Perfectly Obsessed (9 page)

“I told you not to come out,” he grinds out.

The anger in his voice isn’t just from the fight, it’s because he is angry with me too.

“But I did,” I say, pressing the bag of peas down harder on his hands.

“You shouldn’t have seen that,” he argues, trying his best to control his anger.

“I’m the one who asked you to hurt him, I didn’t for one second assume you were going to follow him out and nothing was going to happen.”

“I didn’t want you to see me like that.” he rectifies.

“Is that what you’re worrying about? That I’ll think differently of you now?” I ask, astonished that he would presume that.

He scarcely looks at me before returning to studying the bag of peas. Silence fills the room and I remove the peas from his hands and use the damp towel to clean the blood off his hands, mainly the right hand but on the left his knuckles are split and are beginning to crust over.

“You should think differently of me, admit that you didn’t expect me to go that far? You thought I’d give him a kicking and then walk away, didn’t you?”

This time he is looking at me and the pressure from his gaze weighs me down.

“To be honest, I didn’t know what I was thinking. All I saw was him having a good time while we are hurting from what he caused.”

It was reckless and irrational but it happened and now I have to live with it and the little voice in my head is telling me that as long as Drake is okay I can live with it.

“Babe, I stabbed him. I stabbed him multiple times and I don’t feel anything. That’s the man I am. You’ve changed part of that because when I heard you call out my name all I could think of is how scared you must be of me now, but when it came to him I don’t feel anything, I’ll sleep tonight like a fucking baby without a second thought of him. But you, I’d lose sleep if I thought you were scared of me.”

“I wasn’t scared because of what you were doing, it scared me when you stumbled back because I thought you could hurt yourself.”

I cringe slightly when I hear how ridiculous I sound but it is the truth. I cringe a lot more when I hear him laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I huff.

“You are,” he laughs softer, “I can’t believe how lucky I am I met you. There aren’t a lot of women out there that wouldn’t freak out when they saw their guy stabbing another man.”

I shrug my shoulders thinking maybe I should be more concerned by my lack of compassion for what happened tonight but I don’t have it in me to care.

“He killed our baby, Drake,” I remind him, “He deserved everything he got. Like you, I will sleep soundly tonight and when I wake up tomorrow I’ll be happy because I’m lying next to you,” I promise him.

He leans forward and kisses me, I lean into him to deepen the kiss but when the bag of peas falls on my foot, I remember his hands need tending to.

“You’ll have to wait for that,” I chuckle, “I need to clean your hands up first.”

I set to work cleaning the blood off and bandaging his knuckles, when his right hand is finished he strokes my hair away from my face while I work on his left hand and think.

“Will he die?” I ask.

“As long as he holds out till the ambulance gets there, he should live.”

“No one knows it happened, what if he isn’t found?”

Not that I care.

“Stan will call it in anonymously, I don’t want the fucker to die yet. He hasn’t suffered enough. As long as you’re suffering then he does too,” he tells me, flatly.

He watches me cautiously as if I am lying to him about being fine. I finish wrapping his left hand in bandages and begin to clear away the rubbish.

“It would’ve happened if you asked me to hurt him or not because of what he did to you, everyone around here knew he had it coming from the moment he fell on you,” he says, watching me.

Deep down I knew that. Marg’s warning about Drake being more dangerous because of me echoes in my mind on the first day I met her. The truth is, I feel more dangerous being with Drake and I like it. I remind myself tonight wouldn’t have happened if that guy hadn’t of fell on me. Our unborn child was a victim in another man’s fight, but there is no way I am going to let myself be a victim any longer. Drake is strong and I will be strong by his side.

I asked a lot from him tonight and not once did he hesitate. He knew what I needed and he didn’t fail to deliver.

Chapter Seven

The condensation glistens on the window pane as the early morning sun shines through on this freezing new day. Like I told Drake I would last night, I slept soundly. That only lasted for six hours and for the last hour and a half I have watched night turn to morning while recounting everything that happened last night. I see the anxiety written all over him that I am now scared of him but he couldn’t be further from the truth. I am scared, no, I’m terrified, but only of myself. I’m terrified because I have no guilt. The only thing I took away from last night was satisfaction. Never in my life would I think I would be in this position and now that I am, I feel a peace washing over me. I know right from wrong, of course I do but the injustice blows right and wrong out of the window somehow and I don’t care to think too deeply into it.

“Are you awake?”

I peel my eyes away from the window and turn around to face Drake. His soft snores have kept me company while I have been cataloguing last night.

“I am, how are your hands?” I ask.

“They’re fine, nothing I haven’t felt many times before,” he assures me.

A chill enters the room and I pull the cover higher over me while Drake lays with his bare chest out and his arm resting behind his head.

“Is your life always like this?” I ask him.

“Are you asking me if I stab people on a regular basis?” he snorts.

“No,” I kind of am though, “I mean violent?” I explain better.

He looks up to the ceiling and focuses before he answers, “Sometimes,”

I am about to ask another question but he carries on, “Around here, the slightest look can offend someone and a fight will follow. When someone’s girl is caught in a fight and gets hurt in the process, everyone expects what happened last night. Everyone in the pub will know it was me but no one will tell a soul. That’s how it works, it always has and always will. You stand up for yourself no matter the reason shit is kicking off and you never walk away, if you walk you put the biggest target on your back for anyone to take a pop at you. I built my reputation years ago, I have high levels for violence and a keen sense for making money and it has earned me respect with all the right people in my world and I have to maintain that to stay where I am.”

“Will you ever tell me how you make money?”

I have asked a few times before but he never gives me a straight answer.

“I’ll show you this afternoon, it might make it easier if you see for yourself.”

I shuffle closer and snuggle against his side and he rests his arm around me, trailing his fingers softly up and down on my back.

“I need you to promise me that we’re good, that what I did last night won’t come between us?” he says.

My eyes close briefly, I don’t like hearing the fear in his voice. I don’t hear it normally coming from him and I hate that the only time I do hear it is because of me.

“I promise we’re good, I love you Drake. In a fucked up way, it felt nice having someone actually go that far because of the pain I was in, trying to make it better for me.”

“I would go as far as you needed me to, you know that don’t you? You are the one part of me I can’t live without. I knew you were out there for me, I just wish I found you sooner.”

“I’m here now,” I smile up at him, “And I’m not going anywhere, as of now, last night never happened,” I vow.

“In that case, get your sexy arse in the kitchen and put the coffee on while I jump in the shower,” he laughs.

“Sure, but only because I want one too. Don’t think you can boss me around.”

I pick up a pair of leggings from the floor and slip into them as well as one of Drake’s hoodies. The heating hasn’t come on yet and walking through the flat gets colder and colder the further I get from the bedroom.

I switch on the new television Drake had brought over the other morning as I pass and set to work on the coffee machine, emptying the old coffee filter and preparing a new one. I get side-tracked with tidying the kitchen waiting for the percolator to finish when Drake saunters into the living room in only a towel.

“How are you not cold?” I ask, bemused by his lack of feeling to the cold.

He shrugs like it’s nothing and stops dead when he looks at the television.

He quickly scans the living room and starts pulling cushions off the sofa and lifting the magazines up on the small coffee table.

“Where’s the remote?”

I just had it, I look back to the kitchen counter top and throw it over to him.

He stands directly in front of the television blocking my view turning the volume up.

I hear a news reporter talking about a suspect who has been apprehended in connection with a robbery a few months ago.

I move next to Drake so I can see the screen. One half of the screen is of the woman reporter and the second half is a photograph of a man, their suspect.

Drake’s chest moves rapidly while he listens. I look back at the screen and it doesn’t take long before I think I recognise who the man is.

“Don’t you know him?” I ask Drake.

I swear I have seen him drinking in the pub a few times.

“Yeah, I’ve worked with him a few times,” he tells me, keeping his eyes on the television.

“What kind of work?” I ask, hesitantly.

“We might have to get away for a while, where do you want to go?” he asks, out of the blue.

“Go away? Why?”

He is already heading back to the bedroom and is pulling a case from under the bed and throws it on the covers by the time I catch him up.

“Pack your things, only what you can’t manage without,” he tells me, already half way through filling the case.

“Drake, tell me what is going on?” I scream.

His phone rings and instead of answering me, he answers his phone.

“Yeah?”

His body goes rigid and his eyes snap to mine.

“Are you sure?”

He pushes past me to look out of the window. He only merely peaks around the net curtain down to the street and then steps back. I go to look too but he stops me when he sees me heading for the window.

“How many are already in?” he asks whoever is on the other end of the phone.

“Shit,” he says, dragging his hand through his hair.

“Okay, thanks for the heads up.”

His eyes land on mine again and I hold his gaze for far too long, whatever is being said on the other end of the call is not good. “Just make sure no one takes advantage of her.”

This one sided conversation is driving me insane. As soon as he hangs up, he quickly shoves everything he just put in the case back in the drawers and slides the case back under the bed.

“Who was on the phone? And what is going on? Tell me Drake!”

I am losing all patience now and the not knowing is making me nauseated.

“It was Stan, he is at the end of the street and in about five seconds the police are going to be banging down our door,” he spits out quickly pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

“I thought you said no one would say anything about last night?”

I have been so fucking stupid, of course there would be consequences. I was completely ignorant to think otherwise. This place is just an illusion wrapped in a dark night sky covering the violence on the street. All an illusion.

“I haven’t got time to get into that now because they could be here because of anything, the list is endless babe. Now listen to me, when they take me away, a couple of them will probably stay behind to ask you questions. Say nothing, not a fucking word, are you listening to me?” he asks.

I nod quickly as the door sounds like it is being kicked in.

“We know you’re in there Drake, open up.”

We both look in the direction of the front door even though we are in the bedroom.

“Ignore them for a minute. When they take me away go straight to the café, Marg will help you, she’ll know what to do in case the worst happens.”

The worst? Call me naïve, but what could the worst possibly be at this point.

The banging on the door intensifies and the police threaten to knock the door in if he doesn’t answer in the next five seconds.

Drake quickly kisses me and leaves the room.

I trip over the clothes laying around on the floor in my haste to see what happens when he opens the door to the police and I make it just in time to see Drake step back and officer after officer file through into the small living room, all circling Drake unaware I am leaning against the wall on the edge of the room.

“It’s been too long, Detective Barnes. How have you been?” Drake asks one of the officers as if they are old friends.

To me, this amount of police in the flat is intimidating in all their uniforms and radio’s crackling, and searching through our stuff. When one of them sends message that they are in and have Drake, it makes it sound all that much more serious.

“Cut the crap, Drake. Where were you last night between seven pm and nine pm?” one officer asks him.

Drake stands tall and holds his chin up strong.

“Can’t remember,” he lies.

Another officer points to Drake’s hands.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Can’t remember.”

“Do you know a Calvin James?”

“Can’t remember,” Drake repeats again.

“Okay, so this is how we are doing it this time,” the first officer says, sighing like he didn’t expect any different.

He reaches for the hand cuffs on his side when he spots me standing in the corner.

“Who’s this?” he asks, turning back to Drake.

It is the first time Drake shows any emotion and I am not the only one who notices it.

“Someone who warmed my bed last night, in case you didn’t notice it’s fucking freezing this time of year.”

Every officer turns to look at me and Drake ever so slightly shakes his head and winks. He is telling me not to listen to him.

“Just a whore from the street then? She looks classier than the toms around here. Did you pick her up in the pub before or after you attacked Calvin James?”

The officer gets what he wanted and moves just in time when Drake lunges towards him and is taken down by four other officers.

The offending officer laughs and bends down near Drake’s head. Drake is still trying to get free but it is no use. He looks to me when he hears me cry out and calms himself down. He is stone faced by the time the officer speaks.

“I think I’ve heard of this one. The infamous Drake Deveroux finally settled down, does she know what you get up to? How many different women have been in her position right now watching us drag you away?”

Drake doesn’t move, the four officers are still piled on top of him but he remains staring straight ahead. The muscles in his jaw ticks furiously.

“If you’re here to arrest him then I suggest you do, but if you just want to banter with him then let me know and I’ll make us all a cuppa. I’m sure all this provoking is giving you a dry throat.”

All heads turn to me and I can’t believe I just said that out loud. I can’t stand by and watch them use me to provoke him.

Drake laughs, genuinely laughs and the Detective narrows his eyes at me.

“Get him up,” he orders, then turns back to Drake.

The four officers haul Drake to his feet and the bastard officer takes great pleasure in cuffing Drake roughly.

“Drake Deveroux, I am arresting you on suspicion of attacking Calvin James on the twenty-ninth of December between seven and nine pm…”

I tune out and focus on Drake as they read him his rights. I cover my panic with a fearless strength. I don’t have time to freak out now, and Drake doesn’t need to see me like that when he isn’t going to be here.

“Take him away,” the officer says.

Drake looks at me one last time before they lead him out of the flat. His prediction of officers staying behind rang true. I sat there for a half hour not opening my mouth at all to every question they ask.

Where was I last night?

Where was Drake?

Was I with him?

Do I know if he attacked Calvin James?

The questions went on and on but I never answered them. After one officer left carrying a plastic bag with Drake’s jumper he wore last night covered in blood, I still couldn’t bring myself to think the worst.

I wait patiently for them to leave and as soon as they are out of the door I run for the bedroom and get dressed into jeans and one of my own jumpers. I don’t bother applying any make-up, only bunging my hair into a messy bun on top of my head. Once I have my boots and my coat on I lock the door behind me and set off for the café to find Marg.

Light snow begins to flurry on the way and the streets are empty, everyone choosing to stay at home in the warm.

The usual ding pings over my head as I walk into the café and I am pleased to see there are only two customers in today.

Marg appears from the back and instantly looks on alert when she sees me alone. Each time I’ve been here, it has been with Drake. The fear on my face probably screams a thousand unspoken words as well.