Laurie was shocked by Mickey coming to her defense.

'Shocked' might actually be a huge understatement. Laurie was pretty much used to defending herself. It was just her, her dad and brother at home once they didn’t need nannies. She couldn’t exactly stand up to her father, the farthest she'd ever gone besides a little fudging of the rules was leaving the house and not going back. Not that he'd put up much of a fuss. She'd never expected her brother to defend her, either—though she'd never expected him to be someone she needed to be defended from.

She'd dated before, briefly, but she doubted any of the men she'd been with before would have tried something like this. It probably helped that Mickey was a little bigger than her brother. And even with his temper, her brother was slight. Considering Mickey was a professional bodyguard, he was probably used to standing between people and danger. She flushed a little, remembering the proposition he'd told her mere moments ago. He might have been kidding, but seeing him in action, Laurie was seriously tempted.

A sound from her brother made her turn her eyes over to him. It was something between surprise and outrage, and Laurie was suddenly worried. He must have been surprised that someone stopped him, as surprised as she must have been that her little brother would raise a hand to her at all, but he was recovering now.

"Hey, Laurie. Who the fuck is your new boyfriend and why is he such a douche?" he demanded to know.

Laurie glanced at Mickey's face and instinctively knew it had been the wrong thing for Karl to say. She wracked her mind, wondering what she could do to diffuse the situation before they started a brawl. She could already tell her brother was outmatched in this, even if his obvious high was giving him some serious bravado.

But above all of that, Laurie was angry. She was furious that her brother would dare attempt to hit her after everything she'd done. She'd put up with him and not thrown him out yet, and all she'd been trying to do was show concern. He could have died if the other driver hadn't been so sharp. He was also lucky that the driver wasn’t willing to report the issue to the police. Karl had already been biking on the road without a license, without a helmet on, and high on whatever drugs he'd taken before coming back.

Her brother was way too damn reckless and ungrateful.

"He's our new neighbor," she snapped back at his question, her anger boiling over now that the surprise of his attack, and Mickey stopping him, was fading. "He came over for coffee and now he probably thinks we're both white trash as hell thanks to your behavior.

The words flowed out of her without her really thinking about it. Once they were out, she wished she could call them back, slapping a hand over her mouth and turning wide eyes to Mickey. He'd turned to look at her, too, clear surprise in his eyes. Her face was already flushed from her anger, but she imagined she now resembled a fire truck with how hot her face felt, and she glared back at her brother to avoid meeting Mickey's eyes.

Karl was gaping at her, but meeting her glare had on, he returned it with one of his own.

"Like I give a shit what he thinks?" he scoffed, snatching his arm out of Mickey's hold and taking a couple of steps back, his glare aimed at both of them. "I bet he's the reason why you wanted me out of the house, right? So you could fuck him."

Laurie winced at the language. "Shut up, you stupid brat! I sent you out because I needed to work, he just came over for coffee, and ended up having lunch!"

Mickey was caught in the middle as the two siblings resorted to slinging insults at each other. He was just stunned for a moment, and it held him still, but when Karl moved to get near Laurie again, he held him back with his arm, ignoring when the boy recoiled.

"Don’t you fucking touch me!"

"Then relax," he snapped right back. "Stop shouting like an idiot and get inside. Didn’t you just get hurt?"

He glanced over at Laurie and hesitated. Mickey was working to defuse the situation, wanting to calm Karl down and, if possible, win his trust. But what was he supposed to say to Laurie? He could see her face reacting to his words as she remembered that her brother had just had a close brush with death and she was arguing with him over it, even though he looked like he was fine.

Mickey would have to be extremely careful. He cursed in his head, hating the situation he'd found himself in. He somehow had to get Karl's trust without compromising Laurie's, and the latter was for more than just professional interest.

But he'd let himself get distracted, and Karl was coming at him again, shoving at his shoulder. The kid was unsteady on his feet, from the stimulants and the near accident. He was weak, to begin with, but right then, he was probably at his lowest.

"Look, kid. You nearly got hit by a car. Stop shouting on your front lawn like an idiot. Get inside, take a load off. Sit down and relax, yeah? You're going to be feeling some pain sometime soon. Do you really want to be out here when you do?"

For a moment, he thought he'd overdone it. The kid was just standing there, looking confused, like he wasn’t sure whether to calm down or go on the defensive. But Karl finally chilled out, his body relaxing, though there was still a frown on his face. He glanced over at his sister before looking away with a wince.

"Whatever," he muttered with no heat behind his voice. "I'm taking a couple beers into my room. Don’t bother me."

With that, he turned and walked into the house. There was another wince as he stumbled a little, the pain catching up to him with his anger gone. Even if he was lucky enough to be uninjured, a bike had still fallen on his leg and there was no way he wouldn’t feel anything minutes after it happened. Once he was in the house, there was a short silence. Mickey turned to look at Laurie.

She stood with her arm crossed over her stomach, her other hand held over her mouth. There was a look of horror in her eyes as she watched where her brother had disappeared to.

"Hey, are you okay?"

She startled, wide, wet eyes looking up to meet his like she'd forgotten he was even there.

"Oh, um… yeah. Sorry. Thank you so much for helping me out, I just…"

She looked grateful and somewhat distraught, and Mickey knew he was the cause of it. But if he'd let her cool off by herself, she would probably have come to the same conclusion.

"Hey, come on. None of that," he murmured, stepping closer and raising a hand to rub up and down her arm, trying to be reassuring. He wanted to do more, so much more. Envelop her in his arms and let her draw comfort from him. But it was too soon.

"But really, it… I need to… I wasn’t even thinking about…"

"It's fine. Nothing happened." He wasn’t sure exactly what he could say to calm her down. "Would you like to get out of the house tonight?" he asked impulsively.

Laurie blinked, her hand dropping from her mouth. Then a small smile was on her face. He could tell she wasn’t entirely okay, but at least he got her out of whatever thoughts were making her look so bleak.

"I would love to," she agreed happily.

They parted company not long after, Laurie going into her house looking subdued, but closer to content. He went over to his own place, and she waited until he was at his door, then waved and closed her own door. Mickey returned the wave and then went inside the house.

Mickey immediately got his systems recording everything that went on inside the house. He sat down, got himself comfortable to listen in, picking the perfect place to get some visuals in, even if it was just him at the window with a pair of binoculars. He was just in time to catch something interesting.

Karl called up Randy. Because the equipment was pretty high tech, he could even hear the response over the phone.

"Hey. Are you busy? I wanted to head over there to hang out. I swear, man, I can't deal with my sister at all. A car nearly flattened me and all she can do is nag."

Only, Randy didn’t have the response he must have been expecting, even though the words had Mickey perking up in his seat.

"Have you found the papers you promised me in return for your kilo? I'm gonna need them soon if you're going to keep coming over here asking for more."

There was a short silence, Mickey practically holding his breath so he could catch everything over the slightly scratchy sound. This… could be just what he'd come here for.

Karl didn’t give a straight answer. He hemmed and hawed, looking around his wrecked room.

"Uh, I actually have it hidden in a family safe deposit box," he claimed.

Mickey was pretty sure it was a lie, but this, at least, confirmed a couple of things. The kid had the files, and he hadn't handed them over to anyone yet.

Laurie, oblivious, went on and talked to her friend Kizzy again.

It was soon after their recent chat, and Karl was in the house and not that far from her room, but she needed to talk to someone and Mickey had left. She was determined to put Karl out of her mind, though.

"So how did it go?"

"He came over before I could go to his place. It kind of ended badly, but…" she smiled. "I have a hot date with the hunky neighbor this evening."

"Good for you," Kizzy practically crowed. "Look at you, growing up and going on dates! I'm proud of you."

Her friend cheered her on, and even though there was an edge of teasing in there too, she felt a little better.