Pistol (20 page)

“Uh,” he sighed. “I’d die for one.”

Her skin crawled at his flippant remark. What was crazier? The idea she had brought him
home
after his comment about Dave? Or the fact they now behaved like an old married couple, and had a civilised lunch together? “You didn’t mean what you said about Dave, did you?” Her finger flicked the switch on the jug, and then hesitated on the handle of cupboard as he replied.

“Of course I did
. If he hurts ya, I’ll kill him.”

Ice ran through her veins in intervals with her warm blood,
and made her body surge in and out of cool flushes. What the heck did he expect her to say back to that? White knuckled, she gripped the side of the counter, and hung her head between her shoulders to gasp for air. The muscles in her legs twitched with the need to collapse; her weight seemingly doubled with every minute that passed.

“Shit. Are
ya okay?” Pete’s hand snaked about her waist to take her weight, and she revolted against the touch.

Steph
’s knees gave out before her brain had time to send the message to her hands, and she fell to the floor a crumpled mess. Her hands still grasped the counter.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, and tried to hold her once more.

She spun on the tiles, and scooted across the floor on her backside. “No. Don’t touch me.”

“Jesus
.” He ran an inked hand through his now dishevelled hair. “What ‘ave I done? Why are ya so scared of me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she shouted, heavy wi
th sarcasm. “Maybe because you’ve threatened to kill people?” her voice cracked on the last two words. Tears flowed freely over her cheeks, and dripped to the floor.

“Have I ever threatened you? Harmed you?” he asked.

Steph’s jaw hung slack. The guy was off the chain. He didn’t see the problem with murder—only that
she
had a problem with it. “Are you for fucking real?” she screeched. “What does it matter if you have or haven’t hurt me? You said you’d kill someone, because why? He’s a self-centred pig?”

Pete frowned, and crouched before her. His arms hung slack between
his legs, elbows on knees with careless abandon. “No, Love. I’d kill him—anyone—because they hurt
you
.”

“
You’re
hurting me,” she whispered.

He shot up like a jack-in-the-box,
and walked back until he connected with the cupboards. “I ... I never meant to.” Horror distorted his usually handsome face, and his chin screwed up tight, like he was going to ...
cry?
Such a cold and malicious would-be killer could cry?
Well who would have thought?
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, then turned and fled the room.

Steph pulled herself onto shaky legs, and started after him—her tears still fresh on her face. “Wait!” she called out as he reached the front door. “What
won’t you tell me?”

“What do
ya mean?” he asked, head hung as he faced away from her.

“It scares the shit out of me to think you would actually
kill
a person if you thought I was hurt by them, but call me crazy—” she shook her head “—it scares me more to see you upset. What’s going on, Pete?”

He snorted a short, callous laugh. “
Do ya know what me friends call me?”

“Clearly not,” she snapped.

“They call me ‘Pistol’.” He turned to face her. His eyes had darkened to the bluish-grey of a winter thunderstorm, and a frown pulled his face into a look of disgust. “Ya want to know why?”

“
I have a feel you’re about to say.”

“Because the day
me mam killed me brother, I took me da’s pistol and held it to her head until the police arrived.
That’s
how serious I am about hurtin’ people who hurt those I love.”

A painful lump lodged in Steph’s throat, and a fresh wave of silent tears blurred the vision of him as he stood dejected in her doorway.

“I don’t need yer pity,” he growled.

She watched, lost for any words that could do the moment justice, as he opened the front door, and stepped out into the afternoon sun. The bright, warmth of the day outside only served to
deepen the dark pit of despair she felt trapped in inside. His mother had killed his brother? And he was there when it happened.

Steph balled her fists at her side, mad at herself for doing exactly as he didn’t want;
she pitied him. But more-so she was mad at him for not allowing her the basic human emotion of compassion. Maybe she did pity him somewhat? But fuck—who wouldn’t after they heard that? He had to be a kid when it happened, surely, and what kid deserved to go through such betrayal? His car turned over, and then pulled away from the house. She listened until the sound of the V8 faded into nothingness. Her throated bobbed as she swallowed hard, but it didn’t help. Steph dashed through the house to her en-suite, and promptly brought up all the lunch she hadn’t had.

He couldn’t protect his brother, so all he wants to do is protect you.

Pistol woke up with a
consistent headache—the kind that made a person want to travel back in time and beat themselves stupid for being drunk. He pushed the empty bourbon bottle from the side of his bed, and cringed as it hit the floor with a definite
whump.
He’d spent the whole afternoon on the piss, and smokes—sure he would drink his way to a certain death. Yet he’d woken up in purgatory instead.

He drew
his feet to the floor, and took a moment to clear his head. His eyes tried to focus on a central point to stop the swimming sensation that accompanied such a hangover. No light crept about the black curtains of his room, so it had to be early.
Too early.
He rubbed his eyes with closed fists, and picked up his mobile from the nightstand. One-thirty ... in the morning.
Damn
. He hadn’t been asleep long enough. No wonder his head thumped like the chopping block at a woodcutter’s competition.

What a way to start the day
yer mother arrives.

Purgatory, hell, his
actual
life—he couldn’t tell where one stopped, and the rest started.

Steph
.

How was she today? He’d left her with some pretty
awkward news that people—unsurprisingly—didn’t react well to. What did she think of him now? Even more of a monster, because he held a gun to his mother’s head?
Without a doubt, ya fuckwit.
He rolled his mobile between his fingers, unsure if a text would be too impersonal, or if he should bother to make contact.
Fuck it.
He swiped open a new message, and typed.

Cutie, are you okay?

Sure he wouldn’t garner any response, Pistol stumbled to the door, and dragged himself along the hallway wall to the kitchen. He brewed a cup of coffee, and soured at the memory of it being the last thing Steph did for him. He retched at the smell as he poured a mug. With the toxic liquid cradled in his hands, he wandered slowly and carefully back to the bedroom, and sipped at the mug. As much as his stomach roiled at the drink, he needed to break the ice if he wanted a chance to keep food down. He glanced about the room as he supped, and stilled on the blue light which flashed atop his phone. The white backlight stung his eyes when he opened the reply.

What do you think? Of course I’m not okay.

He smiled. There she was. There was his little spitfire. More at ease with the knowledge she at least wanted to speak to him, he tossed the phone aside and drew his focus back to the real task for the day.

His mother.

Her plane arrived in approximately an hour, being an international. Maybe that was why he was awake; he could sense the bitch coming. He absently rubbed the back of his head as he played about with what he would say when he saw her. Did he give a standard
‘It’s good to see you’
? Or a more heartfelt ‘
Fuck off back to where ya came from
’? Most of all, he wondered how long it would be until she showed her face. He wouldn’t meet her at the airport—no fucking way. No. Derek had already informed him that his mother knew where he lived. How she knew, he didn’t have to speculate anymore. At first he’d been concerned that the old man had turned on him, and Derek now worked with the devil. But ‘conversations’ with Richard had shown that wasn’t the case.

Because that’s how serious
ya are about killin’ those who
threaten
the ones ya love.

If only Steph knew what
he had
already
done—before
and
after he’d met her. Jesus, the woman wouldn’t stop running until she came full-circle around the globe. There-in lay the problem however. If he couldn’t be certain she would ever accept him for who he was—the animal he was—then how on earth did he expect to rectify things with her?
Oh, Stephy-love. What am I to do with you?

Pistol snatched the phone from the bed
, and swiped her message open to reply. He hesitated, and drew his lip ring between his teeth while he thought.

I think we need to talk.

Her reply came through before he had time to get back to the home screen.

Now?

Of course now. When did she expect? Tomorrow? Next week?

See you in a couple of hours.

He scooped through his drawers for a clean shirt, underwear, and jeans. The fluorescent light stung his eyes as he flicked it on, and walked into the crisp, white bathroom. He reeked of stale bourbon, and if he wanted to show Steph how serious he could be about them, he had to show her how serious he could be about showing her respect. The woman was the perfect mix of saintly, and sinful. She knew how to treat others, but also what he needed. Steph balanced the fine line of public-persona with bedroom kink perfectly. Truthfully, he felt a little off at the knowledge his arrival in her life had brought the latter into the former, but now he wanted to be the one to stand by her side, and say fuck the world. If people she thought of as friends couldn’t accept her for who she was—beautiful and unique—then he’d help her find new friends.

Now that he knew what had to be said, he couldn’t wait to get it done with.

****

Shit
. He was on his way over, and she had Ivan asleep on the couch.

Steph tip-toed out into the darkened living room, and across to where
Ivan lay sprawled half-on, half-off the couch. She reached out, and tentatively prodded him in the chest. His hand rose off the floor to swipe her away, and she stifled a giggle. Steph prodded again, and his eyes opened; the whites glowed in the moonlight.

“What’s up?” he asked, his voice sleep groggy, and husky.

“I need you to go home.” She winced. “I’m sorry.”

He sat up, shirtless, and at another time he would have been more than alluring. “Why?”

“I’m expecting someone.”

Ivan stood and strode to the light-switch. Steph shielded her eyes from the glare as he flicked it on.
“Him?” Ivan’s tone was cool, and rightly so.

Steph
poured her guts out the entire evening to one of the few people she was—for the most part—certain she could still trust. Apparently he had seen the post by Cass, but had ignored it. He had said women fought all the time, and he hadn’t thought much of it.

“Yeah,” she affirmed.

“Steph,” Ivan cooed. “Have you forgotten what you told me before we went to bed?”

She looked to the floor
since she knew exactly what he meant. Steph had cried for hours as she recounted the twists and turns of her ‘relationship’ with Pete so far. Ivan had looked her in the eye as they set up his makeshift bed, and asked ‘What have you learnt from this?’ Steph had held his gaze, and replied, ‘That I can’t fix everyone.’

“I’m not trying to fix him, Ivan.”

“Then what are you doing letting him come over at, what is it—” he said, and swiped his phone from the coffee table “—two in the morning?”

She shrugged. “I think I’m trying to fix myself.”

Ivan sighed, and collected his shirt from the armchair. He tugged it on, picked up his wallet from the coffee table, and stuffed it in his back pocket with the phone. “Fine. But I’m staying awake, and I won’t be far away until you text me to say you’re okay. He’s dangerous, Steph, You’ve got to remember that.”

“We’re all dangerous in one way or another, Ivan.”

He shook his head like an adult frustrated at the confusion of a child, and started for the door. “Remember though, Steph—you aren’t broken. He is.”

She watched with a mixture of sadness, and anger as Ivan left. Yes, he was right; Pete was the broken one. But why was it everyone she knew was so quick to ostracise anybody who didn’t fit their definition of ‘normal’? Did nobody’s parents teach them acceptance anymore?
Steph drew a long breath, and stood to make herself a hot drink. Sleep still clung to her like a heavy wool blanket, thick with its hope she would simply return to bed, and to sleep. Not this morning though. As exhausted as her body felt, a myriad of thoughts swarmed through her consciousness. They alone would ensure she stayed awake until the first wisps of dawn light broke the horizon.

Horrible as it would be, she needed to hear what he had to say.

Was there any excuse for a child to turn out no better than a lack-lustre parent? Did the fact his mother killed his brother grant him the excuse to kill, also? He’d already said he was afraid he would become his father—perhaps it was his mother he had to be more wary of? Steph sat at the table she’d shared with him less than a day before, and mechanically sipped at the coffee. Her eyes remained glassed as she stared at the wall, and pondered the logistics of a person’s psyche after such a stressful life-event. She, herself, didn’t have much to compare it to. Her childhood had been mostly happy, nurturing, and free of anything as painful as the death of a family member. Hell, her grandparents hadn’t passed until a few years ago, and she was more than adult enough to deal with it better by then. The only thing that had happened to her had been in her teens, and she had made peace with its effects long ago.

H
er front door opened, and stirred her from her thoughts. Every hair on her body prickled with apprehension. Who else would simply let themselves in? Steph drew herself from the seat, and inched toward the entrance. She rounded the corner, and her eyes fell on him as he stood there, as jaw-dropping as the day she met him. He slung his thumbs in the pockets of his black, tapered jeans. The sleeves of a white shirt were rolled to just past the elbows, and he wore a black waistcoat over top which increased the appearance of his wide shoulders. He looked at her from under his lashes, his chin drawn down.

“Come sit down.” Steph turned, and made her way to the living room before she
skipped the talk altogether.

He eyed the blanket tossed over the couch with curiosity. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Ivan fell asleep last night watching a movie with me. He’s gone home now, though.” She didn’t miss the way Pete’s jaw tensed at the white lie. “Relax. I just needed the company.”

He nodded, and took a seat.

“So, what did you come here to say?” she asked, and fell into the armchair.

“Why do
ya make me feel like I’m the only one with a problem?” he asked.

Steph closed her eyes briefly. “You’re the one with the biggest problem.”

“Being?”

“You
r idea that you can kill anybody that you don’t like.” She rubbed her temples in slow circles. “You wouldn’t
actually
do it though, would you? This is one of those things guys say to make themselves appear tougher than they are, right?”

His silence answered
her with undeniable clarity.

“Have you ... like, already done it? Have you already killed someone?” Steph failed
to keep the tremor from her voice. Had he been a ruthless murderer all along? Her palms grew sweaty, and she rubbed them along the legs of her pyjamas.

“That’s not the issue between us, though, is it?”

She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, and then repeated the action with the top lip. “No. It’s not.”

“Tell me, then. What is the
one
reason ya don’t want to try and sort this out between us?”

“
I
don’t want to sort it? Weren’t you the one who walked out the door, and tried to scare me off with selected titbits from your past?”

He grumbled, and
eased into the back of the sofa; his arms spread wide over the back. One leg crossed the other at the knee, and completed his cocky, over-confident look. “It’s always been
you
that has a problem with things between us.
You
were the one who freaked out when yer ‘mate’ saw what we were doing in yer
private
bedroom.
You
were the one who had a go at me for ‘assaulting’ ya. And
you
were the one who flipped out at the idea a man who seemingly gets off on degradin’ the women he can’t handle, might get his come-uppance.”