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“What’d she say?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
It was a short ride to the police station, as we lived in that part of town. Everything was cold, icy. Covered in glimmering, shimmering frost.
Dante talked, telling me what little he knew. Trey had knocked someone unconscious in front of his building. And not just anyone…
“If this asshole assaulted him,” I asked when he was finished, “How the fuck does Trey get arrested?”
“Dunno.”
“Are they letting him out?”
“Dunno.”
We reached the station, and waited a good fifteen minutes before being brought into one of the back rooms. Brooke rushed to us tearfully, flinging herself into our arms.
“It’s okay…” I said. “It’s alright.”
“It’s not alright,” she sniffed. “They’re booking him. They’re charging him right now. And he didn’t even do anything! Chris just… just blindsided him with a baton, and—”
“Chris?”
She lowered her chin to her chest. A cascade of tangled blonde hair fell into her face.
“Chris is my ex-boyfriend,” she said miserably. “He works for the magazine too, in the same building. He… he’s possessive of me. He still thinks we’re kinda together.”
“And why does he think that?” asked Dante.
“Because he’s a fucking psycho,” Brooke cried. “We broke up over a year ago. This whole time, he’s been chasing me. Courting me. Trying to get me back, and—”
“And you never told us any of this?” I asked, somewhat annoyed.
“No,” she sniffed again. “I— I was worried it might scare you away.”
“Scare us away?” Dante asked incredulously. “Why in the world would it—”
“Because things were already so complicated,” she said. “At first I was ‘Hannah’, and then I came clean, and then there were still problems with the article, the names…” Our girlfriend dropped her face into her hands and shook her head. “I just didn’t want to add anything else,” she said. “There were just so many things aligned against us, and Chris means absolutely nothing.”
I sat down and slid one hand past her shoulder. Gently, I pulled her into the crook of my arm.
“Nothing is aligned against us,” I said encouragingly. “Not anymore.”
“Adam’s right,” Dante said. “You can tell us anything, Brooke. Just… level with us.”
She swallowed and pinned her hair back over one ear. But I saw a change. A slump of relief in the tension of her shoulders. The faintest traces of a weak smile.
“You guys are the best,” she cried miserably. “You really are…”
“We know,” Dante grinned. “Things might look bleak, but Trey’s alright and that’s all that matters. So try to relax. No matter what happened, this is all going to work itself out.”
She nodded again and sat up a little straighter. I held her tight, while Dante made a quick trip to a nearby vending machine. He returned, and handed her a cold bottle of water.
“Now take it one step at a time,” I said. “Tell us everything, and leave nothing out.”
She told us the whole story, from the two of them making out in the car, to the admission they were headed into Trey’s place for a quickie. I should’ve guessed that part. If I’d been the one who needed a ride home, I would’ve done the same exact thing.
“So he knocked Trey out from behind,” said Dante. “One shot.”
