Page 89 of Tough Love
Just to be on the safe side, I decide to head through to Briar’s room and check on him before I settle back in for the rest of the night. A thin strip of moonlight casts a line across the living room, the blue light from the modem enough for me to see where I’m going.
Briar’s diagonal in his bed, one arm thrown up over his head, and his legs tangled in the sheet. I pull his blanket a little higher, and have turned to head back to my room when a metallic ting sets my senses on fire.
My ears strain, my body frozen as I wait on another sound. Sure enough, the hollow knock of something hard on metal draws me to the window that faces out to the driveway side of the house. I press my nose against the glass, looking down at the visible half of Evan’s Jeep, where he parked it across the back of my car. A shadow drifts along the concrete, another ping echoing up to where I stand frozen, my heart beating painfully fast.
“Amelia.”
I spin and find Evan standing behind me, his boxers now on.
“Go wait in Briar’s room,” he whispers.
“What are you going to do?”
He rolls his eyes. “Dance a jig. What do you think? I’m going to take a look.”
I smack him on the arm as I pass by, heading for Briar’s doorway. Evan disappears back into my room, returning a short time later with his jeans on, still shirtless, still barefoot.
He eases the door open, slipping silently into the night as the crash of broken glass drifts from below. Seconds feel like hours, each beat of my heart the strike of a hammer against my will to stay put.
What’s going on down there?
Why’s it so quiet?
The eerie calm doesn’t last long.
“Oi!”Evan.
Obvious sounds of a scuffle echo off the apartment opposite mine. Briar still sleeps soundly—he’d probably miss a herd of elephants thundering through his room he’s such a heavy sleeper. I dash out into the living area, initially with the thought to go to the window and see what I can make out of what’s going on down below. Yet, when the solid thud of what was probably a body hitting something drifts up to where I stand, my feet turn right instead, carrying me out the door and down the stairs.
I creep the last few risers to the driveway, cautious of where the grunts and sickly sounds of flesh-on-flesh impacts are coming from.
“Why are you here?” Evan has a darkly clothed figure pressed up against the hood of his Jeep, his hand knitted at the throat of the intruder’s shirt.
It has to be Tristan. Surely, after the scrawled message yesterday.
“Bitch needs to keep out of my business.”
His throaty smoker’s voice sends me spiralling back eight years, my skin erupting with goosebumps, every hair on my arms standing on end.
How could somebody I haven’t seen for so long still have this effect on me? How could Ilethim?
“What the fuck you on about?” Evan grumbles. “You’re atherhouse, arsehole. So how’s that her getting up in your business?”
They wrestle against each other after Tristan tries to break Evan’s hold, feet scuffing on the ground, breathless grunts as Tristan’s body slams into the hood of the car again.
“She’s got my kid,” Tristan forces out through a stiff jaw. “She doesn’t deserve anything of mine.”
“You’re fucking insane.” Evan shoves him hard, Tristan’s head slamming into the car. “You need to leave her alone to do the job you’re clearly incapable of doing.”
“Like fuck, arsehole. What you going to do, huh?”
“Fancy getting arrested? I’m sure you’re probably out on parole, or on a final warning, right?”
Tristan spits at Evan. Fists fly. The two men become a blur as they grapple and throw wild hits at one another. Somehow, Tristan gets Evan into a headlock, slamming a fist repeatedly into his head while Evan struggles to tangle his legs in Tristan’s to take him down.
I can’t stand idle any longer.
“Stop it!”