Page 23 of A Very Happy Halloween

A few months ago, Marissa had told me that the best thing about being with Liam was having someone who was hers. An ally who fought in her corner, who loved her to the moon and back, and who was always there for her, no matter what. At the time, I’d been baffled by her words because the best thing about being with Steven was that he paid half the rent and occasionally picked up a chippy tea on his way home from work.

But now I understood.

I understood that Eisen Renner was going to shake my world to its very core, and then we were going to build something new from the rubble.

And we’d start our journey at the hardware store.

Eleven

Eis held my hand in a death grip as we walked into Hardware HQ. Years ago, the one word I’d have used to describe him was “confident,” and it hurt my heart that a jealous nutcase had stolen that from him. The acid attacker was in jail now. According to the news reports, Eis had felled him with a single punch before the police arrived.

The female victim, a petite blonde named Madison, had worked at one of his gyms, a personal trainer and occasional ring girl who’d met her assailant through a dating app and been out with him only a handful of times before coming to the conclusion he was bad news. Then he’d stalked her for months, leaving her scared to live in her own home.

Eis had been at the gym for a routine visit when he’d done the gentlemanly thing and offered to see her safely to her vehicle, and he paid the price for his kindness. Madison still had her sight, but she’d lost most of an ear to the acid.

Rather than hiding away as Eis had done, she’d been speaking out about the ordeal, and in recent months, she’d started a podcast to talk about her recovery. It was on my “to be listened to” list. The subject matter was grim, but I desperately wanted to understand what Eis was going through.

While I overthought everything, he loaded the trolley with pipes and widgets and gubbins and a whole bunch of other stuff. Me? I watched people watching him. And they did watch him. Everyone looked. His broad shoulders, the graceful way he moved, his assets in those freaking sweatpants… They all drew people’s attention. And with his head down and his hood pulled forward, he only became more mysterious. People couldn’t keep their eyes off him. A woman my age bumped her trolley into ours and apologised profusely.

“So sorry, I was just a little distracted.”

“It’s fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. Every time a girl checked out his backside, I wanted to poke her in the eye with a screwdriver. Was that normal?

“We’re done,” he said.

And then we had our first argument.

If I’d thought about things ahead of time, it was inevitable, really. We reached the checkout, and I got out my credit card. Then Eis got out his credit card, which was black and shiny and had his fancy name. E Kennedy-Renner.

“This is my stuff,” I told him. “I’m paying.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No.”

I just stared at him. This wasn’t a situation I’d experienced before. Whenever it came to paying, Steven conveniently wandered off to look at something on the other side of the shop.

“You can’t buy pipes for my house. You’re already providing the labour.”

He flashed me the dirtiest smile. “I’m a full-service kind of guy.”

“I know that, but… Wait, wait, I don’t know that.” Everyone in the queue was gawping. The checkout lady’s gaze was ping-ponging between us in rapt fascination. “Honestly.”

“You can service my pipes any time, darlin’,” a woman called from behind us, but Eis’s attention was focused on me.

“When I bought all the drinks in the Hand and Flowers, you didn’t complain.”

“That was different. That was a date, sort of.”

“We can go and make out by the ballcocks if it would help you to feel better.”

“The ballcocks? Is that a plumbing thing? Or are you being filthy again?”

“Yes.”

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