20 Questions

Chapter 124

It's been six days since the pool party. Six days of complete and utter tension. Tension everywhere. With work, with Hunter, Elijah, the team, and with Griffin. Let me break that down individually for you.

Work. Since hiring Dawson, the unit has turned into one big, nasty cat fight. I'm waiting to walk out of my office to see hair-pulling, fingernail-clawing, bitch-slapping and a lot of "I will cut you's." These girls act like they've never worked with a good-looking man before. I had to pull two of them into my office and play referee after they got into a screaming match about who was going to precept him. I had to pull another one into my office and write her up for calling another nurse a whore.

And why did she call her that, you ask?

Because the alleged whore asked Dawson out for drinks while he was helping the other nurse turn her patient. And she didn't just resort to unnecessary name-calling, she did it in front of a patient. Call each other whatever you want, flip them the bird, threaten to slash their tires. I don't care. But never do it in front of a patient. She should have been fired, but I was feeling very I don't give a fuck-ish after the hot date I had with my vibrator that morning. I mean, yeah, the dude is attractive, but not attractive enough to lose your job over. He may be same sex-oriented for all I know. He's turned them all down for dates and I applaud him for that because they haven't really made striking first impressions.

During his time with me, Griffin has witnessed firsthand the craziness and drama associated with working with almost all females. Ruthless criminals don't scare him, but I think these women have downright traumatized him.

Hunter. Hunter has been spending a lot more time with Elijah. That alone could make anyone twitchy, but it's the secrecy that is making things tense. They retreat to the basement every night and Hunter doesn't come to bed until after I fall asleep. When I asked him what was going on, he dismissed me and that doesn't sit right in my soul. I don't like being excluded and I feel like I have proven to them that I'm not some helpless little damsel. I'm not something fragile that could shatter with an unsettling update. Every single one of those guys saw what I did to Ronnie not once, but twice. Either way, he's been distant and that's unlike him. I am the center of his universe, the person he always wants around, but these past six days, I have been put on the back burner and treated like a roommate instead of his wife. I enjoy my evenings with my husband, even if we are just sitting on the couch watching the games, and I've had none of that. My parents are still out of town, Helen and Molly have been busy with work, the rest of the team and Griffin are also in the basement, so my evenings have been spent by myself, watching reruns of Vampire Diaries and binging on takeout food.

I tried making a big dinner last night to bring everyone together, but they just came upstairs, made their plates of food and retreated to the basement again. Hunter gave me a kiss on the cheek, said to relax and suggested I go take a bath. I almost shoved his head in the toilet because it felt condescending. Griffin was the last to grab a plate and go downstairs. Before he left, I asked him to hang out with me for a little while, but he just planted a kiss on my temple and told me he had work to do. I'm not usually this needy, but I'm lonely and bored. I considered going downstairs, parking my ass on the couch and trying to eavesdrop on their conversations, but they would probably just stop talking until I went back upstairs.

Elijah. Elijah is always intense, but it's been chart-topping this week. He's constantly on his phone, always talking to someone at their headquarters, looking at maps, analyzing data, tracking and tracking and tracking some more. All he would tell me is that Hunter's father is in Kentucky. He didn't say where in Kentucky, if he was close or if he had anybody with him. He's in Kentucky. End of story. On Tuesday, I made the mistake of asking him if we could all go out to a restaurant for dinner. From the look on his face, you would have thought I asked him to go swimming in shark-infested waters while on my period and with an open cut. I didn't think I was asking too much, but I obviously thought wrong. Maybe, if somebody would tell me what the hell is going on, I could understand why everybody is so goddamned tense. But then again, nobody asked for my opinion.