It was entirely possible that everybody else was right. If she and Gertie had done nothing, the little boy could be halfway across the country right now trapped in a car with an emotionally disturbed woman-beater. If they'd done nothing, a police officer could be in mental anguish right now, beating himself up over accidentally shooting the boy when he was trying to take out the father. Maybe talking to Charlene instead of having a dozen cops point guns at him gave Lee the time to truly consider what he was doing, which is why he let his son go. In the alternate reality where they didn't follow him, he might have been surrounded, then panicked and immediately shot his son in the head.

Maybe.

Charlene wasn't ready to be at peace with this.

Gertie had worked an earlier shift and left without saying goodbye. After Charlene clocked out for the night, she considered sending Gertie a text just to reiterate that she was fine, but decided that she didn't feel like it.

She scrolled through her text messages. A few journalists wanting to interview her. (Three of them had come into the restaurant to speak with her, but Travis politely but firmly asked them to leave.) She'd already talked to her mother and asked her to pass along the message that she was okay, but she went through and sent quick responses to all of her relatives who'd texted. Then she did the same thing with her concerned friends. She ignored the journalists.

That left Megan.

She'd met Megan at a party a year ago. Slept with her a couple weeks after that. They'd had a few days of good times, then casually parted ways, happy to have met each other. If Megan was contacting her for a reprisal, well...that idea had a lot of appeal right now.

She texted Megan back: Hi!

The response came back immediately: Hi, sexy!

Yes, this was exactly how Charlene would get her mind off her problems.

* * *

When Charlene woke up the next day, all was right in the world. She stretched out happily in Megan's bed, pleased that several really intense orgasms had indeed been just the thing to bring joy back to her life. Perhaps Megan was simply being a star-fucker, but that was totally fine. Her immensely talented fingers earned her the right to bask in Charlene's momentary celebrity.

Megan rolled over, yawned, and smiled. "Good morning, sexy."

"It's afternoon."

"Is it?" Megan glanced over at the clock, which read 12:52. "Damn. Guess we were up late."

"Very late. It's like we were too preoccupied with something to go to sleep at a normal hour."

"We just let the time get away from us. I suppose we should get out of bed and put on clothes so we can leave the apartment and have a nice productive day."