Freddie #2
I should leave, walk away, but my anger grows as I watch him.
He laughs, he winks, he smiles, he smoulders, with an intensity Alice struggles to handle.
It’s a good job she’s sitting down again or else she would’ve dropped to his feet.
The bottoms of her top front teeth are red from where she’s bitten her lip every time Ryker looks away.
He only looks away to tap idly on his phone, and he keeps hold of it, clutching it when he isn’t tapping.
Her lust for me becomes lust for him, and it brings a burn of humiliation to my eyes. In some distant part of my lizard brain, Ryker being gay was a relief. He’s always made it clear to women it was the same sex that turned him on, and now I wonder whether he only did that so they’d notice me.
Has he always been helping me?
Have women only noticed me because he ruled himself out?
Did Keegan see him first?
The burn in my eyes turns into a sting. Needles push into the inner corners and I know it’s only a matter of time until there are tears on my lashes.
I look away from him—look away from them.
It’s the first time I realise Nathaniel is gone.
I can’t see him anywhere. Ryker doesn’t care because he’s Ryker and he’ll pick someone else up with ease, right after he beats my self-esteem into the ground.
“Freddie?”
I ignore the softness in his voice and refuse to look his way.
“Talk to me.”
And then he’s no longer lounging against the bar up close and personal with Alice, he’s in front of me.
He’s standing directly in front of me, blocking the sight of her, and the bar, and everything. It’s me and him, and we’re close, so close. He touches my arm, my bare bicep, and he’s warm, and he squeezes. A lump forms in my throat, but I don’t try to swallow it.
I won’t be able to. It’s thick and dense and I know I’ll choke.
Ryker rubs my arm, and the hairs on my skin do a happy quiver.
Keegan once told me she found it odd how touchy-feely Ryker was with me.
Ryker is “touchy-feely” with everyone, though.
I’ve seen him being “touchy-feely” multiple times with multiple different men.
Keegan rolled her eyes at my brush off. But I think I get it now.
Ryker touches me a lot, but it’s different.
It’s arm squeezes, and elbow knocks, and hugs where he smacks his palm to my back, and it’s constant.
If he’s near me, he touches. They don’t linger, they jab and poke and squeeze, but they’re always happening.
I don’t notice because he’s always been like that for as long as I can remember, but I’ve spent two months without him.
Two months without his touch.
It’s not sexual, but it’s connection and comfort, and he’s taken it away without telling me why.
Now he wants to give it back, and I’m weak to his palm stroking my neglected skin. The stroking is new. I find myself drawn to him, and I could so easily wrap my arms around him and drop my head to his shoulder.
I know he’d hug me back.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
He’s close enough that he hears, and he stops stroking, and squeezes my arm instead. It’s a pulse of contact. His grip is firm, and fuck if I don’t enjoy that hint of frustration ebbing through him to take his touch from gentle to harsh.
Ryker shoots a quick glance back, presumably at Alice, then he leans close to my ear. “Trust me, you’re angry right now, but you’ll thank me tomorrow once you’ve sobered up.”
He waits until I have enough composure to look him in the eye, then he gives me a soft smile, a gentle, all-knowing smile. He’s my best friend again, but more than that, there’s an older brother glow in his eyes like he knows best.
Like we’re family and I should trust him.
I pull away, and before I even know what I’m about to do, I’ve punched him in the face.
It’s a blur.
My knuckles throb.
I hadn’t fully curled my fingers into a fist, and I stare at my hand like it reacted on its own. Alice makes a noise like a stepped-on mouse, and Ryker falls back into the bar, knocking over his bottle of beer.
It clatters to the bar top, drawing more attention than my half punch. Ryker’s eyes widen as he touches his nose. It may not have been delivered with poise or skill, but it was enough for a trickle of blood to run from his right nostril.
He sees blood, and then he sees red.
Ryker snarls as he launches at me, but he doesn’t punch, he grabs my T-shirt and he’s pushing me back while chaos erupts around us.
There are hands on him, and there are hands on me, and they try to pull us apart, but Ryker doesn’t let go of my T-shirt.
“What the fuck is going on in here?”
Everyone freezes at the pure authority in the voice. I close my eyes in a long blink, knowing Liam is standing behind me. The hands attempting to pull me and Ryker apart disappear, but it takes Ryker much longer to release his grip.
Liam’s still waiting for an answer. I can’t see him, but I feel his presence at my back. He’s a wall of fury. A solid mass. I’m hit with a memory of us at school playing football. Liam, always the reliable goalie at my back, and me the loyal defender in front. We weren’t out for personal glory.
We were a team.
Ryker swipes a hand across his nose. “Nothing.”
He winces, knowing it was the worst possible answer to give his brother. I press my lips together despite the burn of Liam’s retinas on the back of my head. He likes to play the silent game, the man of few words, but I’m about to trump him.
“Who hit you?”
His fury comes out as ice.
A shiver works its way up my spine. There’s intent in his words. His brother is hurt and he fully intends to apply reasonable force to subdue the perpetrator.
In Liam’s eyes reasonable force falls somewhere between grievous bodily harm and murder.
Ryker doesn’t respond, and neither does anyone else inside the bar.
Liam is a police officer, he should’ve worked it out from the scene he stepped into, but the silence begins to grate on my nerves, and I can’t stand here forever.
I’ve got a budget hotel to find for the night after all.
I turn to him and the room spins before settling with him at the centre.
I’m not drunk, but I am stressed, and angry, and upset.
Liam’s still wearing his uniform. His nostrils flare, and the skin twitches at his right temple.
His eyes are dark, and they pull at me, demanding I stay staring at him as he takes me apart with his silence.
I’ve witnessed men double my size fold under the weight of his glare.
It takes everything in me, every last shred of defiance, but I don’t look away, and I don’t fall.
“I did.”
He doesn’t blow up.
There’s no flinch, or audible grind of his teeth.
He remains the same, but not quite. It’s as if a dial of intensity has turned to the max, and my heart kicks in a panic.
It’s me who reacts. My breaths come faster and faster, and I sway where I stand.
I need to get out of here, but Liam stands in front of the door.
An earthquake wouldn’t be able to knock him down.
He’s locked in, and all he has to do is wait.
I’m going to fold. I’m going to break down at his feet.
More words are needed. I need to dig deep.
“Move the fuck out of my way.”
I internally pat myself on the back for the way I put emphasis on fuck.
I sounded badass.
There’s a flash of surprise on Liam’s face, and then the darkness doubles down. He grabs my arm and twists it behind my back.
“Shit—”
I bow over as pain sparks in my shoulder, and then he’s marching me outside, using my pain as a leash. A growl scrapes at my throat, and I struggle, but it’s fruitless against Liam.
We’re outside but I don’t feel the cold. My trainers slap against the concrete as Liam directs where I go.
“I don’t know,” Ryker says, and I realise he’s with us. I realise that Liam must’ve asked him something or glared in a way that got him to spill his guts. “I got here, and he was with some woman at the bar. He wasn’t . . . he wasn’t acting himself.”
“Fuck you,” I snap.
My shoulder grinds as Liam twists, and I cry out before trying to stamp on Liam’s foot. He dodges me, but grunts with the abrupt sidestep I force him to make.
It feels like a victory.
“See,” Ryker says. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
I laugh. I laugh until a stitch pulls at my sides. Of course Ryker doesn’t know what’s wrong with me. He cut me off, they both cut me off, and now, now they care.
Fuck them both.
Liam drags me down an alley, out of sight of anyone and away from the sound of the road. He spins me, then shoves me up against the wall. His hands chill my cheeks as he takes hold of my face, and he uses his thumbs to drag down the skin under my eyes.
“Have you taken something?”
He’s studying my pupils and frowning at what he sees.
I could tell him no, don’t be ridiculous. I could tell him about Keegan’s betrayal, my dad’s reappearance, and my job worries, but I don’t.
I don’t tell him anything.
He waits, and I press my lips in a firm line, refusing to answer.
His chest slams into mine and his thumbs dig into my cheekbones. “Have you taken something?”
Ryker crowds in closer. “Jesus, Freddie, just tell us, yes or no.”
I don’t.
I don’t tell them anything.
Ryker makes a sound of exasperation as he runs a hand through his hair, but Liam glares his cold glare, and I reply with a slow, bored blink.
Fuck them.
Liam snarls, flashing his white teeth, but he releases my face and retreats a step. He takes a long look at me from head to toe, and I feel the scorch to my skin like he’s stripping me naked right there in the alley.
“I’m not letting you leave until you tell us,” Liam says.
I hold my wrists out to him. “Why don’t you arrest me?”
“You keep acting like this and I might.”
“You’re off duty,” I say.
If Liam was working, his car would be parked outside the bar. He’s unzipped his stab vest too, which is a clear sign he’s off the clock. His fingers twitch, though, like he’s contemplating grabbing the cuffs attached to his belt.
I’ve cracked his cool composure, and it feels good.