C6 The Healer

Tori POV

The sun sneaks in the room through the crack in the blinds and lands right on my face. I must remember to fix those things, this is annoying. Just then, my alarm clock goes off and I shift my eyes to stare at it. It read 7:01. I held the button one number too long and was too lazy to change it. Oh well. My radio comes on and plays a loud, crazy rock tune meant to get my mind awake and make me get up. Slowly, I roll over and smack the snooze button and drop my arm on the end table. It’s way too early to get up. It’s my day off and here I am awake. Even better, I have a splitting headache.

Groaning, I throw the covers off and push myself to a sitting position. I check my phone for the daily weather and see I have a text message. Sighing, I scroll to open it and see it’s from Tammy.

‘Can we talk sometime today? Maybe after your lunch with your dad? Tell him Hi by the way’

I think about that for a second before replying. Usually, she’s the morning person with happy and cheery words for me, but this is serious.

‘Everything okay? You and Eric are, okay?’ Not a moment later, she replies.

‘Yes, we are good. Just need to talk’

‘Okay. You want to join us for lunch?’

‘No, it’s okay. You need to spend time with dad. Call me when you’re free’

‘Will do’ I drop my phone on the end table and stand up and stretch out my achy muscles. I walk into the bathroom and begin my morning routine of brushing my teeth, showering, and applying my moisturizer. I check my bruised cheek from last night’s altercation and see that the swelling has gone down quite a bit due to my healing abilities and it’s now a pale-yellow color with a slight blue shade still in the center. Still a bit sensitive to touch but healing well. It certainly could’ve been a whole hell of a lot worse if it weren’t for Victor. Her thoughts fade off to last night and what Victor did for her. Why did he step in to fight Jonas? Did they know each other? Victor doesn’t even know me, why would he do that?

When done, I walk to my dresser and pull out my undergarments and a soft flowy pink cold shoulder shirt. In the closet, I choose a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and a pair of black ankle boots.

Once I was done dressing, I head downstairs and into the kitchen. I flip on the radio and listen to the local news station. Apparently not much goes on around here since the news is full of animal stories and birthdays for local hundred-year-olds. Well, good for them. That’s what happens when you take care of yourself. Smiling to myself, I pull out eggs, bacon, and some refrigerated biscuits. I bake the biscuits, drops some eggs into a pan along with the bacon. Once done, I plate them up and wait for the biscuits to finish. The radio plays a favorite tune of mine and I sing along as I pull the pan out of the oven and place it on the counter to cool.

I hear my phone ding and walk over to pick it up. I see a text from an unknown number.

‘How is your body today?’ I stare at the message racking my brain to figure out who it is.

“What the hell?” I question out loud. “Who the hell is this?” Immediately I copy and paste the text and the number and send it to Tammy.

‘Who the hell is this?’ I hit send and wait for her reply. I see the three dots circling and then another ding comes through.

‘OMG, who would send this? I’m gonna show to Eric. Hang on’ I put the phone down and go back to my pan of biscuits to plate them and pull the butter from the fridge. Another ding comes through, and I go check it.

‘Tori, this is Eric. I’m so sorry, but that is Victor checking up on you. He’s not good with text messaging. Or conversations with females. Or any conversations for that matter. It’s okay, that’s his number, you can answer him if you want.’ I read the message and feel my insides tightening up. Victor is texting me? I’m totally squealing on the inside right now.

‘Ok, wow. Might have to work on that. I’ll answer if it’s really him.’ I send the laughing face emoji.

‘Yeah, I agree. All good. It’s him’ I send a thumbs up and go back to Victor’s message.

I decided to play with him a bit. ‘You wanna know how my body is feeling right now?’ I see the dots turning and then go away. They turn again and then go away again. Poor guy has no idea how to answer that. I giggle to myself and then send another text.

‘Why don’t you come see for yourself’ I end the message with a wink emoji and put my phone down to go finish my breakfast.

As I sit down to start eating my eggs and biscuits, there is a knock at the door. I look up and listen. Oh my, he did not just…. he took it seriously! Slowly, I get up and head for the door. I look through the peep hole and find a giant of a man standing there. Holy shit! It’s him! I unlock the door and swing it open. He stands there and stares at me. I see his eyes roam up and down before landing on my face.

“Here’s the part where you say good morning and then I answer back.” He shifts a little on his feet and looks down. His eyes creep up to look at me.

“Good morning, Tori” He responds and just stands there.

“Good morning, Victor” I give him a playful smile. “How’s your body today?” He flinches a little but doesn’t look away. I giggle to myself and pull the door open wider.

“Well come on in, don’t just stand there.” He bows slightly and then proceeds into the house. I shut and lock the door and turn to head back to the kitchen. I hear his heavy footsteps, so I know he’s following me.

“You hungry? I was just getting ready to sit for breakfast.” I pull out a clean pan and some eggs and bacon and begin cooking them. “Have a seat” He sits in the chair next to where my plate is and places his hands on the counter. A moment later, I plate the eggs and bacon and grab a few biscuits and place it in front of him. He never answered my question, but I wasn’t going to sit here and eat with him watching, that would be rude.

I take a seat next to him and push the butter towards him. I smile and nod for him to eat and he looks at his plate and grabs a biscuit.

“My body is just fine, thank you” I grin as I grab a piece of bacon and chomp on it. I see his mouth pull into a grin and he nods.

“Yes, I see that. I’m glad you are okay” I glance at him and even sitting down, he towers over me, so I have to tilt my head to look up at him. His brown hair falls to his shoulders and the black t-shirt he’s wearing does nothing to hide the muscular body beneath. I drool for a moment before turning back to my food and taking a bite. I hear a slight chuckle and I can feel my face going red, so I get up and grab another mug and pour some coffee and place it next to his plate.

“Thank you” He grabs the mug and takes a gulp.

We continue to eat in silence as we sneak glances at each other now and then. When we finish, I take his plate and mine and place them in the dishwasher. I go back to my seat and turn to face him.

“Thank you, that was very good.” He turns to face me as well and we just stare at each other. I can tell he’s getting a bit ancy, so I break the silence.

“There are better ways to ask how I’m doing. Asking about my body is just….”

“… weird, I know. I’m sorry about that. I should’ve started with my name.”

“You could’ve asked how are you instead” I grinned a little to let him know I wasn’t angry or uncomfortable. He smiles and nods his head.

“Yes, I suppose so. But us God-like creatures don’t really text much SOOO…” He gives a cheeky smile and I go red. Holy shit! Eric must have told him what I said last night!

“Oh my God! I can’t believe he told you that!” I lowered my head to the counter and hide my face with my hands. This time, I heard him full on laugh out loud.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m quite flattered you think so.” I just shake my head and groan. “No need to feel embarrassed.” He places his hand on my shoulder and I feel a warm energy pass into me. I jerk my head up and look at him. I get lost in the deep blue eyes that stare back at me. I feel like I’ve seen them before but can’t quite place them. There’s a shadow of a smile lingering on his lips as I feel myself getting warm and tingly. I drop my eyes and fiddle with my fingers.

“Tori…. “I keep my face down and clasp my hands together. “… what are you thinking?”

“Why did you help me last night?” I’m not sure I want to know, so I keep my head down and wait for his answer. She heard a slight inhale and sigh. His hand moves from her shoulder to her chin and gently lifts it to meet his eyes. She blinked at him and gazed into his eyes. Tilting her head, she caught a slight feeling of recognition in them. He had a small smile on his lips as he gazed back. Unknowingly, she leaned into his touch without breaking eye contact. He slid his hand to the side of her face and rubbed her cheek.

“I’m glad to see your bruises are healing. I’m sorry that I couldn’t stop him in time.” He brought his fingers up to gently rub my cheek that had a hint of yellow and blue from the slap last night.

“It wasn’t your fault. I’m glad you were there. It could’ve been a lot worse.” Tori closed her eyes as she relished the feeling of his fingers softly touching her cheek. Leaning into his touch, she opened her eyes and saw Victor’s eyes fade to black for a moment, then back to his beautiful blues.

“Tori… “ He started but her phone beeped indicating a message coming through. They held each other’s eyes before he dropped his hand and stepped back. With a slight cough and a glance at her phone, Victor dropped his gaze.

“You should answer that. I’ve intruded on you long enough.” He gave a small smile and turned towards the front door.

“Victor?” She called out before he shut the door. He turned to look at her. “Thank you for checking on me.” She gave a shy smile and clasped her fingers in front of her.

Victor did not answer. With a mischievous grin and a wink, he nodded his head and closed the door behind him.

Tori stood there staring at the closed door for a moment as she heard his truck roar to life and then drive away. With a soft sigh, she looked back at her phone and picked it up to read the message.

‘Hey sweetie, sorry I cannot make lunch today. Rain check?’

‘Sure, no problem. Are you okay?’

‘I’m good. Not feeling well. Going in to see Doc MacDonald’

‘Dad!’

‘I’m good. Just to be safe’

‘Okay. Stay in touch’

‘Will do, love you’

‘Love you too’ Placing her phone down on the counter, she released a heavy sigh and walked back into the kitchen to clean the pans from breakfast.

Once finished with the breakfast dishes, she grabbed her phone and sent a quick text to Tammy.

‘Hey, dad had to cancel. I’ll be home all day if you want to come over to talk’ She waited for a response, but none came, so she put her phone down and headed off to her room to get her laundry basket and start a load of wash.

After starting the wash, Tori started her weekly routine of cleaning the bathrooms, dusting the rooms, and mopping the floors. About two hours later, she noticed it was lunchtime and walked back to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Grabbing an iced tea and her plate, she sat at her counter and picked up her phone.

‘Is dad, ok? I’ll be there soon’

‘Yeah, said he’s ok. I’ll see you soon’

About a half an hour later, the doorbell rang.

“Coming” She yelled as she skipped down the stairs. Opening the door, she saw Tammy and Eric standing on the porch.

“Hey guys! You could’ve just walked on in” She greeted as she opened the door wider for them. As soon as Eric stepped in, she noticed him nonchalantly sniffing the air and then looked at Tori with an amused smirk.

“What?” Tori asked. Eric just shook his head and walked into the kitchen where he started sniffing again. Turning slowly, he gave Tori a knowing look. Tori rolled her eyes.

“Tori?” she looked at her friend who was standing with her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised. “You wanna tell me something?” Tammy stood there tapping her foot in fake annoyance.

“Not really” Tori turned her back and walked into the living room.

“Tori!” Tori huffed and dropped on the couch.

“I had company for breakfast” Tammy looked at her for a moment before her eyes went wide as she realized who it was.

“No!” Tori grinned wide and nodded her head. Giggling, Tammy ran to her and jumped on the couch and grabbed hold of her arm. “Did you ask him over?”

“Not exactly, remember what I sent you that he texted? Well, I got cheeky and told him Why don’t you come find out” Tammy’s jaw dropped as Tori giggled and covered her face with her hands.

“And he came over?” Eric asked stepping into the room

“He did!” Tori shouted and Tammy squealed like a little fangirl.

“Wow, I’m impressed. Totally not a Victor thing to do” Eric chuckled as he sat down next to Tammy.

“He didn’t stay long, but I made him breakfast and we enjoyed each other’s company. It was quite comfortable actually. I really enjoyed it” Tori answered with a dreamy smile. Tammy squealed again as Eric wrapped his arms around her.

“Hey, should I be worried?” He said as he pushed his nose into her neck and sniffed her.

“No baby, I’m all yours. Doesn’t mean I can’t window shop” She gave him a flirty smile. Eric gave a small growl and hugged her tighter.

Tori sat back and watched the loving interaction between the two. A sad smile crossed her face as she thought about her own life. Her longing for a significant other, whether it be a mate or a human relationship, it was still something she wanted and hoped for in her life.

“So, tell me, what did you want to talk about?” Tori brought the attention back to the here and now and Tammy sat upright and cleared her throat.

“Well, I was thinking….” Tammy turned slightly and glanced at Eric who nodded in response. “… You’re going to accept that job from Dr. MacDonald, aren’t you?” Tammy sat nodding as if answering the question for her.

“Probably, why?” Tori asked suspiciously.

“Well, I think you should take it”

“Okay. Again, why?” Tori squinted her eyes at the two.

“Because…. I’m coming with you!” Tori’s jaw dropped and Tammy clapped excitedly.