himself anymore that his feelings had developed into more than simple attraction. Deep down, he knew something was happening between them, but he was having trouble believing it. An insecure part of him told him he had to be mistaken. And could Dex even handle a relationship with a man? He’d only recently come out of the closet and had almost zero experience.

Shucking off his sweat-damp clothes, Dex stepped into the shower and reveled in taking his time cleaning up. Recognizing one of the bottles of shampoo as the brand Seo-jun used—something with a foreign name that arrived every few months in the mail because Seo-jun had never corrected the address—he flipped the lid and took a sniff, and then a deeper inhale. This. This was what Dex smelled every time Seo-jun came near. It wasn’t cologne at all, but his shampoo. Dex was tempted to use it, the idea of smelling of Seo-jun all day appealing to him in a way he didn’t want to examine too much, but he didn’t want to use someone else’s product when his own shampoo was right there on the shelf. With a small sigh, he replaced the bottle and grabbed his own.

Ten minutes later, he walked into the main part of the locker room, a large bath towel wrapped around his waist.

“Dex.” Seo-jun came in from the hall. He was dressed in an ice blue T-shirt and a pair of work-out shorts. “I was looking for you.”

“Hey. Sorry. I ran early. I couldn’t sleep.”

Seo-jun nodded. “I may just workout in the gym, then.” His dark eyes travelled over Dex in the towel, raising goosebumps on Dex’s damp skin. “Is something wrong? Why couldn’t you sleep?”

Reaching for a smaller towel from the shelf, Dex began drying his hair with it. “My sister called before daylight. She was all worked up, claiming she’s not being treated well in the facility, and that the staff is talking about taking away her baby. None of it is probably true, but I really feel bad for her that she’s there all alone.” Just being in Seo-jun’s quiet presence soothed the anxiety Dex felt every time he thought about Anna and her issues.

“I’m sorry. It must be difficult for you to be so far away from her. Are you going to go there?”

Dex had been considering it. He didn’t trust his mother to have thoroughly vetted the facility, and, although he did think Tom had done his best, Dex didn’t know if Anna had given her father any reason to be concerned. Dex seemed to be her main confidant. Too bad he didn’t have access to her medical records. Every so often, he brought it up, and she always said she would think about it.

“Yeah. I think I’m going to ask Jase for a week off and fly to Fresno. Maybe meet a couple of my buddies who live in Carson City, Nevada, to climb at Yosemite.”

Flinging the towel he’d used on his hair in the laundry basket, Dex turned to the mirror to finger-comb the messy strands. When he glanced at Seo-jun’s reflection, he found him studying Dex with an intense expression on his handsome face. He was in no way prepared for what Seo-jun said next.

“Would you like some company? I mean, not with the Yosemite part, but in Fresno?”

Dex’s hand stilled in his hair and their eyes met in the mirror.

“You mean…you want to go with me?” Dex asked.

Seo-jun nodded. “I haven’t been to California in ten years.”

Dex turned around to face Seo-jun and leaned against the counter. “That’s right—you said you used to live in San Francisco.”

“If you’d rather be alone—“

“No,” Dex quickly interrupted. “I’d like it if you came with me.”

Feeling a little shy, Dex stood smiling at Seo-jun for a long moment before remembering he was wearing only a bath towel and abruptly straightening. “We can talk more about it later. I’ll go get dressed.”

As Dex walked out of the locker room, he ws sure he felt Seo-jun’s lingering gaze on him.