Page 76 of Since Day One

“Gunnar, what are you doing to my boyfriend?” the young girl squeaked out beside him. Gunnar whipped his head toward the girl, his face contorted like he wasn’t completely there. His red eyes narrowed and then flashed back to Alex who was being helped to his feet by some woman who looked like an older version of the young blonde.

“Who’s the girl?” I whispered to Jesse, who was standing in absolute shock beside me.

“Sandra, their cousin,” she muttered, unable to look away. My heart sank.

Gunnar roared like an animal caught in a trap and lunged toward Alex again, who flinched.

“Come on, man. What’d I ever do to you?” Alex begged again, and Gunnar threw his head back in a menacing laugh.

“It’s not what you did to me but to a seventeen-year-old girl,” he snarled, and Alex stared at him confused. “You don’t remember, do you? Of course you wouldn’t, you filthy pervert.”

“Please, have some self-respect and pull yourself together,” Alex said, and something snapped in me as Gunnar tried to shrug off his restraints again. There was Gunnar, protecting me, defending me from a man he’d never met before, and I was standing, hidden like a coward.

“Self-respect?! What about self-respect when you decided to do what you did to her?!” Gunnar snarled, not fighting as hard against the restraints.

“Did what to whom?” Alex asked.

“To me,” I stated, stepping out from the shadows behind Gunnar. His rage-filled eyes slid toward me and immediately his entire focus shifted.

“Willow?” Alex gasped as his face paled, patting the blood from his skin with a napkin and then holding the soggy paper under his dripping nose.

“Hello, Alex,” I said, mustering up all the courage I had left to face the man who’d hurt me in ways no one should ever have experienced. Gunnar stopped struggling beside me, and his family released him from their grips but remained warily close by.

“What-what are you doing here?” he stuttered as Gunnar walked toward me without taking his eyes off of Alex.

“She’s here with me,” Gunnar replied, still in fight mode but in a little more control of his actions.

Alex’s beady eyes shifted from Gunnar to me and then back toward Gunnar. Sandra suddenly tapped forward, timid yet trying to do for Alex what Gunnar was doing for me—protecting. She was protecting a man who was nothing but disgusting.

“Leave him alone. You don’t know him,” Sandra said. “He’s got a lot of money and friends in high places. He can ruin you for this.”

“But he won’t,” I firmly stated and glared at Alex, who shrunk back a step.

“Right?” Gunnar growled. “Because if you do, you know exactly what will happen. And you won’t make it to prison if I find out you’ve even tried to think about Willow or Sandra or any other girl again. Got it?”

Alex stared, wide-eyed, stiff and meaningless like a lump of coal destined to be discarded. My gaze slipped to Gunnar, and the rage that leached from his body told me that if Alex didn’t listen, his days on this Earth were numbered. Gunnar was not the one present at this moment, but whatever long-tortured and caged beast that once fought for this man’s very survival now dripped venom beside me.

Alex finally fervently nodded. “I won’t. I promise. I’ll leave right now.” He backed slowly away, cornered and defeated.

“What?” Sandra gasped, reaching wildly for Alex, who shook his head and shrank from her hand.

“Let him go, Sandra,” I softly said, and she whipped her head toward me.

“You don’t understand,” she cried out in fear.

“I do. Far better than you’ll ever know. It doesn’t matter that you’re technically an adult. A thirty-seven-year-old man should not be with a nineteen-year-old. Ever. Just like a twenty-seven-year-old man should not have been dating a seventeen-year-old girl,” I stated, glaring at Alex. Gunnar stepped into my back, quietly becoming my protector and watchdog. He no longer needed to speak for me. I’d found the strength to confront this and do so myself, with his help.

Alex shrank away. He was mad I’d interrupted his plans, but he was also a coward and didn’t have the strength to win a fight like this. One more step backward and Alex turned and scrambled into the dark parking lot. The moment he was gone, I blinked and breathed out heavily for the first time since I’d set my sights on him. It felt like the first free deep breath I’d taken in years.

Spinning around, I looked into Gunnar’s face, but he was still glaring in the direction that Alex had disappeared, his hands balled into white fists. I gently reached forward and cupped them, brushing a tender thumb across his bloodied and bruised knuckles. My touch snapped him out of whatever dark place he’d gone to in his head.

His eyes softened, relief filling his entire figure as I tenderly smiled. “Thank you,” I whispered, and he blinked, a little confused. His parents and Ruger stood behind him as the rest of the family began to walk into the restaurant, apparently having been called for the reservation.

I stood still, holding Gunnar’s fists as they slowly passed us by. Katherine softly approached and patted me on the shoulder. “Take care of him and then come join us okay?” she said, and I nodded, watching them disappear inside. Slowly, I managed to help Gunnar move away from the sidewalk where the crowd was beginning to whisper about what had happened.

“Hi,” I gently said, sitting him down on the parking lot curb. His stare remained lost, somewhere else for a moment until I knelt down in front of him and placed a hand against his cheek.

“What’d I do?” he muttered, and I smiled tenderly.

---