Page 61 of Brash for It
He sighs, exaggerated and bored.“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.The calls.Your little friends.Your frat of cowards who think harassing a woman makes them men.Call them off.”
A small sound that wants to be a laugh curls at the edge of his voice.“You always were dramatic.”
“You always were spineless and small,” I shoot back.“And you’re about to be reported.I saved the voicemails.I wrote down every number.I will walk this into the sheriff’s office myself.”
“If you can’t handle a little community feedback about who you choose to?—”
“Shut up,” I say, clear, no shake to my voice.“I don’t owe you a damn sentence.Call.Them.Off.”
He tsk-tsks.“This is what happens when you play outside your class, Kristen.You attract unwanted attention.Maybe you should reconsider your choices.”
I’m pacing now, the phone clamped to my ear, fury burning a clean path through whatever fear thought it might plant.“You don’t get to paint abuse as attention.You don’t get to call harassment a lesson.If any of this is you—and it is just like you—I will make the next month of your life inconvenient in a hundred legal ways you can’t buy your way out of.”
Silence on his end—one beat, two—like he’s deciding how amused to be.“Be careful, Kristen,” he warns finally, soft and dangerous.“Men like that don’t find their end in life comes well easy.And women like you?—”
The front door opens.
Kellum steps in, keys in his hand, eyes already on me.He hears my voice before he sees my face.He hears Brian’s voice bleeding through the speaker.The temperature in the room drops and spikes at the same time.
“And women like you,” Brian continues, savoring it, “get what they?—”
The line goes dead.
Because Kellum is there, and my thumb has already hit end without me knowing it.I’m breathing like I ran.He’s not.He’s very, very still.
“What did he say?”he asks, voice flat.
“He—” The words don’t fight to get out; they march.“The calls started practically the minute you left.He’s got people watching.Unknown numbers.Men calling me a whore.Saying I’ll ‘get mine’ for being with a biker.I told him to stop.He acted like it was a public service announcement.”I lift my chin.“I have the numbers.Voicemails.I’m going to the sheriff tomorrow.”
Kellum blinks once, slow, like he’s trying to hold something in his eyes that wants out.“This doesn’t wait for cops and it doesn’t wait for tomorrow.I handle this right now,” he states, careful, “He brought this on you.I’m going to him.”
My stomach drops.“Kellum?—”
“Keys,” he says, but he’s already moving, not for the hook where we keep the SUV keys, but for the door.For the night.For the bike.Fury is not hot on him.It’s cold.Calculated.
“Kellum.”I follow him into the hall.“Don’t.Please.Don’t give him what he wants.”
He stops long enough to look at me.Whatever he sees on my face bends something inside him, but doesn’t break it.“I told him,” he reminds, quiet, calculated.“I told him once.He had his chance to cut the shit.He had a choice.We all do.He chose wrong.”
“Kellum—”
But he’s gone.The door slams.The engine screams a second later, raw and immediate, and then the sound tears down the street.
For three heartbeats, I stand there, phone in my hand typing away to Crunch knowing my man needs his brothers, and then I move.I grab the SUV keys off the hook, shove my feet into shoes, and hit the porch.The camera light over the door blinks like it has advice.I don’t take it.I get in the SUV and follow the noise I know.His bike.
His taillight is a red pulse I chase across town.I know where he’s going.Every turn is a page in a book I’ve already read.Left at the four-way, right where the road widens and forgets it’s in a neighborhood, straight through the stupid brick gate Brian paid too much for—my heart in my throat at that part.Because I don’t know if the code is changed.When the gate opens for Kellum and me, I can’t help but feel twisted up as if it remaining closed would stop what’s about to happen.
How can one day be such a rollercoaster of crazy?
Fifteen
Kristen
I keep distance,but not much not because I want it but because I’m not stupid.Kellum’s not weaving.He’s a direct line focused on his target.He goes the length of Brian’s driveway in three seconds and lands the bike roughly on the kickstand crooked in the drive like he doesn’t intend to be here long.I park and climb out but I’m not fast enough.
The front door opens before he can knock.Brian is a classic narcissist, he heard the engine a block away and couldn’t resist the attention.He steps onto the porch with arms spread like he’s greeting guests.He doesn’t see me yet, his eyes are focused on Kellum.
