Page 181 of The Hookup Situation
The room tilts. Somehow, in his mind, I’m both the villain and the only thing that can save him.
Anger overrides my fear. This is enough. “You’ve been stalking me since you got back in town. You broke into my house, stole my panties, and destroyed my pictures! Then you posted our private moments on the internet. What you’ve done is unforgivable.”
“Because I love you!” He’s screaming. “Don’t you get it? We’re meant to be together. I wanted to marry you, have kids, and build a life?—”
“You broke up with me! You left me! You aren’t going to twist this. I would’ve married you, Craig. You ruined it.” I’m surprised at how steady my voice is. “You led me on a year ago. I was your pathetic side piece, Craig. That’s who I used to be. But not anymore.”
People gasp.
“Then you proposed to someone else while you were still sleeping with me! Now I have self-respect, and you don’t know what to do about that. Your ego can’t handle it. It’sover. O-V-E-R! You have Sarah. She’s carrying your baby.”
“No, she’s not! This is utter bullshit,” he shouts. I hear a coffee mug drop and shatter on the floor. “I never wanted her forever. She was just a distraction.”
Gasps ripple through the shop. Sarah isn’t even here, and somehow, he’s humiliating her too.
“For fuck’s sake,” Brody says from behind me.
Craig’s eyes snap back to me. “You’re leaving with me. Right now.”
His words make my stomach turn. My pulse spikes so hard that I feel it in my throat.
“No, I’m not.”
He lunges toward me, and everything happens too fast.
The scrape of his shoes on the hardwood.
The twisted snarl of his face.
His hand stretched for me.
Before I can move away, Nick is there. His arm slams into Craig’s chest, shoving him so hard that he stumbles back into a table. Craig topples to the ground with it, and I can tell he’s scared shitless.
“Don’t you dare touch her.” Nick’s voice is both dangerous and calm, in a way that shakes my bones.
Craig hops to his feet, and Brody moves beside Nick. The two of them are a wall of muscle, stopping any path Craig has to me.
Blaire watches in horror as I back toward the coffee bar. If I need to, I will run to the emergency exit at the back and not stop until I reach the police station. The look in Craig’s eyes is what nightmares are made of.
But before I have to do that, customers rise to their feet. Tom Valley, who usually polishes his mustache and keeps to himself, stands from his chair, with his fists balled like he’s ready to fight. Mrs. Patrick plants herself beside him, wearing a glare sharper than any knife. Behind her are the other Fairy Godmothers, each with their pepper spray activated. One by one, customers fill the space, acting as human shields.
“I’ll take you away from here, Julie! You’ll never see any of them again!” Craig threatens, jerking free.
He’s determined to get to me, but before he can, Brody grabs him by the collar. In one terrifyingly easy motion, he lifts Craig clean off his feet and hurls him across the room. Gasps ripplethrough the shop as Craig crashes into a chair, scrambling on the floor like a cornered rat. For the first time, I see fear in his eyes.
After a few seconds, he gets up and tries lunging toward me again, but some customers catch him by the arms and wrestle him to the ground. The sound is chaos, and sirens follow it. They wail down Main Street and grow closer until it’s blaring.
The bell above the door clangs as two uniformed officers rush in. Relief floods me so fast that my knees nearly buckle. They detain Craig, my customers practically handing him over. He starts to fight, but they have him cuffed too quickly.
“You’ll never be enough, Julie! He’ll never love you!” he screams as they pull him through the shop. “Never!”
His words fall flat. For once, I’m not the one breaking. He is.
The officers drag him through the shop, past Blaire’s narrowed eyes, past the book club women, who talk shit under their breath like they’re casting spells. Every eye in the shop is on Craig, and not one of them is sympathetic.
The door slams shut behind them. Craig resists as they drag him across the parking lot.
For a heartbeat, everything is silent except the hiss of the espresso machine and the pounding of my pulse in my ears.
