Chapter
Brynn
My hands went to my mouth, and I lunged for him. "What are you doing?" I cried as Rett grabbed ahold of Gabe's collar and swung him so hard that his head cracked against the brick wall of the Country Closet clothing boutique. "My God what are you doing?"
"You Motherfucker!" Rett growled, and I'd never heard his voice so dangerous. He looked like he wanted to kill Gabe. "Rett what the fuck! Let go of him!" I cried yanking on his arm.
But he gathered Gabe's collar in his fists and then slammed him into the wall again. "Fucking asshole," he snarled. "Brynn look!"
"What are you talking about?"
"His shoes, Brynn! Look at his fucking shoes!"
I looked down and my eyes lighted on that orange reflective strip and suddenly my blood ran cold.
"You?" I said, looking back up at Gabe.
He eyed me warily but said nothing.
And that's when I knew.
"It was you, wasn't it?" I demanded. "Lurking around my house? What the fuck, Gabe?" I yelled, shoving him in the arm. "You scared the shit out of me!"
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Gabe said, struggling. He reached out to yank against Rett's arms but Rett lifted his knee and shoved it into his stomach, driving the breath from his lungs. "Oof," Gabe hissed. "I'm going to kill you, motherfucker."
"Likewise, asshole," Rett seethed. "What are you doing hanging around Brynn's house? Stalking her? A fucking stalker? Is that which you are? I should kill you for what you did to her! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."
"I wasn't stalking her!" Gabe wailed, all the bravado suddenly draining from his face. "I was just... I wanted to..."
My hand went to my mouth. "Gabe," I said slowly, dangerously. I stepped forward and pressed my hand against Rett's arm. "Let him talk," I told him. "I want to hear what he has to say about this."
Rett gathered Gabe's shirt tighter, then looked down at me. I nodded once. He loosened his grip, but he did not let go. "Talk," he said savagely.
Gabe looked down, refusing to meet Rett's eye, but then he looked up at me imploringly. "We always had such a good time, you and me," he said to me. "And I always wondered, why didn't we hook up?"
"Because we were friends," I said carefully. "That's all."
"Yeah but, you were friends with McLame here too, and now you got this thing going on. Why wasn't it me?"
"Gabe, you were with Amanda," I said. My heart thudded rapidly, every synapse in my brain firing all at once, danger, danger.
"She dumped me, that bitch," he said and I saw Rett's arm flex, pulling his shirt tighter. "Hey, cool it," Gabe choked. "I'm talking, talking."
"Yeah, I know," I said coolly, and Rett didn't loosen his grip.
Gabe choked a little, turning redder. "I figured you weren't with anyone, and I thought maybe you and I, we ought to..." He cocked his head meaningfully and my stomach clenched. "You know."
"And you thought that I'd want to go out with you if you were hanging outside of my house? Why didn't you pick up the fucking phone or something?" I snapped.
He gave me the sort of wounded look that would have melted my heart, before Rett. I wasn't like that anymore, now I knew what I wanted and what I wanted was for him to tell me just what the hell his plan was. "No, maybe I should have," he said as if the thought was just occurring to him. "But you did call me, right?" he said, perking up. "You called me and I came right over to help you with my squad car and everything."
"You absolutely corrupt asshole," Rett growled, having already put together the pieces before my brain could catch up. "You were pretending to be a prowler, because you knew that if she called the police, you'd be the one to answer the call. You were trying to exploit that, scare her so that you could swoop in and be her knight in shining armor." Rett spat on the ground and then snarled, and he suddenly had Gabe by the throat.
"Rett," I called. "Stop it."
Rett looked behind me, his face red, and for a second I didn't think he'd heard me, but slowly, so slowly as to almost be incremental, he loosened his grip on Gabe's throat.
Gabe coughed, wild-eyed.
"I want you to hear this," I said, raising my voice and lifting my chin. "Because I'm not going to say it again. We were friends, Gabe. That was all. I never want anything more from you. But now we're not even that. Friends don't do that to each other, and I want you to leave me the fuck alone. Do you hear me?"
"Why you got to be such a bitch about it?" Gabe whined.
I stepped forward. "I'm not a bitch," I told him. "And I'm telling you this clearly so there are no mixed signals. And if you do come anywhere near me, I'm going to go to the precinct and tell them what you've done. You know my father is friends with half the force, right? They all drink for free at Reese's Pub. I’m sure they wouldn't want anything to put that perk in danger."
Gabe looked at me with that little lost boy look, the one that I'd fallen for so many times in high school. We were friends, we did have a history. He'd been around during the worst part of my life. I'd always been nice to him before, and some instinct, some basic reflex inside of me wanted to be nice again, because of that history.
But I was a new girl, I was a new woman, I didn't need to be nice to get what I wanted.
All I had to do was ask for it.