Page 104 of Riding the Pine

I run a thumb over the darkness, it’s warm, and swollen. “Did you get into a fight?”

“Kind of.” He won’t meet my gaze, his eyes are filled with tears that look as though they’ll fall at any second, his eyelashes are already glistening.

“Scott, what happened?” I rotate his face, so he’ll look at me, and his eyes are so filled with terror my blood chills. “Scott?”

The fact he’s not answering makes my stomach clench. What the hell happened?

“I did something.” His voice shakes so hard I can barely make out what he’s saying. His body trembles as much as his voice, so much so, he’s scaring the shit out of me.

I cup his face, but he pulls away. “Whatever you did, Gizmo, we can fix it. Tell me what happened.”

Part of me knows what he’s done, but I need to hear him say it out loud. I need him to speak the words so there’s no misunderstanding.

“I went for a run.” His eyes flicker to mine momentarily, and I can tell he went out for a run with the intention of finding trouble. From the blooming bruise on his face, I’d guess that’s exactly what he found.

“Did you run by the football house by any chance?” I’m not going to make this easy on him, though I don’t seem to need to make it any harder, he’s a fucking mess.

Heavy tears fall from his eyes onto his shirt as he nods. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

When he lets his eyes meet mine they’re so troubled, so filled with pain my heart splits.

“Tell me what you did, Scottie.” I don’t let him pull his face from me or hide.

“I beat the shit out of him.”

I expect disappointment, rage even, but instead there’s a tiny glimmer of relief in a deepening well of satisfaction.

“You did?” My voice is shaking now too, and barely above a whisper.

He holds up his hands to show me the cuts and bruises on his knuckles. “I didn’t mean to. I mean, I went out looking for a fight. I know it’s not what you wanted. I tried to stop myself, orto keep on running but he was there.” He pauses to wipe his face. “And he opened his fucking mouth.”

I know how that goes, except for me it was the sudden urge to freeze and urinate, not punch him in his arrogant mouth.

“If you want me to leave, I will. I…” His eyes dance back and forth like he’s checking my face for something, maybe a sign that I want him to stay.

“It’s okay.” I mean the words that come out of my mouth without hesitation.

“It’s not. It’s the one thing you asked me not to do, and I did it.”

It takes all I can not to roll my eyes at him. “One of you was going to do it, Gizmo. At least if I forbade it, chances dropped from all four of you killing a man to one, maybe two.” I shrug, not wrong about the men closest to me in my life.

His brows tent, creasing his forehead in a frown before bouncing up in surprise. “You didn’t mean it?”

I hold a hand up. “I did absolutely mean it. I just knew one of you wouldn’t be able to keep it under wraps.” I try to shift up in the bed. “Look at me. I’m a fucking mess, Scottie. If this was any of you, I’d have peeled the guy’s skin off with a sharp knife and fed it to a rabid raccoon.”

He shudders. “That’s dark.”

“But we have to let the law do what the law does. Even if we can’t always count on it to do the right thing.”

He stares at my broken arm. “He’s still alive.”

I try really hard not to let that spark of disappointment grow or unpack it too much in the moment. That’s something for my therapist and me.

“And the guys.” He gestures to the space outside my room. “They’re working on making it go away.” He swallows hard. “If they can.”

I nod. “They can and they will. Our family has connections, Gizmo. You know that.”

He picks up my broken hand in his two bruised ones. “I deserve to go to prison.”

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