Below the Belt(68)

But the thought of hearing her voice put a little jump in his throat. He set the phone back down. No need to call her tonight; he’d just talk to her tomorrow.

When it rang a few minutes later, he jumped, thinking he’d conjured Marianne’s phone call. When he saw Tressler’s name, he nearly ignored it. But something told him not to.

“What?” he groaned into the phone. Then he sat up. “Son of a . . . yeah. Gimme ten minutes. I’ll be there.”


*

MARIANNE’S to-do list resembled a forest of hearts and stars. She’d been sitting on her couch, in her favorite Family Guy pajama bottoms and threadbare cotton T-shirt, doodling around the edge instead of actually writing her dang list for tomorrow.

And why? There was no question about that. She was in love, and had no clue if the guy felt the same thing. Of course her mind was in another territory.

She’d said it. In that weak moment, after the heat of passion had cooled and left them comfortably snuggled together under the blankets, with his arm a dead weight over her and his skin so warm against her cheek, she’d let her defenses slip and had whispered those three secret words she’d been planning to save.

He hadn’t heard her, though. Or he had, and hadn’t reacted.

No, better to think he’d already been asleep. If he heard, and didn’t respond, it meant he wasn’t traveling down the same path. And that would be . . . hard. So hard.

She looked down at her doodles and scratches. The last heart looked a little . . . well, a little squashed.

Screw you, symbolism.

At the heavy knock on her door, she sighed and turned the pad of paper upside down on the table, then placed a book over it. Odds were, at this late an hour, it was Brad. No need to see her scribbling in her notepad like a seventh grader bored in geography class and writing “I heart One Direction” all over the margins of her folders.

A quick look through the peephole had her swallowing a curse instead of a greeting and wrenching the door open. She cursed out loud this time as the chain at the top halted the progression and nearly swung it closed again.

“What the hell happened?” With shaking hands, she got the chain undone and swung the door wide, letting in Brad—his shirt, neck and jaw covered in blood—with a large black man draped over his and Tressler’s shoulders. The man in the middle’s head was down, his neck swinging with each step. They half walked, half dragged the man to her kitchen, then unceremoniously dumped him on the ground with a loud oof.

“Are you hurt?” Hurrying to Brad, she ignored all protocol and grabbed his face between her hands to examine him closer. Turning his chin in a firm grip, she looked for a wound, dilated pupils, a dented skull . . . and found nothing. “Where’s the injury?”

Brad pointed down to the prone man. She looked at him, then Tressler, who held up his own hands—also covered in blood—and said nothing.

Since the man was groaning pathetically, and moving a little, she knew he wasn’t dead. Maybe halfway there, but he’d wait two damn minutes while she caught her bearings. Hands on her hips, she backed out of the tiny apartment kitchen. Time to triage the idiocy. “What the heck is going on?”

Brad glared at Tressler, who shook his head and pursed his lips together as if zipping them shut. Mature.

With a heavy sigh, Brad nudged the prone man over onto his back. He rolled, ungracefully, until she could see it was one of the boxers. One of Brad’s group members, as it turned out. Tibbs, the Marine who was always running laps, building up his speed and endurance. But what the hell happened to him? Had they decided to hold a late-night practice without calling her?

“Tibbs, here,” Brad said, answering her unvoiced questions, “decided to play crash test dummy with a friend’s crotch rocket. The moron wasn’t wearing a helmet, went flying ass over elbows and caught himself with his face.”

Hence the blood. Head and face wounds, even the nonfatal kind, bled like stuck pigs. She looked to Tressler, who only nodded and kept silent. She had a feeling there was a reason for his uncommon quietness, but wasn’t in the mood to figure it out.

Stepping around Brad, she knelt down and gave Tibbs’ face a cursory exam. Broken nose, no doubt about it. Concussion was probable. She worked her way down his shoulders, his arms and his legs, feeling no fractures. Nothing that made him hiss in pain. Just the same dull groan when she found tender spots and road rash. “You brought him here. Why here? Weren’t the police involved if there was a crash?”

“No cops. It was in an apartment complex parking lot. No other cars. Just an idiot who had no right playing on a machine he wasn’t familiar with.” Brad said the word “idiot” a little louder than necessary, leaving no doubt as to his feelings on the situation. “Can you help?”

Did she have a choice? She couldn’t just let the man bleed on her kitchen floor while she went to take a bubble bath. With a sigh and a nod, she ran to gather her supplies.





CHAPTER


20


Twenty minutes later, Marianne emerged from the kitchen, wiping sweat from her brow with her forearm. Brad and Tressler stood up from where they’d been sitting in stony silence on her couch.

“Broken nose for sure. His limbs seem fine, and he doesn’t say anything else hurts. My guess is, based on how you say he landed, there’s no internal bleeding, though I can never be one hundred percent without testing. The concussion is more concerning to me than anything.” It worried her a great deal. “I’m sorry, guys, but he’s got to go to the hospital.”