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Let them sort it out, Corran.
“Ben, leave me alone!” Victoria’s shouted plea hits me straight in the gut and I’m running along the pier before I even realize I’ve left the fireside. Rage burns acidic in my chest, and I struggle to compose myself before I reach them.
“Ben,” I say through gritted teeth. “Leave her alone. She’s asked you to leave her alone.”
“Fuck off, Corran. This has nothing to do with you.”
“You are on my property, Ben. It has everything to do with me. Victoria is my guest. And you are acting like an asshole.”
Ben steps forward. “Victoria, please…”
Victoria sidesteps his outstretched hand.
“Ben,” I growl in warning.
He turns to me, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight, his face twisted into a dreadful leer.
“Good old Corran, here to save the day as usual. Always the good guy. Or is he?” Ben bites out the question in a quiet, singsong voice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this drunk. He continues, “Do you think I don’t know why you are here? I’m not blind, Corran. You want her. You’ve always wanted her.”
“That’s enough, Ben. You are drunk.”
“And you think I’m the asshole,” he continues, slurring over the esses. It would be funny if it weren’t so awful.
“Stop, Ben. You are drunk and you are going to regret this in the morning.”
“Corran, ssssshhhh!” He puts his finger to his lips, wobbling slightly with the effort. “You can take her. She’s yours. I don’t want her. She’s…”
Victoria’s eyes widen. Her knuckles are white against the blanket she is still clutching round her shoulders.
“Ben, that’s enough. We can discuss this tomorrow,” she says quietly.
“No,” he snaps. “We can discuss it now, right now, while my good friend, my best friend, is here with us. Waiting in the wings. Like always.”
My fist ball at my sides. He’s so far over the line we can’t even see the line anymore.
“My best friend, Corran,” he says with a smirk. “Mr. Dependable. Mr. Always There. I bet you were,” he mumbles, his chin falling to his chest.
Just when I thought he couldn’t get any more irritating.
“What are you talking about?” I snap.
I don’t really want to engage in his drunken mental meanderings, but if it might buy me the opportunity to get us all off this pier then I’m willing to try it.
Ben turns and raises his hand, pointing at Victoria.
“I bet you were right…there!” he leers, jabbing his finger towards Victoria. “I saw the two of you, sitting all cosy beside the fire. Good old Corran, the shoulder to cry on when Ben was being the bad guy. Let me dry your tears, Victoria. Did you wait until I’d dumped her or were you fucking her all along…?”
I step towards him. I’m not going to hurt him. I’d regret it in the morning. But I’m not listening to any more of his drunken baiting. We can sort this out tomorrow morning, sober. Or maybe later in the day. I doubt he’ll be sober by morning.
“My girlfriend and my best friend, at it like rabbits behind my back,” he trills.
Victoria’s face is ashen. She casts her eyes to floor. The beast in my chest roars.
“Ben! That. Is. Enough.”
He turns to me and laughs, a thin, high-pitched giggle. “What are you going to do? Hit me? I know you, Corran. You wouldn’t. You’d steal my girl, but you wouldn’t hit me.
I step forward again and hold out my hand.
