“Anthony!” she says, eyes going wide as I throw her attacker to the ground, away from her.
“What the fuck?” the guy starts. I don’t let him finish. I punch him, hard. Over and over, knocking him out. I feel like I can’t hit him hard enough for what he was trying to do to Brooke. When he’s passed out, I go over to Brooke and pull her into my arms. She’s shaking and crying. She buries her head in my neck. I pull out my phone, holding her as she cries, and I call the police. Brooke pulls back when I hang up, looking at me with terrified eyes.
“Are the police coming here?” she asks. Her voice sounds raw.
“They are,” I say. She looks miserable and terrified and almost broken. “What happened?”
“Shit,” she whispers, not answering my question. She looks at the unconscious man the floor and starts to cry again.
“Who is he?” I ask. She stands up.
“I can’t,” she says, and for the third time that day, she walks away from me without giving me answers. “I’m going to find the bathroom. I can’t be a mess like this when the police get here.”
I doubt there is even running water in here, but I let her go, thinking she might need it after having been through so much today. After being through something traumatic, it makes sense she would need a minute to catch her breath in peace, so I don’t follow her now that the danger has passed.
Her phone rings and Autumn’s name pops up. I grab for it, thinking that maybe what Brooke needs right now is her sister, especially since they’re so close.
“Autumn?” I say, answering the phone. There’s a pause on the other end, and then she answers. I haven’t seen Autumn since she was just a kid, barely thirteen.
“Who is this?” Autumn asks. “Why are you answering Brooke’s phone?”
“It’s Anthony,” I say, and I hear Autumn make a small sound on the other end of the phone. I can’t tell if it’s a surprised one or not. “Brooke is here with me. I don’t know if you know what’s been going on with her. I don’t really know, but she was delivering money to this guy I heard threatening her, and I found him on top of her, attacking her. He’s knocked out. I got him off of her, but she’s really shaken up.”
“Oh, god,” Autumn says, sounding a little sick.
“She’s safe now,” I say, trying to sound reassuring, even if I’m a little shaken myself by everything that’s happened today.
“Skinny guy? Ugly tattoo on his arm and drives an even uglier motorcycle?” Autumn asks. I look over at the man on the floor and nod, seeing the tattoo she must be referring to on his forearm.
“That’s the one,” I say. “The police are on their way. “
“Where are you two? I’m coming,” Autumn says.
I give her the address and assure her several more times that Brooke is safe and okay. Autumn is in the car when she hangs up. Brooke comes back a few minutes later, eyes red from crying.
“Your sister is on her way,” I say as Brooke sits down. She freezes, her skin gets pale and her eyes get wider.
“What?” she asks. “No. How?”
“Your phone rang. I saw it was her, and I thought you could use her support right now, so I told her what happened,” I say, confused by her reaction. Brooke pales, looking even sicker than before.
“No. She can’t,” Brooke says, and she grabs her phone and calls Autumn back, but it goes straight to voicemail.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I say. Despite the police being on their way and the man being passed out on the floor, she doesn’t look like she feels any better. In fact, she looks worse.
“I can’t. I can’t tell you, and Autumn can’t come here, and you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have come. Shit,” Brooke says. I grab her hands.
“I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t been here,” I say firmly.
Brooke winces and shakes her head again. “I can’t tell you. I have to protect Autumn,” she says.
“I wrote you a check for fifty thousand dollars, and I knocked a guy out, so I think I deserve at least a few answers. You don’t have to tell me everything, but you can’t tell me nothing, either,” I say. Brooke pulls her hands out of mine again. She reaches for her phone.
“I have to protect Autumn,” she repeats. She calls Autumn but still doesn’t get an answer.
“Brooke,” I say. She looks up at me, and then down at her phone, and then at the man I knocked out, and then back at me again, and starts to cry. She collapses into me as she does, and I pull her close.
I hold her until the police arrive.
Chapter Fifteen - Brooke
I feel like I can’t think or breathe. I’m just in total panic mode. Jeff is knocked out, but he’ll wake up soon and probably tell the police his version of everything. Autumn is on her way. She’ll be here with me and the police and Anthony. I have no idea what to do. How this day is possibly going to end without me and Autumn both being arrested? I can just see it now. Anthony will say he knocked out Jeff out to protect me, that Jeff was attacking me. Jeff will wake up and say I’m a murderer. Autumn will say something in response that will give us all away, and then it will all be over. It will be over, but in the worst possible way.
I don’t know how this happened. I honestly thought that if I gave Jeff the money, he’d go away. That he’d leave town with it, just get on his bike and ride out of my life. Instead, he’d grabbed the check and attacked me, telling me it wasn’t going to be that easy and pinning me beneath him. Now Anthony is in the middle of it all, asking so many questions. Questions I don’t know how to begin to answer, or if I even can.
Autumn arrives at the same time as the police, and I pull out of Anthony’s embrace, shaking. I run up to Autumn, thinking maybe I can still get her to leave or at least convince her not to say anything. Anthony stands too and goes to talk to the police. I’m grateful he’s here, even if everything is going wrong. Even if I wish he wasn’t involved at all. His talking to the police buys me and Autumn a little time, and he seems to get that, though I haven’t told him anything.
“I heard my friend scream and I found this creep holding her down,” Anthony is saying to a tall and serious-looking police officer. I grab Autumn’s arm and steer her to a corner so we can talk while Anthony tells the police what he saw today.
“Oh my God, Brooke. Are you okay?” Autumn asks.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say. Autumn shakes her head.
“Yes I should,” she says. She’s fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, but her eyes are locked on me.
“You can’t be, not with Jeff and the police here,” I start, but Autumn cuts me off.
“He’s been threatening you, hasn’t he?” Autumn asks.
I nod, looking at the floor. “He wanted money or else he was going to go to the police,” I tell her, looking at the ground. I had never planned to tell her that. I never wanted to her to have to worry about Jeff.
“You should have told me that. I wouldn’t have let you handle it alone,” Autumn says, reaching out to squeeze my hand.
“I promised you I’d protect you,” I say, “and I still will.”
“No,” Autumn says. “It’s time for me to end this.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, frowning. My pulse is still going far too fast, and I feel like I might throw up at any moment.
“I’m going to tell the police the truth: that it was self-defense, but that I killed that man,” Autumn says. Her face looks resolved and determined.
“I won’t let you do that,” I say. “I promised you that you wouldn’t go to jail.”
“It’s not up to you, Brooke. I need to deal with this, I want to. It’s been too long already. I can’t run from this anymore. All this time, I’ve been putting you in danger instead of telling the truth,” Autumn says. She pulls me into a tight hug and I hug her back, still shaking.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say, even though part of me knows she’s right. That it’s not up to me.
&nb
sp; “Yes, I do,” Autumn says, “for the both of us.”
Autumn pulls back from our hug and smiles at me, a little unsteady but seemingly real. She takes a shuddering breath and walks over to the police and Anthony as I follow. It’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Part of me still wants to stop her, wants to throw myself in between my little sister and the police, keeping her safe, but I don’t. I stand close to Anthony, trying to breathe and catch my footing.
“Are you ready to make a statement about your attack?” one of the officers asks me. Anthony puts a hand on the small of my back like he wants to steady me – to reassure me everything is going to be okay. It works. I feel like some of the tension and stress I’m carrying seeps out of me at his touch.
“I need to make a statement too,” Autumn says, and the police turn to look at her in surprise.
“Did you witness the attack?” the tall officer asks, frowning at his notes.
“No, but I caused it,” Autumn says. The police exchange a look and then nod, leading us all to sit down on the few chairs that are scattered around to tell our story. Jeff is in handcuffs, and the police say they have someone on the way to pick him up to take him to a holding cell. Apparently, he’s got a long list of prior arrests and convictions, as well as several arrest warrants out for him. I don’t know how I hadn’t known that, or even how I could have ever thought he was a good guy.
Autumn and I tell our story in bits and pieces. Autumn does a lot more talking than I do. She tells the police how she’d been assaulted a few years ago and has carried a gun for protection ever since. She explains that a man had grabbed her that night and she’d tried to fight him. She talks about how he punched me when I tried to rescue her, and then about how she’d been sure she was going to die when his hands were closing around her neck. I back her up, say I’d seen the same things, just as sure he was going to kill her. I talk about Jeff walking in after I grabbed the gun, about how he is my ex-boyfriend and how he’s been stalking and harassing me, making threats and demanding money.
The police take our story down, asking questions and making notes. Anthony reaches over and laces our fingers together, squeezing my hand as I tell the police everything. I feel stronger with him beside me, more like I can handle all of this. The police say that they have to check into a few things, verify Autumn’s weapons permit, and look into the man who’d attacked her, but that it sounds like a pretty clear case of self-defense. They tell us we’re all free to go home, and that they’ll be in touch. I sag into Anthony in relief, dizzy at the idea that it’s all over.
Autumn and I hug tightly when they leave, and then she whispers that she wants to know everything that’s going on with me and Anthony later. She goes home, and I turn to Anthony, physically and emotionally exhausted.
“Come home with me,” he says. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Thank you,” I say, “for everything.”
He kisses me softly, hugs me tightly, and takes me home.
Chapter Sixteen - Anthony
Waking up in my own bed with Brooke beside me feels like everything is the way it should be. Even with how fucking terrible yesterday had been, this feels right. Looking down at Brooke, all I can think is how beautiful she is and how glad I am she’s back in my life. I hate that she was going through so much and that I couldn’t protect her from it. I hate that she ever had to feel that afraid. I hate that someone as clearly reprehensible as her ex, Jeff, had ever been part of her life. I want to keep her safe now, safe and happy.
Last night, after we’d come in, I’d filled my mom in on the barest details while Brooke took a long shower. I’d made dinner, and we’d sat on the couch under a blanket with David, watching a kids’ movie until he fell asleep. In bed, she’d pulled herself in close to me and told me even more than she’d told the police: all the details and all the pain that had come with them. I’d held her tight all night, not wanting to ever let her go.
Now, with the morning sun breaking through the windows, I run my fingers through her hair and smile. I’m in love with her, I realize. Maybe part of me always was. Maybe I never stopped from when we were kids. I know I am now. I’m fully and completely in love with her.
Brooke stirs, rolling into me more before opening her eyes and smiling a soft smile at me.
“Good morning,” I say, tilting my head to kiss her.
“Good morning,” she says back, right against my mouth.
“How did you sleep?” I ask, sliding a hand to the back of her neck.
“Better than I have in months,” Brooke says. “I can’t even begin to thank you enough for yesterday.”
“So don’t,” I say, “because all that matters is that you’re safe now.”
“I’m just really glad you came back,” Brooke says, kissing me again, harder this time, with more force and feeling behind it. She slides closer to me, and I can feel her warm skin through the fabric of the t-shirt I lent her to sleep in. I slide my hand up and into her hair, and she gasps into my mouth.
“So am I,” I say truthfully. She deepens the kiss and fists a hand into the fabric of my shirt, pulling and tugging like she’s suddenly desperate for me to touch her. Every one of her touches is electric on my skin, and I feel myself grow hard when her tongue licks over my lips. I’m desperate, too, desperate to touch her, to make her feel so good that she forgets every bad thing that’s happened to her. To take her so high she forgets everything.
I slide my hand up the t-shirt, to her stomach, tracing my fingers over the warm skin I find there, up her ribs to her breasts.
“Please, Anthony,” she says, gasping. “Don’t stop.”
I think I would do anything she asked. I would touch her forever if she wanted. I don’t stop. I slide the shirt over her head and take her apart, making her come with my hands and then my mouth before I slide inside her, fucking her slow and steady, making it last. She squirms and writhes under me, biting out my name and cursing, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. She comes again, and feeling her come around me takes me over the edge, too.
I hold her for several long minutes after, feeling her shake as she comes down. She laces her fingers with mine, and I breathe her in.
When we’re ready to move again, I make breakfast. Unlike yesterday, I’ve got a whole kitchen stocked with food at my disposal. So I make omelets for Brooke and David. We spent the morning in David’s room with Brooke reading to him. He asks her to read just one book at first, but when he hears her read it, using character voices and making dramatic pauses in all the right places, he wants her to read every book on his shelves. He climbs up on her lap, asking for the story after story, and she reads them all. I think I could watch them together all day. Brooke is so good with David.
I haven’t let any of the women I’ve been with around David since Michelle died. Most of them were only around for the night, but I’d kept even the ones I’d seen more of from him. Seeing how well he gets along with Brooke makes me sure that was the right choice, that I was doing it for a reason. I didn’t want too many fleeting people around him. I feel like Brooke is going to be a permanent part of our lives.
My phone rings right before lunch. It’s the Market about our wedding catering. I tell them I’ll call them back later and look over at Brooke, who is still reading to David, thinking. After the story is over, I ask her if she can come help me in the kitchen, telling David we’ll be right back.
“So, that was the Market. Our wedding caterers,” I say. She frowns slightly.
“Our wedding,” she says, like maybe in the stress of the last day she’s forgotten.
“You know, when we first started talking about it, I thought we were joking. I just didn’t want to be the one to end the joke,” I say. Nothing about our relationship feels like a joke anymore, and it seems like we should talk about it.
“I did too,” Brooke says, smiling. “I didn’t want to end it either.”
“All these plans are actually in place, though,” I say. With eve
ry day I’ve spent with Brooke, I’ve felt more like I could actually marry her like I should. Like maybe I was always meant to.
“Do you think . . . ?” Brooke says, then pauses like she’s choosing her words. “Now that so much is happening between us, do you think we should call all that off? I want to do this right – do us right. I’d like to take it slow and make a real go at this.”
“I really think this could work,” I say. I want it to work so much. I feel certain it will. I don’t see how it couldn’t.
“Me too,” Brooke says, smiling, “So, we should call off those wedding plans and take it slow.”
“We can do that,” I say, pulling her in for a quick kiss. She kisses me back, smiling.
I want Brooke all day, every day, for the rest of my life. I think I always have.
Chapter Seventeen - Brooke
I can’t get over how different my life is now. Over the past few months, I’ve been spending nearly every day with Anthony. I’m practically living at his house how, and I wake up beside him almost every morning. It’s honestly been wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. Everything has almost completely turned around, and I can’t help but think it’s because of Anthony. That it's all because I have Anthony back in my life.
He’d helped me prep for my application and interview at work. Two weeks ago, I got the news that the position is mine. It’s not much more money, but the work is so much more interesting. I’ve been training for the past week. There is so much to take in and remember. My days have been so much busier. It’s a huge challenge, and it’s more than a little scary, but Anthony makes me feel like I can handle it. More than handle it, he makes me feel like I can excel at it. I’m proud of myself and excited for my future in a way I haven’t been in a long time.
The police are still investigating Autumn’s case, and she’s been in for questioning several times. It turns out the guy she shot was a repeat sex offender, which backs up Autumn’s story and makes it unlikely she’ll face any charges. We still have to wait for them to conclude the investigation. The detectives have told her she may face consequences for waiting so long to tell them what happened that night, but we’re all feeling hopeful about it. Autumn’s been leaving the house more and making tentative plans for the future, even looking at going back to school the way she’s always wanted.
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