Fighting Redemption (9 page)

“Yes!” Rachael hissed and did a fist pump, almost sloshing wine out of the glass she held in her other hand.

“But I can assure you both that
nothing
happened. And as I was going to say, nothing can happen. He’s fighting a war, I’m off to Antarctica in two weeks, and in case you both happened to forget, I have Ian!”

“Do you?” came the steely voice from behind them.

Fin closed her eyes, her heart sinking. Turning around, she faced Ian standing in the entryway to the kitchen. His hands were tucked casually into his pockets, but his eyes were hard and his body was tense.

“Rachael, Laura, can you give us a minute?” she said softly. They both looked at her, reluctant to leave. “Please.”

Ian held her eyes as they both left the room. When the back door slid shut behind them, he folded his arms and asked, “What happened between you and Ryan?”

“Ian. It was nothing. We—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Fin!” he shouted.

“Please don’t be angry,” she pleaded softly. “Nothing happened.”

Ian stared at the floor for a moment, one hand on his hip, the other wrapped around the back of his neck. “I’ve seen how he looks at you—right from the beginning. And the worst part is that I’ve seen how you look at him. God. That first time between us, I’ve never felt more in love in all my life, but all this time it’s been him for you, hasn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Fuck sorry!” Ian yelled, his fists clenching angrily. He grabbed a glass off the kitchen counter and smashed it against the cupboards behind her. She flinched as the fragments splintered across the kitchen tiles. “Tell me you love me,” he choked out.

Tears spilled over and ran down her face. “I love you.”

He stood there, chest heaving. “I don’t believe you.”

The back door flew open and Ryan came charging in. His eyes were on Ian, and they were so dark and cold, she shivered.

Ryan looked up when Rachael and Laura walked back to their seats having left Ian and Fin alone. When Ian’s raised voice was heard, the table fell silent and all eyes went to the window.

Ryan stood suddenly, his chair skating backwards, his body tense.

When Ian threw a glass and it shattered against the cupboards behind Fin, red was a bright, burning haze that obliterated everything around him.

“Fuck,” Jake muttered beside him, but Ryan was already running for the door. He slid it open, fists clenched, and stormed inside.

Ian turned, nostrils flaring. “You.”

But Ryan didn’t stop. He came fast at Ian and cocking back his fist, slammed it with a satisfying crack into Ian’s jaw.

He vaguely heard someone shouting at him, but he tuned it out. Instead, he took a step forward as Ian staggered backwards. Then, head down, Ian charged, knocking Ryan off his feet. They both went down, Ryan landing hard on the small timber table beside the couch and cracking his head. The table splintered beneath him, sending him to the floor with a thud. When Ian landed above him, they rolled until Ryan had him pinned on the ground. Grabbing the neckline of Ian’s shirt, he pulled back his fist and slammed it in Ian’s face. His knuckles burned from the contact as Ian’s head snapped back. Ryan pulled his fist back, ready to do it again, but Ian reached up and grabbed him in a headlock. He grabbed at Ian’s shoulders, ready to flip him over, but arms locked around his waist and yanked him backwards.

“Enough!” Mike yelled.

Ryan shrugged off Mike’s hold, his chest heaving as he nailed Ian with a savage glare.

“Fuck that,” Jake growled, and moving swiftly, grabbed Ian and hauled him to his feet, ready to throw his own punch.

“Jake!” Mike shouted. “Both of you.”

Ryan’s shirt had ridden up in the tussle, and he tugged it down before looking at Fin. She was standing next to Rachael, her face pale, her hand to her mouth.

“Fin,” he murmured.

Ian wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and pointed at Ryan. “You stay the hell away from, Fin.”

“What the fuck is going on here?” Mike growled.

Ian looked at Mike. “Maybe you should be asking Ryan that, Mike.”

Mike looked between Ian and Ryan and shook his head. “Ian, I think it’s probably best for now if you left.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed on Ian when he looked at Fin.

He nodded at Mike. “Okay.”

Without sparing a glance at Fin, Ian turned and strode out the door, shutting it behind him with a soft click.

The drive home with Jake and Ryan was silent and tense. Jake’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his lips a tight line. Fin wasn’t sure how many beers Ryan had drunk because his head was tilted back in his seat, his eyes closed as Jake drove through the dark streets.

Fin sat in the back, staring out the window. Trying to turn her crappy day around hadn’t gone as planned. How the hell had a simple welcome home dinner spiralled into such disaster?

After an eternity of strained silence, Jake pulled into the driveway of the cottage. Fin fumbled for the door handle in her haste to leave the car. Keys already in hand, she unlocked the front door, went straight for her room, and shut the door behind her. Once inside, she moaned a sigh of relief.

Using the mirror on the back of her wardrobe door, she plucked out some wipes and took her make up off. Within minutes she was changed into a tank top and panties and sliding her way into bed. Her phone buzzed a message from a Rachael.
What happened with you and Ian? Did you break up?

I don’t know,
she replied.
He was pretty mad.

Her phone buzzed again.
No shit. He threw a glass at you, Fin. I’m glad Ryan punched him.

Fin sighed as she tapped out a response.
Is that what everyone thinks? He threw it at the cupboard, not at me.

I think you should break up with him,
came Rachael’s response.

Should she? She always told herself she valued her independence and her work. Did she value Ian more? She wasn’t sure. Maybe if she made more of an effort this wouldn’t have happened.

Flipping onto her stomach, Fin pushed up on her elbows and tapped out a reply.
He’s not to blame. I’m the one that keeps pushing him away.

Maybe you need to look at why,
Rachael replied.

Shaking her head, Fin put her phone back on her bedside table. Lying back down, she cuddled her pillow. Ryan had always been the first one to defend her when they were growing up. That hadn’t changed. But neither had anything else.

Resolving to do everything in her power to move on, Fin reached for her phone again. She would ring Ian, and she would make an effort to be who he needed her to be.

A soft knock came at her door.

Before she could say anything, it opened slightly and Jake whispered, “It’s just me, Fin. Can I come in?”

Ignoring the irrational disappointment that it wasn’t Ryan at her door, she mumbled, “Sure,” and put the phone back on the table.

Fin rolled to her side as Jake climbed on her bed and stretched out on his back. He turned his head to look at her and sighed deeply. “What the fuck was that?”

She rubbed at her brow. “Things haven’t been going so well with Ian and me lately.” Jake raised his brows. “He wants us to move in together.”

“First of all—no fucking way. Second—how does that end up with him throwing a fucking glass at you?”

“Ian didn’t throw it at me,” she defended him. “He threw it at the cupboard behind me.”

“Why?”

Fin buried her head in the pillow, shifting her face slightly so she could breathe. “He thinks there’s something going on between Ryan and me,” she mumbled.

“Is there?” Jake frowned, his eyes searching her face in the soft darkness. “Because even if there was, that’s no excuse to throw a fucking glass at your face,” he growled.

“No!”

After a pause, Jake nodded and said, “I don’t like Ian. Maybe he used to be a nice guy, but I don’t like the way he treats you.”

“You don’t have to like him,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “I’m going to ring him in the morning and see if we can work this out. Ian and I … We have a lot of history.”

“So do you and Ryan.”

Fin’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jake rolled to his side and sat up, putting his feet over the edge of the bed. He looked at her over his shoulder. “You two have always been friends. I thought the Army would be good for him, and it is, but he’s not letting go, Fin. Maybe you’re the one who can help him do that.” Jake stood up and moved to the door.

“How can I possibly help him do that?”

Jake shrugged. “You could try being friends again.”

“But he’s the one who left!” she burst out. “Six years have gone by, Jake, and he didn’t contact me once.”

“Did you get in touch with him either?”

“He didn’t want me to,” she told him.

“Sometimes it’s not about what you want, but what you need.”

Jake opened her bedroom door and stepped out.

“Jake—”

“Night, honey.”

The next morning Fin hadn’t worked out what to say to Ryan so she left for work before both he and Jake were up. She tried ringing Ian when she arrived at her desk, but he didn’t answer. Keeping her head down, she worked solidly through the day, and when she got home later that night only Jake was at home.

She tossed her keys and files on the desk in her room and met Jake in the kitchen. “Where’s Ryan?”

“Training exercise,” he replied, stirring something on the stove.

“Oh? I thought you both had time off.”

“We do.”

So Ryan and Ian were both avoiding her. Great. “You cooking me dinner?”

Jake turned around, pointing the spoon at her. “I am, and you’re gonna like it this time or you’ll be wearing it.”

“Just like the last time you cooked and I wore your pasta all down my favourite shirt?”

He grinned. “You shouldn’t have complained that it tasted like shit.”

Fin poked her tongue out. “It did taste like shit.”

“Interesting.”

“What is?”

Jake smirked. “That you know what shit tastes like.”

Fin gagged a little and he laughed. “Don’t be gross.”

“You said it, not me.”

She walked over to the stove and peered into the saucepan. It looked like some kind of red sauce with odd shaped lumps of meat. “What is that anyway?”

Jake stuck the spoon back in the pan, and sauce splattered up the tiles as he gave it a messy stir. “Go away or I won’t cook anymore.”

She grinned. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

Jake swiped at her with the tea towel, and she danced out of his reach. “Go. Get out of my kitchen!”

It wasn’t until three nights later, with Ryan yet to return from his exercise, that Ian called her back.

“Fin,” he muttered when she answered the phone.

Fin put her head in her hand. “Ian. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.” After a pause, he said, “We need to talk.”

“I know,” she agreed softly.

“My place?” Ian shared an apartment closer to the city with his co-worker, Evan. “Evan’s not here,” he added.

“Okay. I’ll be over soon,” she promised.

After hanging up, Fin changed out of her work clothes and into a pair of petite tailored shorts and the pretty pink knitted top that Ian had once said looked good on her. Grabbing her keys and sandals from the wardrobe, she called out, “Jake? I’m going out.”

“Where?” he yelled from his sprawled position on the couch.

She opened the front door and over her shoulder said, “Ian’s place.”

He started to get up. “Fin, you can’t—”

She shut the door quickly behind her. As much as she loved her brother, he needed to realise that Ian would never hurt her.

Arriving at his apartment, she knocked softly on the door. Ian opened it, his shuttered eyes roaming the length of her before he stepped aside.

“Come in.”

“Thanks,” she murmured.

She set her bag on the dining table and walked into the living room, sitting down on the wide, navy leather couch.

He scratched at the back of his head. “Drink?”

Fin nodded. “Please.”