Rule (31 page)

“No.  I need to call the insurance
company and have it towed somewhere.  Why can’t he just leave me alone?”

I ran a hand lightly from the crown
of her head to the ends of her almost white hair.  “Because you’re kind of
impossible to get over.”

She sighed against my neck and just
let me hold her until she stopped shaking.  “I guess I need to go back to your
place and get this taken care of.”

“Of course.”  I handed her what was
left of my coffee and made sure I kept her tucked in close to my side on the
way back to the Victorian.  We were both quiet, now for different reasons but I
knew I needed to keep the rage that was practically choking me at bay until I
got her somewhere safe and she felt secure.  Having something destroyed like
that must have been a violation like I couldn’t imagine and even though Gabe
had been quiet the last few weeks it was clear now he had no intention of
letting go of his obsession with my girl.

When we got back inside she
immediately started calling around getting things in place for an adjuster to
check out the damage and have the car towed to a body shop.  She needed a
rental in the meantime and wasted no time in setting that up as well.  After
about an hour or two where I just watched her like a hawk all the adrenaline
finally wore her out and she mentioned that she wanted to take a shower and lay
down.  I sent her off to my room with gritted teeth and a kiss, hoping she
couldn’t feel the fury that was burning in every cell of my body. 

Nash came crawling in a few minutes
after I heard the hot water turn on.  He looked a little worse for the wear but
he had a shit eating grin on his face and his shirt was on inside out so I
assumed the date had served its purpose.  He took one look at the way my jaw
was clenched and the way I’m sure my eyes were flashing with platinum fire and
asked,

“Bad night?”

“Bad morning.  Shaw’s car got
trashed last night.”

“You think it was polo shirt?”

“Who else would do something like
that to her?”

“I dunno one of your legions of one
night stands that’s pissed off you’re off the market?  You both have some
pretty heavy baggage floating around out there.”

I hadn’t even considered that I
might be the cause of retaliation against her.  That just made me even angrier. 
I inclined my head toward my bedroom.

“Can you keep an eye on her until I
get back?  She seemed okay but I could tell she was pretty shaken up.”

“Where are you going?  I have to be
at the shop at one.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

“Rule…”

“Just don’t Nash; it’s long past
time for me to lose my shit.  This asshole is going to hear it from me that if
he keeps messing with her that I’m going to annihilate him.”

“You’re asking for trouble and not
in a good way.”

“I don’t care.  I’ll be back in a
few just keep an eye on Shaw and if she asks where I am make something up.  She
doesn’t need to worry about anything else today.”

He begrudgingly agreed but I could
tell he was not stoked with what I was about to do.

I jumped in the truck and drove to
the school.  I knew that Shaw had class the same time as Gabe on Monday,
Wednesday and Fridays so when I found a place to park it only took a nod at one
co-ed and a wink at another to find my way to the where all the political
science classes were held.  It was cold outside and students were hurrying from
building to building with their heads down so no one really paid any attention
to me as I lurked around the building that I was sure Gabe would eventually
come out of.  Fortunately for me I didn’t have to wait long and campus security
had already passed my direction without so much as a pause because twenty
minutes into my vigil the doors opened a group of dudes that looked like they
had emptied out a J Crew store and topped it off with all off L.L Bean’s winter
line came pouring out.  They were all laughing and talking about something and
Davenport looked so self-satisfied I just wanted to knock his pearly whites
down his throat.

I waited until the group dispersed
and it was just Davenport by himself.  He pulled the collar of his Patagonia
jacket up around his ears and pulled out his cell phone.  I pushed off the wall
of the building I was leaning against and followed him silently until he
reached the parking lot.  When he stopped by the Lexus I reached out and
grabbed the back of his neck and shoved him forward so that his face was
smashed against to freezing metal of the roof.  He let out a surprised sound
and the bag with his books and computer in it clattered to the ground.  He
struggled but I had a good grip and was fueled by a living fury so he didn’t
have a chance.  I leaned forward so that my elbow ground painfully into the
base of his neck and tightened my fingers until I felt his skin start to
resist.

“You want to harass someone, scare
someone, terrorize someone you might want to pick someone that doesn’t have a
pissed off boyfriend waiting around the corner preppy boy.  This is the last
time I’m going to tell you to leave Shaw the hell alone.  If you don’t that
fancy Ken Doll face you seem so fond of is going to end up like hamburger.”  I
gave him another shove so that the metal smacked unforgivingly against his
cheek.  People were wandering around the parking lot and stopping to stare at
us but I didn’t care.  “Are we clear?”

He grunted and got his hands under
his chest so that he could lever himself off the side of the car.  I let him go
and stepped back, hands hanging loose at my sides in case he decided he wanted
to throw down right then and there.  He smoothed down the hair my rough
handling had messed up and glared at me while working his jaw back and forth.

“We both know my father can keep me
out of jail, what can yours do for you?  Change a tire, help you move?”  He
laughed bitterly and spit out a mouthful of blood that narrowly missed the toe
of my boot.  “You aren’t a match for me in the real world.  You can call
yourself her boyfriend all you want but the fact of the matter is she simply
isn’t allowed to walk away from me for someone like you.  That’s just bad precedent.”

I thought he was just spoiled and
annoying but the more he talked the more I started to wonder about his sanity. 
The guy talked like a lunatic.

“Dude go fuck someone else.  Shaw
isn’t into you, she never will be and harassing her is just pissing everyone off. 
If you think I’m scared of what your dad or anyone else can do to me if it
means protecting her than you’re in for a shock and even if you manage to get
me out of the way there is a whole group of people out there ready to take my
place.  You aren’t going to get anywhere messing with her and if you ever touch
her again I’m going to snap every single one of your fingers off and cram them
down your throat.”

He scoffed at me and poked a finger
in my chest.  He was lucky I didn’t knock him in the mouth.  “You’re so stupid,
so uneducated and low class to think it has anything to do with sex.  I can get
sex anywhere, you really think I let Shaw dangle her ass in front of me for six
months and didn’t get some on the side?  Sex is irrelevant and if she’s giving it
up to you I don’t want to go near her with a ten foot pole.  This is business
and image; she can’t set a protocol that I’m replaceable with a tattooed punk
that has nothing to offer.  I can’t have people remembering that.”

I grabbed the wrist of the hand
that was poking me and shoved him back into the car.  “If you think sex with
Shaw is irrelevant than you’re the one that is uneducated jackass.  Get over
yourself, if I can prove that you had anything to do with her car we’re
pressing charges.  If you keep harassing her we’ll keep going to court and
eventually someone will notice your old man covering your ass.  I’m telling you
this stops now or you can go to the hospital and I can spend some time in jail,
got it?”

We stared each other down but by
now there was a decent size crowd gathered around while we sized each other
up.  I didn’t see the security guard until he was getting in between the two of
us.  Before he could start asking questions I flipped Gabe off and headed back
to the side street where I had parked the truck.  The guard called something
after me and I heard Davenport’s raised voice but I didn’t stop until I was
back in the truck and had the heater blaring.  I flexed my hands repeatedly on
the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths to get myself back under
control.  The last time I had felt this impotent amount of anger, this
unfinished need to destroy something was when I had watched them put my brother
in the ground.  I wanted to tear his perfectly tailored body apart seam by seam
and watch him suffer.  Pushing him around and making him uncomfortable just
wasn’t enough.  The darkness, the unpredictability that lurked inside me reared
up again and wanted unbridled vengeance but I had to put it back in the box
because I wasn’t going to make Shaw wrestle with it again so soon.

It took me a solid half hour before
I felt like I was ready to go home and face her.  When I walked in the door
Nash was playing one of the game units and screaming a mouthful of obscenities
through the headset at whomever he was playing with.  He ripped the gear off
and gave me a once over as I shut the door and climbed to his feet.

“I don’t see any blood or gore.”

I shrugged and tossed my jacket on
the back of the couch.  “Too many people around plus I think kicking his ass
would only encourage him.  The guy has a whole tool box of screws loose.  It
isn’t even about Shaw it’s all about how it looks that she dumped him and is
hanging out with me.  His ego is out of this world I seriously don’t know what
we’re going to do about it because he’s right about his dad being able to cover
for him, he already proved it once.”

Nash jerked his head in the
direction of my room.  “She hasn’t made a sound.  She never surfaced after the
shower so I don’t know how she’s doing, but I have to go or I’m going to be
late for my appointment and I still need to tweak the drawing a little.”

“It’s cool I got her.  Maybe she
was just so stressed out she slept the whole time.”

“You could only be so lucky bro.”

I snorted and waved him off as I
headed toward my room.  The door was closed and everything was dark when I
pushed it open.  Shaw was curled up in the fetal position in the center of the
bed and it didn’t take a genius to tell she was wide awake and had been
crying.  She had her hands tucked up under her cheek and was staring
sightlessly at the blank TV.

“What did you do to him?”  Her
voice was raw and even more husky than normal from crying.  I sat on the edge
of the bed reached out to run a hand over her thigh.

“I told him to back off and that it
wasn’t smart to piss off someone that had me as a boyfriend.  I don’t know what
his deal is Shaw, I think the dude is certifiable he just doesn’t relate on any
kind of logical level.”

“I thought you were going to hurt
him.”

“Well I might have but it was broad
daylight and there was an entire college of students walking around.  I pushed
him around a little and we tossed some crap at each other but I just mostly
wanted him to know you aren’t alone, that if he hurts you there are plenty of
people waiting in the wings to hurt him back.”

Silent tears ran down her face and
I had to lean all the way over her prone form to wipe them away with my
thumbs. 

“I just want him to go away.  I
never did anything to deserve this.  All I ever do is what everyone else wants
why I am being punished for doing the one thing in life I want for myself.”

“I don’t know Casper, I just don’t
know.”  I didn’t know how to make her feel better so I just scooted up on the
bed behind her and gathered her up in my arms while she cried.  I didn’t
consider myself an empathetic or even a compassionate guy.  I was usually so
wrapped up in my own head and my own spiral of emotional nonsense to pay much
attention to anyone else’s, but holding Shaw while she cried changed something
in me on a fundamental level.  I felt like there was nothing on earth I
wouldn’t do or wouldn’t give to make this better for her.  I felt like a
failure for not stopping it from happening to her and I knew that from this
point on keeping an eye on her and keeping her relatively safe from just
Davenport wasn’t enough.  Suddenly with blinding clarity I knew that I wanted
to keep her safe and protected from anything that was ever going to hurt her
forever and ever and that just sucked because I had a sneaky suspicion that
somewhere along the line I had probably been the cause of just as much distress
as polo shirt was proving create and that just made me want to break things all
over again.

Shaw

“Are you sure you want to do
this?”  Ayden sounded nervous and she wasn’t thrilled I had dragged her to
Marked so early in the morning.  We were sitting in a little room at the shop I
had never seen before even though I was spending more and more time at the shop
waiting for Rule to get off or dropping him off dinner if he had to work late. 
The room had clearly been decorated by a female, Cora’s funky sense of style
was all over the place and it smelled a little less antiseptic than the rest of
the shop.  I was sitting on a chair that looked an awful lot like the one you
would find in a gynecologist’s office and nervously fidgeting with everything
in sight.

“I’m sure.” 

“I just don’t understand why you
want to do something that’s going to hurt.”

“It’ll only hurt for a minute and I
trust Cora.”  I did.  Whenever I was at the shop we inevitably ended up
spending hours talking and had even taken our budding friendship out of the
building.  When Rule or Rome were unable to pull ‘eyes on Shaw duty’ Cora
didn’t seem to mind hanging out with me until one of my many watch dogs was
free.  I really liked her and since the idea had taken root I was happy that
having someone I knew and was comfortable with pierce me was the only way I was
going to go through with it.  Cora had even agreed to come in when the shop was
closed while Rule and Nash were at the gym so that I could keep it a surprise.