Chapter 11
S CARLETT
“Okay. Can you at least tell me if Colley’s cousin is all right?”
“He’ll be fine,” he says, his stare moving away from mine.
Considering I’m making a living teaching, and I'm an expert at reading non-verbal clues, I surely know what that means.
He’s half honest with me, probably lying through omission.
There must be more to the story.
“All right,” he says as the silence prolongs. “Are you going to be home tomorrow?”
My heart races.
“You’re asking me that because…?”
I smile, and he seems to de-tense for a moment.
“I’m asking because they’ll bring you the car tomorrow.”
“Oh, the car.” I’m visibly disappointed. “Yes. I’ll be home in the morning.
“It might not be ready early in the morning.”
He holds my eyes.
Does he want to know if I’m home over the weekend?
“They can leave it in the front,” I say. “Oh, I need to pay for it.”
He gives me a curt shake of his head.
“Don’t worry about that. They charge the cost to my account.”
I open my mouth to ask something else but close it before I open it again.
“Thank you. How can I repay you?”
I’m being silly, but I sound serious. I am serious.
He ponders what to say next when a sharp knock on the door makes both of us flick our eyes in that direction, and he reflexively and discretely touches his jacket.
I’ve only seen people do that when they carry a gun.
Apprehension soars through me.
He looks at me.
“Are you expecting guests?” he asks as if wanting to discern whether the person outside the door is here for me or him.
“No. I never…”
The second knock on the door arrives.
I’ve never had people knock at my door so late. I rarely have anyone show up at my door.
Everybody calls first.
My packages arrive during the day and I find them on the porch or at the door when I return from work.
I push off the counter and head to the entrance while he pivots and strangely steps to the side to be out of the line of sight of the person outside the door.
I barely make it to the exit and Joachim’s voice rings outside.
“Scarlett?” he bellows out.
Is he drunk? Pissed? He sounds pissed.
But why would he be at my door?
I haven’t talked to him since the end of October when I asked him for the fourth time to search through his books and find my birth certificate.
I was pretty sure he put it somewhere by mistake and I didn’t want to go through the trouble of replacing it when all he needed to do was look for it.
He brushed me off every time, and I bet he didn’t want to get into an argument with his girlfriend because of me.
She doesn’t like me much––I don’t know why.
“Open the door, Scarlett. I found your birth certificate.”
Heat and cold sweep through me, his tone irritating me to no end. He sounds like the little entitled prick he has been since we split up.
He’d been cranky before when he had gotten it on with his new woman, but I thought he had a lingering cold.
I grab the doorknob and yank the door open.
He’s about to call my name again, making a fool of himself, and his back is turned to me.
“What is wrong with you?” I snap, holding my hand out for my birth certificate.
He glances at me over his shoulder before slowly spinning to me.
“Where was it?” I ask.
His stare is blank.
How could I share my life with this man?
“Where was it, Joachim?” I growl, feeling the pressure of getting my birth certificate and making him go away.
Ewan is still behind the door, and as much I would love to see Joachim lose his shit because of him, I’d rather not have the two men in the same room.
“It was in a…”
His voice trails off, his eyes wandering over my outfit.
“Were you out or something?” he asks incredulously and a bit condescending.
“I don’t appreciate your tone,” I say and connect my hand to my hip, tired of holding it out.
“What about you? Have you been out drinking or something?”I sneer, glancing away and looking for his ride, trying to figure out whether his new woman is with him, perhaps waiting in his car.
She probably isn’t. He wouldn’t dare to bring her here.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had an argument and broke up.
He does that often.
He gets bored, becomes insufferable, and picks up a fight so you can toss him out.
The man needs help.
“You could’ve called,” I say.
“I was in the area.”
“You were in the area, my ass.”
I’m absolutely convinced he’s here to start a fight with me after probably doing the same with her.
Asshole.
“Give me my fucking birth certificate,” I say, and I barely finish saying that when a storm rises up behind me, the door moves to the side, and two arms coming with some impossible-to-stop impatience grab the man in front of me and shove him back.
For a second, Joachim doesn’t even know what has hit him. His eyes go wide when Ewan pushes him into the hedge, grabs the lapels of his jacket, and lifts him up until his feet no longer touch the ground.
His arms move in reaction, and Ewan pushes his elbow into his face, growling at him.
“Give her the fucking birth certificate, dickhead.”
As if things are not bad enough, Joachim makes a fool of himself when he starts yelping.
“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.”
I feel avenged.
Ewan drops him, and Joachim falls to the ground before my new friend grabs him again and starts rifling through the contents of his inside pocket.
Eventually, Ewan pulls out my birth certificate and hands it to me, not taking his eyes from the man twisted into a pretzel at his feet.
I’m not advocating for this, but Joachim really worked hard at having his ass handed to him like this.
“Now apologize to the lady, and get lost before I change my mind and crack your little skull for fun,” Ewan says, the bad energy he harbored earlier this evening coming through.
Something fuels his restlessness, and maybe one day, I’ll find out what it is.
Joachim pushes up and tugs at his jacket to bring it back in place.
“Apologize to her, I said,” Ewan mutters under his breath, menacing as ever. “Look at her and apologize, you stupid dick.”
“I’m sorry, Scarlett. I’ll be on my way now.”
I only nod.
None of this would’ve happened had he not tried to be funny.
He gets the hint and quickly moves away, not even glancing at Ewan.
Moments later, the street is clear, and we stare at the sidewalks.
Ewan doesn’t look at me. I notice he’s slipping away.
Despite being as cold as I am and wanting to return inside, I hug myself and look at him, waiting for him to make up his mind.
“I need to go,” he says quietly, looking away as if talking to himself.
I say nothing, barely keeping my teeth from chattering. He turns his beautiful eyes to me, and it swiftly registers with him that I’m a shivering mess.
A couple of steps put him in front of me before his arms come around me to bring me warmth.
“Yeah?” he asks as if I have a say in him staying or not.
“Okay.” My jaw hurts. “Thank you for everything,” I mumble.
“No, no,” he says in a friendlier tone. “Thank you for putting up with me. I was an asshole this evening,” he adds in his gruff voice. “Go get warm,” he says before doing the unthinkable.
He leans closer and brushes his lips over my cheek when I tilt my head to him, and our lips touch.
His touch sends a jolt of electricity through me, a memory quickly forming, the aroma of coffee and mint entangled in his breath.
We stay there for a second, unsure of what to do. It’s not a good idea to kiss, or do anything else.
We’ve been debating this verbally and non verbally the entire evening. He doesn’t want me, and I don’t want him, even when his erection is involved.
But we’re not pulling away.
We allow our lips to touch and proceed to kiss like two schoolers who have this experience for the first time, and they are alight with curiosity and fear.
His hand slides to my neck when he kisses me again.
Soft and clean, our kiss has nothing sexual in it, although a wave of sexual frustrations is rising in my frame.
It falls into an abyss as the man peels away from me and, without saying another word, walks to his truck, hops in, and soon after, moves away.
He’s gone, the street is frosted, and the lights come to life in my neighbor’s home.
And that’s my cue that I need to go back in.