Page 71 of Pelvic Flaws

“I’ve been arrested.”

I threw back the covers and dropped my feet to the floor and pushed off the bed.

“What happened?” I asked, rushing over to my closet.

“I got into a fight on my way home from my friend’s house. This guy was pushing his girlfriend around, so I stepped in and things got a bit heated.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, pulling out a pair of sweats and a tee. “How long have you been there?”

“About an hour, they just told me now I should call someone.” Isaac cleared his throat and I knew he was trying to keep it together.

“They pressing charges?”

“No,” he said on a long exhale. “The girl told them what happened. They gave me a caution, but they won’t let me go unless I have a lift home.”

“No problem,” I replied. “I’ll be with you soon. You at the station in the center of town?”

“Yeah. John Street.”

“Okay, I’ll be ten minutes or so, but Isaac.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna call your mom, okay?”

He was silent for a few seconds and all I could hear was his breathing on the other end of the line.

Finally he spoke. “Yep, okay. Thanks Dex, my dad would kill me and I didn’t want to worry Mum, but I understand you should call her.”

We said our goodbyes and I quickly dressed, dialing Katie’s cell number as I left the house.

* * *

I looked over at Isaac as we moved through the empty streets in my car. He was leaning his head against the side window and sporting a cut lip, but didn’t seem to have any other injuries. The cop I spoke to said he’d done a good thing stepping in with the guy and his girl, but should have tried to resist the temptation to punch him. I got the feeling they wanted someone to pick Isaac up more for his own safety than anything else. The douche who’d been hitting the girl was safely locked up for the night, sleeping off the booze and whatever else he’d taken, but I guess you never knew if he had any friends out there.

“You feelin’ okay?” I asked. “Not hurt anywhere other than the lip?”

“No. He only got the one good punch in.”

“Your mom wanted to come get you, but I persuaded her not to.”

“Is she really mad?” Isaac groaned, giving me a pained look.

I shook my head. “No, just worried about you.” I continued concentrating on the road, figuring Isaac might not want to talk.

“I’m sorry I called you, but I just couldn’t ring Dad,” he sighed.

“It’s fine, no problem at all, but I’m sure when you told him what happened he’d have understood. Probably would have called you a hero.”

I glanced at him to see him touching his cut lip with a fingertip. He looked a lot like Katie, but I figured the grim determined jut of his chin was most definitely his dad, from what I’d seen of him.

“I don’t know,” Isaac replied. “It seems nothing I do is right where he’s concerned.”

The kid obviously wanted to talk, but I wasn’t sure it was right for it to be with me. I barely knew Carl, but the whole business with Katie’s car hadn’t given me a good impression of the guy. If Isaac asked for my opinion, I might well not say the right thing. But if he trusted me to listen to him I guess I had to trust myself to be a grown-up about his dad.

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” I responded. “It probably comes with being his oldest kid, he just expects a little more from you is all.”

“I think he blames me.” Isaac’s voice broke a little and I knew things were going to get serious.

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