Rule(77)

I grabbed the wrist of the hand that was poking me and shoved him back into the car.  “If you think sex with Shaw is irrelevant than you’re the one that is uneducated jackass.  Get over yourself, if I can prove that you had anything to do with her car we’re pressing charges.  If you keep harassing her we’ll keep going to court and eventually someone will notice your old man covering your ass.  I’m telling you this stops now or you can go to the hospital and I can spend some time in jail, got it?”

We stared each other down but by now there was a decent size crowd gathered around while we sized each other up.  I didn’t see the security guard until he was getting in between the two of us.  Before he could start asking questions I flipped Gabe off and headed back to the side street where I had parked the truck.  The guard called something after me and I heard Davenport’s raised voice but I didn’t stop until I was back in the truck and had the heater blaring.  I flexed my hands repeatedly on the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths to get myself back under control.  The last time I had felt this impotent amount of anger, this unfinished need to destroy something was when I had watched them put my brother in the ground.  I wanted to tear his perfectly tailored body apart seam by seam and watch him suffer.  Pushing him around and making him uncomfortable just wasn’t enough.  The darkness, the unpredictability that lurked inside me reared up again and wanted unbridled vengeance but I had to put it back in the box because I wasn’t going to make Shaw wrestle with it again so soon.

It took me a solid half hour before I felt like I was ready to go home and face her.  When I walked in the door Nash was playing one of the game units and screaming a mouthful of obscenities through the headset at whomever he was playing with.  He ripped the gear off and gave me a once over as I shut the door and climbed to his feet.

“I don’t see any blood or gore.”

I shrugged and tossed my jacket on the back of the couch.  “Too many people around plus I think kicking his ass would only encourage him.  The guy has a whole tool box of screws loose.  It isn’t even about Shaw it’s all about how it looks that she dumped him and is hanging out with me.  His ego is out of this world I seriously don’t know what we’re going to do about it because he’s right about his dad being able to cover for him, he already proved it once.”

Nash jerked his head in the direction of my room.  “She hasn’t made a sound.  She never surfaced after the shower so I don’t know how she’s doing, but I have to go or I’m going to be late for my appointment and I still need to tweak the drawing a little.”

“It’s cool I got her.  Maybe she was just so stressed out she slept the whole time.”

“You could only be so lucky bro.”

I snorted and waved him off as I headed toward my room.  The door was closed and everything was dark when I pushed it open.  Shaw was curled up in the fetal position in the center of the bed and it didn’t take a genius to tell she was wide awake and had been crying.  She had her hands tucked up under her cheek and was staring sightlessly at the blank TV.

“What did you do to him?”  Her voice was raw and even more husky than normal from crying.  I sat on the edge of the bed reached out to run a hand over her thigh.

“I told him to back off and that it wasn’t smart to piss off someone that had me as a boyfriend.  I don’t know what his deal is Shaw, I think the dude is certifiable he just doesn’t relate on any kind of logical level.”

“I thought you were going to hurt him.”

“Well I might have but it was broad daylight and there was an entire college of students walking around.  I pushed him around a little and we tossed some crap at each other but I just mostly wanted him to know you aren’t alone, that if he hurts you there are plenty of people waiting in the wings to hurt him back.”

Silent tears ran down her face and I had to lean all the way over her prone form to wipe them away with my thumbs.

“I just want him to go away.  I never did anything to deserve this.  All I ever do is what everyone else wants why I am being punished for doing the one thing in life I want for myself.”

“I don’t know Casper, I just don’t know.”  I didn’t know how to make her feel better so I just scooted up on the bed behind her and gathered her up in my arms while she cried.  I didn’t consider myself an empathetic or even a compassionate guy.  I was usually so wrapped up in my own head and my own spiral of emotional nonsense to pay much attention to anyone else’s, but holding Shaw while she cried changed something in me on a fundamental level.  I felt like there was nothing on earth I wouldn’t do or wouldn’t give to make this better for her.  I felt like a failure for not stopping it from happening to her and I knew that from this point on keeping an eye on her and keeping her relatively safe from just Davenport wasn’t enough.  Suddenly with blinding clarity I knew that I wanted to keep her safe and protected from anything that was ever going to hurt her forever and ever and that just sucked because I had a sneaky suspicion that somewhere along the line I had probably been the cause of just as much distress as polo shirt was proving create and that just made me want to break things all over again.



Chapter 14

Shaw