Page 41 of Liquids

I glance at the red mark on her face. “We need to ice your cheek, Marn.”

“Oh my God!” She races through to my bathroom, and a loud shriek echoes through the walls.

I take a deep breath and study my now-blue kitchen linoleum. There’s no avoiding talking to Rig now, is there? A visit from a couple of heavies is far too important to ignore.

14

SUBMERGING

What with the heavies and the girlfriend, my life has gone seriously downhill since Rig left, and it was already in quite a bad place to begin with. But I need to contact him, so after Marni has gone home, I fire off a text:

Some people came looking for you today.

A video call comes in on my phone almost immediately, and I stare at the stained mud-colored carpet in the living room, letting it ring. I don’t know what to say to him about everything that’s gone down today. I was hoping I could get away with just a text, but that’s clearly nonsense. When I answer, his brown shaggy hair appears, wild around his face.

“Who the fuck was it?” he growls, running his hand over his head. I can see the dirt and grime caked in the crevices of his nails. Okay, so he is on a rig. It looks like he’s propped on a pillow, a plain white wall behind his head.

“A guy named Dean and …”

“Eddie,” he says. “The Marlow boys, those fucking assholes. I’m half-minded to come back and teach them a lesson.”

“Dean hit Marni so I whacked him with a frying pan.”

“You did what?”

“I need to spend more time with Brit at the gym getting her to teach me to fight.”

“Babe, let’s go back to the part where you smacked him with a pan.”

“How about we go back to the fact that he hit Marni? What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

Rig emits what sounds like a low snarl. His screen swings around until all I can see are some strip lights on the ceiling. Then I hear the word “Fuck!” followed by a loud crashing noise.

“Hey, man, what’s going on?” Some other guy’s voice echoes in the background.

Then Rig’s voice says, “It’s okay. It’s okay. Not a problem.”

The phone rights again, and Rig appears, red-faced.

“Is everything all right?” I say.

“You do not, do fucking not, wade in with these guys! What were you fucking thinking? I’ll bet my ass they were armed. Jesus, I need to come back. Hitting a goddamn woman. Those assholes.”

“No, it’s chill, Rig. Honestly, we pulled off a stellar acting job pretending you’d never been here. Marni told them we’d had a one-night stand and that’s all it was.”

I don’t need him turning up again and getting all up in my business. You’d think I’d have learned a long time ago that nothing good comes from getting attached, as the last twenty-four hours have amply demonstrated. Whatever game he’s playing, it’s another shiny thing I don’t really need.

A weird silence fills the other end of the phone. I peer at the screen, but his head’s bent down and I can’t see his expression.

“I’ll fix it; don’t you worry about it,” he growls, lifting his head.

“What are you going to do?”

“Talk to some people.”

“You don’t need to do anything, to be honest. Marni and I have covered for you.”

“Babe.” Now his voice is full of amusement.