by Kira Blakely
Michelle shook her head frantically, but even as she did so, I knew it was a lie. Her eyes were filled with tears and, even as she shook her head, trying to protect this walking dead man, they spilled down her cheeks. “He didn’t—” she said, breathless and broken, uncertain of what words to use. “He didn’t—didn’t get to—”
I pressed a hard kiss against her forehead and held her with my arms extended, surveying her body for damage. “Get out of here. I don’t want you to see this.”
“Don’t—” Michelle’s eyes suddenly bulged and she reeled away from me. “Look out!”
A stinging, slicing pain arced up into my brain and everything went black and red for a second. I staggered and lost my hold on Michelle’s arms.
“Andrew,” I heard her call to me, hushed in horror.
“Go,” I said, even though I had no idea what was happening, and she listened. Her footfalls receded across the carpet and my fingers went to the back of my head. Wet. I was definitely bleeding.
I shook my head and the pain only intensified. I pushed myself to my feet and spun to glare down at Chet. He held the bottom half of a lamp in one hand. The other half of the lamp had splintered off and fallen to the carpet.
I lunged, and perhaps the pain slowed my reaction time. Chet got in a good blow. He raised the base of the wooden lamp overhead and arced it down into my shoulder, where it sank several inches into muscle. Still, even with this makeshift stake buried in the meat of my arm, I stayed sharp. My other hand whipped to collect the electrical wire for the lamp, and I wrapped it around Chet’s throat, twisting him in my arms. He sputtered and scratched at his throat as I hauled him from the room. My body vibrated with adrenaline as I extracted the lamp from my shoulder with a roar, then, infuriated by my own pain, sent Chet hurtling down the hallway.
“You never could get a woman on your own,” I told him. I followed him as he rolled, boneless and weak, all the way into the foyer. He hurried to unravel the wire from around his bright red throat. “You always had to pick off someone else’s and use a little pressure.” I sent a kick directly into his sternum just as he was finished freeing himself from the lamp’s cord. Chet floundered back against the front door, sweeping it shut with his body. The half of a lamp crashed to the floor.
“Wrong,” Chet rasped, rubbing his throat and glaring up at me with bleary eyes. He crossed the foyer toward the living room. I wasn’t sure about Michelle’s position right now. “I got Michelle. She wants me like the dirty little girl she is.” Chet licked his lips and his eyes gleamed.
He surprised me with a quick grab behind the wall, into the living room, popping back into his defensive stance with a standard issue police club. I realized he must’ve shirked his weapons and left them in the living room. The sick son of a bitch really did believe that he was giving Michelle Harper what she wanted.
“She wanted it bad,” Chet said, “and if you hadn’t interrupted us, we’d be making sweet love right now!”
He swung hard toward my face, but my hands felt like steel as one stretched out to catch his club in a fist. He paused, shocked by my ability to absorb pain when infuriated, and I took the opportunity to punch the stupid look off his face.
The trajectory of the punch sent him deep into the living room, sprawled on his back. I entered after him, intent on cracking a rib or two, but Chet rolled and fumbled on the carpet near Michelle’s sofa. I saw her crouched in the corner of the room, utterly silent, watching me with wide, bleak eyes. Chet hadn’t seen her.
A strange crackling noise brought my focus back to Chet with crystal clarity. He staggered to his feet, nose bleeding freely. Not that it meant much to me. My shoulder oozed in spurts right now. We’d get everything patched up and settled after I finished fucking killing him. The thing crackling in Chet’s hand was a live Taser. He showed me its little blue-white tendrils of electricity, skipping between the metallic prongs, to threaten me.
“Now get outta here,” Chet huffed. “And let us finish what we started before you barged in, Ace. Get outta here or I’ll put you out myself.”
I didn’t dare let my eyes redirect toward Michelle, even though I could see her slowly rising to a stand in the corner. She stared intently between the two of us and I took a deep breath, never letting my eyes leave Chet.
“Michelle is mine,” I promised Chet. “If you touch her, I’ll kill you, even if you hnnn—”
Sudden, blinding pain filled my entire body like a riot of nerve endings buzzing and screaming at once. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t feel. My body went plummeting as stiffly as a falling tree.
A thought of Michelle frittered through my mind, a fuzzy, helpless recollection. I saw her again, as I saw her last night, striding away from me in a white dress and sandals, gazing coyly over her shoulder. Now she was coming down that staircase at her office in slow motion, wearing the pearl gray heels and the top knot bun, a few wisps straggling free from the bond. I saw her smile, saw her ankle bend, and I saw her tumble.
But this time, I couldn’t catch her before she hit the ground. This time, I fell with her.
In a dream somewhere, Michelle Harper leaned over me, wearing that tight little bun at the tippy top of her head, those wisps straggled free in a halo around her clear-rimmed glasses and heart-shaped, glossy lips. She was happy. She smiled down at me and said, “You’re the mechanic who—”
“Fixed your car,” I interjected for her helpfully. “I have to get back, Michelle... you need me.”
“Will you come with me to a friend’s wedding?” She stood and I saw that her sundress was a voluminous gown. Her face blurred away behind a veil. “His name is Andrew. Her name is Michelle. They’re good people.” She swayed and smiled at me, a twinkling from behind the veil.
I couldn’t remember what was happening anymore. But I knew that Michelle needed me, and I was trapped in a dream.
Chapter 14
Michelle
Andrew told me to go, but I couldn’t. My trembling legs staggered down the hallway and into the foyer but then I lingered and glanced over my shoulder. I heard the grunts and slurs of battle still in the bedroom and I knew I couldn’t just leave him. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced my knocking knees to stabilize. You have been running from pain your entire life. But you can’t run away when Andrew needs your help. He would never run away from you.
I veered into the living room, trying to collect my million scattered little thoughts. I was in crisis and nothing felt right, nothing felt settled, I couldn’t think but I needed to think. Think. Help Andrew. I need to help Andrew. Call 9-1-1 again? Just stand in the yard and scream? Get in his truck and drive to the police station?
That was when my eyes fell across the table on the right side the living room sofa.
There was a black club, a Taser, and a handgun, all laid neatly on the tabletop.
I gulped and reached for the gun. My hands trembled as I removed the safety and cocked the hammer back.
Summer camp for the children of aristocrats is different from the summer camp of the middle class. We didn’t make arts and crafts with macaroni and glitter and we didn’t do relay races. Rich kids learn marksmanship.
I receded into the shadows of the living room until my heels bumped the corner of the den and I froze, trembling, cradling the gun between my hands.
At least there’s this.
Chet came rolling into view, a lamp wrapped around his honest-to-God neck, and I sank down onto my haunches, praying that Andrew would follow him.
Please don’t let me fail Andrew.
Chet rasped about how badly I wanted him, and Andrew kicked him in the chest, sending him hurtling into the living room. I shuddered. He was getting closer. I didn’t know if I could do this. I was dizzy.
Chet spilled into the den and I saw the other items on the coffee table—the Taser and the club, damnit, I hadn’t taken either of them away, hadn’t even thought about it—as they all skittered onto the floor, and Chet scrambled for the Taser.
He came up firing the thing, nose coursing blood like a hideous beast. He told Andrew to leave us alone, to finish what we started, and my insides slushed with ice. I trained the gun and waited. I became still and quiet, listening for my moment, my opportunity to pounce. I became the predator in the room for once.
I will not fail Andrew, I promised myself.
“Michelle is mine,” Andrew replied without an iota of doubt in his voice. “If you touch her, I’ll kill you, even if you—”
And he fired the Taser.
Not one more second lapsed. I squeezed the trigger and absorbed the impact, staggering back into the wall. My aim was impeccable. The force of the shot sent Chet hurtling forward and slamming into the sofa.
Andrew’s eyes rolled back in his head and his entire body was rigid on the carpet. He shuddered and grunted as the electricity overtook him, then went still and loose again.
I went down to my knees beside Andrew and checked his pulse before moving on. I called his name, but he didn’t respond.
Chet was also as still as a corpse, and I wondered if I’d hit him in the shoulder or in the chest.
I lifted the gun away from Chet and stepped cautiously toward him. “Chet?” I whispered meekly, slowly withdrawing back into my little shell. “Chet?” Had I killed him?
Behind me, Andrew coughed and I put the safety on the gun, tucking it beneath the couch to be safe and leaning over him.
His thick lashes slowly twitched apart, revealing dazed gray-green eyes slowly focusing on me.
“Hey,” he breathed.
“Hey,” I whispered back. “Are you okay?”
“Marry me,” Andrew rasped, and I blinked down at him in complete surprise.
“I think you have a concussion. We need to get you to a hospital.”
“I don’t have a concussion,” Andrew swore.
Chet groaned loudly and my heart hammered in my chest. No, no, no, no…
The caterwaul of sirens drew my attention away from him and toward the front door. I saw the spinning lights of red and blue through the windows. They were here. They were finally here. How long had it been?
Deputies burst through the front door and quickly lowered their firearms at the amount of carnage already visible, at the strange hush over the entire house. The foyer had a splintered, bloody lamp and an overturned table. The living room, two unconscious men and me, still wearing nothing but a slip. Chet with a bullet in his—chest? Arm? And the local mechanic with a Taser embedded in his chest…
My eyes were still on Andrew—who had lapsed back into unconsciousness—as one of the deputies attempted to take my attention and get some sort of explanation.
My eyes flicked up to this newcomer and I said, “You guys really need a more sophisticated screening process.”
* * *
I was discharged from the hospital after two hours of psych evaluation. They determined I wasn’t so badly traumatized that I couldn’t go back home. The police submitted the restraining order between Chet and I, emphasizing that I would probably need to break my lease and move. “He can move,” I asserted. “I’m not moving. I just got that house. I’m a lawyer,” I reminded them proudly. “Don’t mess with me.”
Andrew was still being evaluated—that blow with the lamp had given him a minor concussion—when my cell phone began to vibrate, and I glanced down, genuinely expecting another invasion alert. But I guessed those were probably over.
Even worse.
Incoming call: Mom...
I swiped over the screen and pressed the phone to my ear. “Hey, Mom,” I said, hoping that I sounded composed and responsible and—
“I’m going to tell you something, and you tell me if it’s true,” she shrilled. “Are you at the hospital right now?”
“Mom,” I chastised. “Are you tracking my phone again? You know I hate that.”
“So you are at the hospital!”
I dropped my forehead into my hand and gave it a gentle massage. “Mom, look, I just didn’t have the time to—”
“Are you all right?” she shrieked, and my heart warmed. Did she actually care about me? Did she just suck at showing her emotions?
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “I’m fine, actually. There was really scary break-in at my house again, but my boyfriend swooped in and saved the day. And then I saved the day again.”
“Your boyfriend?”
Shit.
“We’ve been on a few dates,” I lied. Andrew and I had only been on one date together in our entire lives, but we’d fucked enough to fill a memoir. “You would like him.” What’s one more lie? “I think he might be the one,” I added.
“I guess I can’t convince you to come back to Ohio, then,” she grumbled. “Where Allison and I can keep a close eye on you.”
Normally, the mention of Allison’s name—the favorite daughter, I always thought—would bring a twinge to my chest. But tonight, I felt warm and soft at the sound of her name. It felt good to be surrounded by family in a time of need. Mom wanted to protect me.
“I have someone here who is keeping a very close eye on me,” I promised her. “Everything will be fine, Mom. I promise.”
And for the first time, maybe ever, I actually believed it.
Epilogue
I’m Not This Kind of Guy
It still ached when I moved my arm in certain ways, even though my body had been mending for months. The summer heat was finally draining away and leaving us with the moderate temperatures of early September, and I hoped that my injury wouldn’t come back to bite me every time it got chilly outside.
Michelle moved in with me.
All it took was being attacked by her next-door-neighbor to get her to agree to live with me.
Not bad.
I gazed across the field of white candles I had lit throughout the entryway and living room of my house. Michelle was due home at any moment.
It may have been moving a little swiftly, but I’d never been married before, and these past two months were the best of my whole life. I’d never been with someone like Michelle. I’d never been so satisfied. I wanted it to last forever. Or, at least, until these little meat machines we were driving finally popped their tires and rusted out.
The front door opened and the tell-tale tinkle of little high heels moved over the floorboards. She didn’t know yet. She didn’t know what was about to happen. She was about to become mine.
I haven’t been able to shake the image of her in a wedding veil since that fever dream I had after getting hit with Chet’s Taser.
The high heels slowed to a stop and I looked up from where I was waiting, in the center of the living room, on one knee.
Michelle stood in front of me in knee-length suede boots, dressed in a conservative, knee-length khaki skirt and a black turtleneck. There was something different about her since she’d moved in here. It started slowly, and then she had coalesced into a new—or perhaps only inner—version of herself. She warmed. She matured. She wasn’t the only one who was happier, I guess.
Her eyes beamed wetly from behind square-framed glasses and she slowly picked her way across the den, lit by the warm orange light of about fifty fucking tea candles. That was a fun trip to Dollar General.
“Michelle,” I greeted her somberly.
Tears of joy were already slipping down her cheeks as she approached, and I knew she was going to say yes.
“Andrew,” her voice warbled sweetly. My heart ached for her. She was too sweet for this world. Too sweet for me.
“You’re—uh—you’re the only woman who finally let me believe in the goodness of the heart,” I told her, trying to remember all the corny, poetic things I’d brewed in my noodle over the past few hours. Maybe I hadn’t thought this all the way through, but damn it, it felt right. I had to say it. “You make me believe in magic. In fairy tales. In the triumph of good over evil.”
I reached out and collected her hand in mine.
“Me, too,” she whispered back.
; “You’ve only been in my life for three short months—unless you count that quickie we had in January—” Michelle swatted my shoulder and I winced. She knew exactly where that goddamn Taser gun hit me, and she wasn’t always sweet. “—but either way, it hasn’t been long. But it doesn’t need to be. You know my heart, and I know yours. We’ve laughed. We’ve cried. We’ve made huge, dramatic scenes and walked all the way home from the Baptist church on Route 11.”
Michelle scoffed but didn’t hit me again, even though I braced for it.
I swallowed. “Michelle Clara Harper, will you marry me?”
As she gazed down at me, sparkling tears slipping down her cheeks, I was certain she would say yes. Who cries like that at a marriage proposal and then doesn’t say yes? She was definitely saying—
“No,” Michelle answered, her sinuses becoming clotted from her tears.
“Uh,” I said. “What?”
Michelle sniffled and pursed her lips together. “We’ve only known each other for three short months,” she reminded me. In spite of her tears, she wasn’t as overcome with emotion as I thought. What the hell was going on? “You’re right, I don’t count that quickie in January, jerk.”
“So?” I said. “We’re living together! And every night, I’m excited to come home from work, just so I can come crush you on the couch.”
“I know,” Michelle said. “But we can’t get married, Ace.”
My brow dented with frustration and I staggered up from my knees. “Because why?” I demanded. “You know I love you. You know it! If I don’t marry you, I’m not marrying any-fucking-one. I can promise you that.”
“There’s no reason to rush,” Michelle asserted. “We’ve been living together for eight weeks, Andrew. We can wait another year or two.”
“Or two?” I shrilled. “I’m thirty-two!”
Michelle cocked her head to one side. “Do men have biological clocks?” she wondered.
“You do!” I snapped without thinking.
A half-smile kinked at Michelle’s lip. When we first moved in together, this might have actually spiraled into a fight, but it’s harder to get her to go than it used to be. Now she knows that I just snap sometimes, and it doesn’t mean anything, except that I’m basically a Neanderthal.