Page 39 of Clubs

Gently, as soft as I could be, I found her fingers entwined them between mine. She let me. She didn’t pull away, and I was grateful for that. “I mean this with love, sweetheart, but you don’t look it.”

Typically, she’d tell me to fuck off or something to that effect, but she just stared around the room for a few moments. Eventually, she said, “I just don’t get it.”

“Why he broke into your house?”

“That too, but no.” Her voice was soft, way softer than usual, but she still didn’t meet my gaze. “This life.”

When I said nothing, waiting for her to continue, still struggling to understand, she only gave me another glance. That anger in her eyes was gone now, replaced by something I’d never seen on Brooke’s face. A feeling that bubbled deep inside her and poured out onto me. Although I made no attempt to read her mind, I felt what she did. And it hit me like a ten ton truck.

Pain, sure, but it was a certain type of pain. One I’d never felt as deeply as I did until this moment.

Betrayal. She felt betrayed.

“It’s poetic, isn’t it? My whole life, I’ve dealt with the shit, but I’ve never been in it. I smoked weed a couple times, I drink on occasion, but I’ve never been engulfed in this life. And this is always where I end up. It’s how it works. Addicts, they don’t care. Some of us do our damnedest to rise above this bullshit, but somehow, they still weasel their way in. They find a way to fuck up everything that somebody else cares about. This isn’t my fucking problem, but here I am. Just like it wasn’t my problem when Dad couldn’t keep the shit together, and I had to take care of Ria, or when I had to clean up the needles he left on the floor, or when I had to make myself dinner even though I couldn’t reach the stove, and it’s bullshit. It’s just such fucking bullshit that no matter how hard I tried to get away from the ship, this is where I fucking end up.”

Wow. She talked about something. She shared something with me. Something deep and personal.

Granted, she did it in a relatively aggressive, pissed off way, but she did, in fact, share something with me.

No matter how much I appreciated it, I wasn’t sure how to respond to it. I didn’t understand the way she felt either. Why did she feel betrayed? I could’ve asked, but I wasn’t sure if she even wanted me to respond. Maybe she just wanted me to listen. And if, for once, she wanted to let me know how she felt, she wanted to share, I wasn’t gonna push for more. I’d wait for it.

So, that was all he did. I listened, and I held her hand.

Quietly, almost too quiet for me to hear, she finally met my gaze and whispered, “Are we thinking the same thing?”

All I was thinking was that I was grateful she allowed me an ounce of vulnerability. “What are you thinking?”

“Neither of us do drugs. Then two days ago, an addict was murdered and left behind your bar. Today, an addict broke into my house and trashed it.” With a hard swallow, I swore I felt her hand tremble. “But, the two of us, we both know an addict.”

And it clicked.

That’s where the betrayal came from. Someone she’d given everything to, someone she’d fought so hard to protect all her life, was linked to this. Setting me up, starting a storm between me and Brooke, murdering an innocent woman…

The only connection here was the one person Brooke would do anything for. Ria.

I opened my mouth to respond—to tell her we didn’t know that for sure—but the squeal of door hinges cut me off.

Brooke disappeared.

A thump, then a gag, sounded from the front door. Pain ached through my stomach, as though I had been elbowed in the ribs. But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t my pain that I felt.

I ran to the entryway. Just in time to see a large man—white, around my height, and on the heavier side—body slam Brooke backwards into a wall. Same thing I would’ve done if some random person appeared in my house with a blade pressed to my throat from behind, as Brooke had.

But no way in hell I could let that fly.

Suddenly, it was a blur of punches and fists and thrashes and pain. A lot of pain, but most of it was blurred by the adrenaline.

In my peripheral, I saw that Brooke was on the ground. That was okay, because I had the guy pressed against the wall with a hand around his throat. That only lasted for half a second. He dropped a fist into my gut, just enough for me to release my hold.

Then I was up against the wall. His fist connected with my face again, and again, and again. Stars shined against my eyes, throbbing through the back of my head.

Then, her voice carried. I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew what she was doing. My greatest strength was this. Brute force. Hers were spells.

The man before me groaned in misery. Blood dribbled from the corners of his eyes, trailing down his face. He stumbled backwards, releasing me. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he grasped the banister of the stairs for support. “Stop! Sucking stop!”

Brooke did.

Wiping some blood from the corner of my lip, I breathed hard. Already, the pain was disintegrating, my body healing. He stared at me, the best he could through the blood, and I stared at him, and when he glanced at Brooke, I snapped, “Put your hands on her again. I dare you.”

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