Jayla and the It Guy

Third week of January 2019, Friday

The end of the week found Jayla Harris standing in front of the breakroom refrigerator, searching for her lunch. It was somewhere in here, she knew, moving aside flowers, cakes, sandwiches, fruit and cheese platters, the buffet of all things bridal, and yes, there it was, stuck between two bridal bouquets.

Into the microwave it went for a quick heating. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge—easy to find, lined up side by side on the refrigerator door—as she waited, letting her thoughts roam to her weekend. She had a wedding tomorrow—well, Stormy, her coworker and the manager of the small wedding arm of Experiences Inc., aptly named Delightfully Small Weddings, did. She would be there to assist.

Her watch dinged, interrupting her thoughts. Help me text message from Lee Chin, the third member of their four-person team. Technically, Lee was his own team, contractually obligated to Experience Inc. to deliver state-of-the-art whatever. He was their IT guy, great at what he did, a genius in all things tech, she’d heard. She wouldn’t know, as he rarely, if ever, talked to her. It was as if he’d taken one look at her on his first day and said, I’ll pass, and regardless of how welcoming, nice, friendly, or even flirtatious she was, his response was still the same, Not for me. OK, some of that might have been her fault, even so, and more importantly, why would he send her a text? A “help me” one no less?

It had to be a mistake, an error with his texting finger. No other way to explain it. She grabbed her food from the microwave and headed to the front to get her phone to reply, cause error or not. It was hard not to respond to a request for help.

Did you mean to send this to me? she texted, then watched the phone, waiting for a response, and when there was none, she called him. Four rings before it rolled to voice mail, where his voice sounded in her ear, telling her to leave a message. She did. “You sent me a text asking for help. Are you OK, or do you really need help?”

She started into her lunch, checking her phone every few seconds, continuing to mull over what to do if he didn’t reply. What she wanted to do was put her food back in the fridge, lock up here, and hightail to wherever he was, ’cause out of the blue, mistake or not, she had been searching for a way to get close to him since he walked through the front door six months ago.

She checked her phone again. Radio silence, no text response or phone message. He lived close, she knew, or at least not far in the loop, checking their directory. Yep, close enough for a drive-by, so why not? If it were Stormy or Racy, she’d be on the road by now. “OK, then. We’re doing this,” she said.

It was a mad dash afterward to get out the door. To the fridge and back, sending a text to Racy and Stormy. It was lights out next, then locking the front door, and away she went to her car, her mom’s old hand-me-down Honda. JaylaTwo, she’d named it. She and it were on their second, or third, or whatever number of attempts at careers. Giving it their best, hoping to last as long as was required to succeed. She plugged his address into the map feature on her phone, then peeled out of the parking lot, off to rescue Lee. Yes, girl, yes, she was doing this!

Thirty minutes of bat-out-of-hell driving in this crazy town of always traffic put her at the back end of his street, in a neighborhood whose best days were behind it. Think industrial or commercial old C-shaped buildings, with a wall in front and shops behind, slapped around a parking lot. Old white metal chipped in a lot of places, creepy, and somewhere in one of these creepy buildings was Lee’s house? What? In no world would she have put him living here, yet here she was parking beside his dark-blue Jeep. Three white vans, Hummer Painting on the side, parked together near the back, were the only other vehicles around.

She grabbed her bag, her phone, and her pepper spray, just in case this was not a joke and something nefarious was at play, and strode to the first building. M Boat’s was the sign on the closed door. So, not there, walking past it, onto the next, where, like in all those horror movies, a door stood open. A hard-no, don’t-go-in fear settled into the pit of her stomach. She was not the first-into-a-building type of girl.

“Lee,” she called out, pushing the door open more and cautiously taking a step inside. “Lee,” she called out again, followed by more steps inside. “Lee,” she whispered, eyeing the contents of his space, scattered everywhere but mostly on the floor. Concrete flooring with metal shelves knocked over like dominoes, their contents—plastic boxes with their own contents—dumped onto the floor. Lying on its side, behind the shelving mess, was a six-foot table. What the hell? So much stuff—nuts, bolts, screws—spilling out of plastic containers. Was this how he lived on the regular? Nah, this was something else, she thought, scanning continuously. This felt intentional. Someone looking for something had ransacked, and on the heels of that, who would ransack Lee’s home? Thoughts better left for later.

“Lee,” she called out, entering what felt like a clearing, an opening up to the livable part of his place, kitchen in the corner to the right, bathroom to the right of it. “Lee,” she called out again, thinking this place was a lot bigger than she thought, passing his desk on the left, or what was left of it, and its contents, several computer monitors lying on the floor, drawers of his desk open, more contents spilling out onto the floor. On the other side of this wall was his bedroom and Lee, lying shirtless in his bed, on his stomach, head turned to the side, facing her, eyes closed, handsome even in this. There were bruises, early stages, forming on his back, midwaist. Sweatpants covered the lower half of his body. There was blood on the back of his head and some around the front, pooling on the mattress.

“Lee,” she said—please don’t be dead, she thought—setting her purse on the floor before touching his shoulder. He moaned.

“You OK?” she asked. Another moan, his response. She touched his throat, feeling for a pulse. It was beating strongly. His eyes opened then. A blank stare gave way to a confused one, and then he smiled, a little sexy this smile, like they were a thing. “Stay,” he said, sexy, too, even as his voice trailed off and his eyes closed again. Hell yeah, she would. Wild dogs couldn’t pull her away.

“Lee,” she repeated, receiving the same lack of response. She released his hand and, on her cell, dialed 911. “Lee,” she said again.

“This is 911. What is your emergency?”

“I need an ambulance. My friend’s been hurt,” she said, which was partially true. If only he’d cooperated, they could have been more. He’d asked for help, so maybe he’d had a change of heart. It was possible. It didn’t matter. She was here now. Plus, he’d asked her to stay. So he looked confused when he said it. Better to deal with that later if she had to. For now, she was all in.

“What is the address?”

“It’s 9759 Herring Street,” she said, reading it from her phone.

“What is his name?”

“Lee Chin.”

“Is he conscious?”

“He was for a bit, but not anymore.”

“Is he breathing?”

“Yes.”

“What is your name?”

“Jayla Harris.”

“A friend of his, you said?”

“Yes. He sent me a text message asking for help. I thought he was kidding. Still, it was odd, so I drove over just to be sure and found him here, beaten up, I think. His house’s a wreck, like someone’s gone through it.”

“I’ll send the police, too.”

“OK.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-nine, I think,” she said, splitting the difference between the thirty she thought him to be and her twenty-eight.

“OK, EMS is on the way. Can you stay with him?”

“Of course,” Jayla said, turning her attention back to Lee. He hadn’t moved, eyes still closed. She checked his pulse again. It was still beating strongly. He was breathing, she noted, watching his back rise and fall, a strong, muscular back, tapering to a trim waist, seeing it free of clothing. She took a seat on the bed as she waited, wondering if she should call anyone. Hard to do, since she knew next to nothing about him.

He would need his phone, which was where? Not anywhere she could see, scanning the room again. Around the bed, on the floor beside the bed, nope, had to be close for him to send a text, so she pushed her hand underneath his nice firm body and found it near his waist. He would want to have his phone, along with his ID, she thought, scanning the room for his wallet next.

“EMS is five minutes out. You OK?”

“I am. He’s still breathing,” she said, searching the room again for his wallet.

“Good.”

She spotted it on the nightstand beside the bed. She retrieved it, flipped open the front cover, revealing his driver’s license picture with Lee’s handsome face smiling at the camera, a sexy, bad-boy smile. Who knew he could? She’d only see the nonsmiling man.

The thought he might need something to wear afterward sent her to his closet for a T-shirt and shoes. Dude was neat and a bit of a clotheshorse, she noticed, staring into his closet. Lots of suits hung from the rod, beside dress shirts, by color, then slacks, jeans, and wow, who knew? All she’d seen him wear to work were jeans, sweats, T-shirts, and hoodies, all neatly folded and stacked on shelves. She grabbed a hoodie from the stack and a pair of slides, then headed back to him, still unconscious on the bed.

“EMS and the police officer are at the address. I’m hanging up,” the operator said.

“I’m heading to the door now. Thank you.”

“Sure. Hope he’s OK.”

“Me too,” she said, making her way to the front door. “He’s in here,” she said, feeling like Captain Obvious, leading the paramedics, a male and female, both African American, to the back of Lee’s home. She watched while they worked. For a second, his eyes fluttered open again, rolled around a bit, reminding her of a cartoon character, before they closed again. She continued to watch as they checked him out, blood pressure cuff on his arm, flashlight to the eyes. They turned him over, spotted the blood on his forehead and the back. Two knocks to the head, the reason he was unconscious. Engrossed in watching the paramedics going about the business of saving a life, she didn’t notice the police officer had arrived until he touched her arm.

“Jayla Harris?” the cop said. “I’m Officer White.” Then he said, to her surprise, “You found him?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?” he asked, listening and taking notes as she repeated the story she’d told the 911 operator.

“Do you know what hospital they’re transporting him to?” she asked at the end. The paramedics were packing up, preparing to leave, and she planned to be leaving with them. He would need a ride back, she reasoned, which meant more time with him, her goal in life finally realized. Of course she was going. Took too long to get here. She was not going gently into anything.

“University City,” the officer said.

“Thanks,” she replied.

“So FYI, you can tell him this when he wakes. There will be a detective assigned to this case. I need his phone number and yours,” he said, typing them into his tablet as she rattled them off.

She locked up Lee’s home, and yes, girl, yes, following behind the ambulance was the way to travel. So much faster. She parked in the Visitor ER parking, then went over to check in with the nurse, giving her Lee’s insurance card, from his wallet, and what little info she knew about him before sitting down to wait.