Page 19 of A Fine Line

She pushes the door open, and the glaring sun blinds me. I squint against it as it creates a halo around her head. She smiles and says, “You’re gonna watch us fuck around and find out.”

Then she heads out into the sunlight, and I follow her.

Chapter Seven

Tony

Myurgetodragher into the cabin lavatory is intense.

So far, she has spent the entire flight commiserating with Nettie and ignoring me entirely, and frankly, it pisses me off. I know I shouldn’t care. Maybe I don’t care, and it’s my giant ego talking, but this is bullshit.

Their laughter breaks through the silence again, and I glance over to find Nettie watching me with a grin, which is entirely indicative of the obvious topic of their conversation. Me.

I show her my middle finger, and she sticks her tongue out at me like the brat she is. Carolina’s back is to me, and she turns around slightly, her eyes catching mine briefly before she faces forward again. She reaches over and smacks Nettie on her forearm, and Nettie laughs again in response. Obviously, they’re having a joke at my expense. Fucking typical.

“Are you going to stare at them for the whole fucking flight?”

I turn my chair so I’m facing Darius, who’s giving me a disgusted look. I mirror his look and shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dare throws his head back and laughs so loudly that it reverberates throughout the plane, drawing the attention of both women as I reach across the narrow table and punch him in the shoulder. “Fucking keep it down, man.”

He laughs for a few more moments, eventually sobering enough to wheeze out, “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“See what day?”

“When Tony Andersen succumbed to something as ordinary as neediness.”

I scoff, shaking my head with more vigor as I hiss, “Oh, fuck off. I’m not needy.”

Dare laughs even harder, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes as he replies, “But you are. And it’s fucking hilarious.”

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes, knowing he’ll take such a flippant move as an indication that he might be right. And even if he is right, I can’t let on that he is, or I’ll never hear the end of it. “You could not be any further from the mark if you tried. I hate her, and I spend most of my time daydreaming about ways I could make her pay if only you all weren’t so intent on denying me the pleasure. Being denied retribution is having a negative effect on me. So, this is basically your fault because the only need I have is the need for revenge.”

He laughs even harder, once again drawing the attention of the two women sitting on the other side of the plane. Then Dare says, “Don’t even get me started on that fine line between love and hate thing, Tony. I know firsthand what it’s like to dance along that line, and I also know how freeing it was to allow myself to fall onto the other side and accept that I didn’t hate her at all because at that moment, I knew if I had to choose between my own life and hers, I would choose hers every time. So be careful how loudly you deny things…you do know what they say about protesting.”

“For fuck sake, Darius. I don’t have time for your history of verbal anecdotes. I said what I said, now shut the fuck up about it.”

He stops laughing, his features turning serious as he asks, “Have you at least had a heart to heart with yourself on why you have such a burning hatred for a woman who was only doing what she had to do to keep her own child safe? Because we both know firsthand the difficult decisions we have to make in order to keep our own safe and also the lengths we will go to in order to ensure their health and well-being. What line wouldn’t you cross to save me? Or Matt? Or even Nettie?”

“That line does not exist,” I answer plainly, without hesitation.

“So why are you holding Carolina to a higher standard when the person she was trying to protect is an innocent? Lord knows none of us are innocent, and at times, we likely deserve whatever violent end we come to.”

I stare at him, unable to come up with a concise answer, so instead, I shrug. “Because you’re you, and Matt is Matt, and Nettie is Nettie, and you’re my people. Obviously, my people get their own set of rules.”

He smiles at me and nods as he replies, “And Carolina is now an extension of your people, and you need to work on giving her a tiny bit of that grace that you give the rest of us.”

I scowl, pushing away from the table as I mutter, “Yeah, okay. I gotta use the head.”

I ignore his low laugh that follows me as I make my way to the rear of the plane where the lavatory is. I push through the small door, allowing it to automatically close behind me, then I stand in the enclosed space, my hands resting on the counter as I stare at myself in the mirror.

I’m not fucking needy. There’s no fine line here. She’s not my goddamn people. Before all this went down with Lilith, did I perhaps have a possible deep interest in Carolina and maybe even think there might be a future there? Of course, I did. No one can deny her outward beauty, but once I found out that beneath her beauty was a snake, that interest rapidly changed.

The door slides open, startling me, and there that bitch is, smirking at me with amusement. I huff again and ask, “What the fuck do you want?”

She steps into the room, her body almost touching mine as the door closes behind her. She leans a hip on the counter and shrugs. “Do you want the truth or the bullshit answer?”

“Give me the bullshit answer first.”

---