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Byzantine
I’mscowlingatthesun, lost in thought while sitting near Connor’s pool, the tumbler full of whiskey I’m holding sweating from the heat.
Sunny has been distant since our time at the beach over a week ago. I knew she would be. Retreat into her little shell, locked up surrounded by her familiar walls. She’s avoiding me as much as possible, the only real time we have together is when I drive her home after her shifts. I can’t stomach the thought of her walking home alone so late at night.
But even then she seems distracted or just not quite there. She has this vacant look to her that I’ve seen before.
Before…when she was already mine and I didn’t keep her safe. When I failed her and the price was her life. The vision of her on the bathroom floor from another lifetime follows me around like a noose around my neck.
It makes me avoid her in turn. I avoid the bar as much as possible, busying myself with the other businesses we own around town.
It’s a familiar pattern to fall back on. I’ve done it so many times, you’d think I could make myself stop. But avoidance is something we both have in common. We have lifetimes of practice.
But I also have a nagging feeling it’s not just what happened between us that’s making her distant. It’s something else entirely. I can’t bring myself to ask.
My thoughts keep drifting to the scar on her wrist. My mind aches to know what happened, what made her take a blade to her wrist and press so deep it left a mark like that. Sunny’s body locks up whenever I come too close to the truth.
For now we both just aggravate this yawning distance between us and pretend nothing ever happened between us.
I let out an irritated groan, gripping the glass I'm holding far too hard when Connor strolls in.
“Do you ever go home brother?” he drawls.
I glare at him, not bothering to answer and finish off my whiskey in one large gulp.
“Where’s Bastian?” I ask instead.
“In the office hunched over like, three laptops, busy being a genius I think,” he says, plopping on the lounge chair beside me.
“Do you still go to those fights in the West End?” I ask, out of the blue. I need to let out my frustration before I lose my fucking mind. Maybe punch something in the process.
“Once in a while,” he answers with a grin, his eyes glinting at the promise of physical violence. “Why? You itching for a fight?” He leans over conspiratorially. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with a long-legged bartender I caught you with the other week?”
I say nothing. An answer in itself.
“I fucking knew you buying that shithole was not forprofitable business endeavours,” he mocks, air quoting the last part just to drive in his point and I fight the urge to sock him right in the nose.
“Don’t read into it asshole, you’re the one who told me to keep an eye on her.”
“You’re keeping an eye on her alright,” he snickers.
I punch him hard in the bicep before he has time to react.
“Asshole. Fuckingchill, I was only joking,” he says, glaring at me, but the amused glimmer in his eyes remains. “Just make sure we can trust her, alright? That and her little friend of hers. I can tell she’s in on the secret. But if I catch just a fucking whiff that one of them have been talking,” his face now as deadly as the next words out of his mouth. “You know what needs to happen.”
Dread washes over me but I don’t react and match his stare instead.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it brother,” I say sardonically. “I’ve got this under control.”
Connor keeps his icy stare for a second longer, and then, like flipping a switch, he shifts from lethal to playful.
“So bare knuckle fighting, yeah? Will you be watching or participating?”
“Participating,” I grunt back.
He arches his brow and reaches for his phone. “Let me find out the details for tonight and we can head out.” I settle back into the lounge chair, relief washing over me. Itching for the sick thrill of my fist colliding with someone else’s face.
The underground fight is taking place in the basement of Danny’s butcher shop up on 3rdavenue. I didn’t bother asking why.
