I pull a pen from the cup on my desk and scribble out my number before offering her the slip of paper. That was the first step I made on my journey to ruin this girl’s life.
Chapter 6
Sophia
“You’ve been a huge help these last couple of weeks.”
I give Colton a weak smile.
“Seriously. My desk is nearly cleaned off, and that’s thanks to you.”
“Most of those cases just needed to be typed up and submitted to records,” I remind him.
“And now you know my greatest weakness.”
“Follow through?” I tease, but snap my mouth closed when I realize how provocative it sounded.
He coughs a laugh into his hand. “Yeah.”
“What happens next?” I ask, tilting my face toward the window but still unable to take a full breath.
The man smells amazing, always does. I even find myself sniffing my clothes when I get home to see if by chance it’s somehow permeated my own clothes. I come up empty-handed every time, but it doesn’t stop me from checking.
I’ve been doing this internship for the last three weeks, and I’ve managed to stop biting my lip when he walks by. Some days, I can even carry on a conversation without staring at his mouth. Twice this week alone, he was able to get up and leave his office and I didn’t follow him with my eyes all the way out the door, but I’m feeling exceptionally weak where he’s concerned today. Maybe it was the dream I had last night or the haircut he got after work yesterday, but he’s managed to land right back on my radar, and I’m struggling.
Hitting the button for the window, I lean my head a little further away, hoping for a breath of fresh air that isn’t tinged with the spicy scent of his cologne.
“Hot?”
Burning up.
“Struggling a little today,” I confess, but then think better of telling the full truth. “That last scene was a bit much.”
“Worse than the SIDS case we worked on Tuesday?”
“Somehow,” I answer, rolling my head on the back of the seat to look at him. “I don’t think there was much more the parents could’ve done for that baby.”
I cried so much Tuesday night that layers of makeup couldn’t hide my puffy eyes the next day. I clear my throat, knowing the tears will start back up if I let myself focus on that family’s loss.
“I understand. Someone could’ve helped that young woman today. It was clear by the track marks on her arms and the filth she was living in that today wasn’t her first time to shoot heroin.”
“Exactly,” I whisper, emotion clogging my throat. “How many people saw her and didn’t help? Had her parents done anything to try to get her clean?”
“Both good questions,” he answers. “We’re heading to her mother’s house now, and I can tell you by the address given that there’s a good chance the answer is going to be that she didn’t get help because her parents aren’t able to help themselves. Many addicts also have family members that are also on drugs. Not all, mind you, but some.”
“And this woman we’re going to go see?”
“Has had numerous arrests for drug possession. Has been to prison more than once because of them.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s a vicious cycle, and some people are wound so tight up in it that no amount of help will set them free.”
“She was only seventeen.”
“Heartbreaking,” he mutters, and it makes me want to go home and reach out to Landon.
Dustin “Kid” Andrews’ son is the youngest one around, not counting Gigi’s daughter, and he had to have known this girl. Farmington isn’t an overly large community.
“Here?” I ask when Colton pulls into the back part of a parking lot.
I can’t handle this right now. Leaving that crack house with the sight of that girl’s vomit-covered blue lips is burned into my brain, and I need to keep myself busy to keep from thinking about it.
“I want you to look at this.”
I barely register the brush of his hand on my leg when he reaches for the lock on the glovebox, but the sensation skates up my leg anyway. Maybe it’s the proximity of him that’s frying my brain, or my need to always be tough and strong around him. I don’t know what it is, but I’m grateful it’s Friday and I have two days Colton-free to get my head back on straight.
He reaches into the glovebox, shuffling the papers around until he pulls his hand free.