I haven’t had a call out in two days, which is rare but possible. County policy is that anyone who dies in a hospital or under the care of a doctor doesn’t need my services unless foul play is suspected. So no foul play, and nobody dying at home or from traffic accidents is good, for me and county residents, but . . . well, I could really use a distraction right now.

My brain is on a playback loop, showing me Blake’s happy smiles at trivia night a few days ago. He’s got this light inside him, a purity that shines golden and bright, drawing people to him like a beacon of joy.

But he’s not all ‘good boy’.

Oh, no, I heard him talking shit with the other teams, dishing it out just as hard as Heather, and that’s saying something.

And I noticed how he automatically laid his arm on my chair as soon as we sat down. It made me feel protected, something I’d deny needing or wanting, but in that moment, with a roomful of people looking at me, I welcomed Blake’s strength at my side.

My nerves had been screaming, reminding me to not get too close, to not spill the beer pitcher and set off a chain reaction where someone slipped in the liquid, fell, and hit their head, and to definitely not mention what I do for a living so nobody got grossed out and gave me that look of horror.

I hate that wide-eyed, mouth gaping look of disgust.

But I’d also realized that while Blake was tuned in to my jangling nerves and doing that arm-wrap thing for me, he was also doing it for himself. He was warning off the other guys and ready to defend me if the evening went the way it did at the beer barn.

Yeah, he’s good, but he’s also this wholesome version of alpha.

And I like it, which is dangerous.

I also liked the good morning texts he’s sent me the last two days, and the completely wrong, but somehow funny, memes he sent, one about iZombie and one about Survivor, accompanied by a note that they made him think of me.

So yeah, my dead, dark heart is threatening to come to life, and that’s a bad thing for us both.

Distraction? I need a big one.

As if I conjured it, the requested distraction magically appears. Not in my morgue office but in my email with a happy little alert ding. Seems the state lab finally got around to my blood tests. I open up the results of Richard Horne’s second blood tests, reading each line carefully and mentally comparing them to the previous report.