Page 51 of Welded Defender
He laughs—quieter than I remember, but with that same hollow center. “Marcy. You can play house for a while, but this isn’t you. You’re not this person. You’re my?—”
“Stop.” The word cuts through the air. “I don’t belong to you.”
The sentence lands inside me and makes something stand taller.
His smile thins. He glances at the camera, then turns so his face angles out of its view. Practiced. “This guy,” he says lightly. “The one from the bar. Is he filling your head with ideas? You always did like broken things to fix.”
Heat flares in my chest. “Don’t talk about him.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is he your boyfriend?” The tease carries a bite. “He looked like he wanted to be. Good for him. Maybe he can fix whatever you break next.”
Old shame flickers, then dies like a match in the wind. I refuse to feed it. “Leave.”
He drops the smile. The shift is small and absolute. “Put the milk down,” he says, soft as a teacher correcting a child. “Get your things.”
“No.”
He moves. Clean and fast, that little invasion of space he perfected when we were alone in kitchens with nowhere to go that didn’t mean touching him. He doesn’t grab—not yet—but his presence wraps around my throat like fingers.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he murmurs.
“Just go.” My voice shakes. I hate that he can still pull that tremor out of me with two words. I hate that my hands shake and the milk carton creaks again. “Now.”
He breathes out through his nose like a disappointed father. “Don’t be dramatic.”
The stairwell door above us clicks. The chime gives a single, different note. Footsteps pound down the stairs. Brett glances over his shoulder, senses it too, turns back to me?—
The door swings wide. Landon fills the doorway. Cold air rushes in with him, his jacket hanging open, snowmelt dripping from his boots onto the mat without a sound. His eyes sweep from Brett to me, to the milk carton crushed in my white-knuckled grip, to the two inches of counter edge digging into my back. His jaw tightens.
Three steps bring him between us. He plants his feet shoulder-width apart, close enough to block Brett but leaving me room to breathe. The fluorescent lights cast his shadow long across the floor, stretching toward me like a lifeline.
“Back away from her.” Each word drops into the silence like a stone.
Brett’s lips curl upward, teeth gleaming. “You again.” A soft chuckle rumbles in his throat. “The boyfriend from the bar.”
Landon doesn’t take the bait. “You need to leave.”
Brett tilts his head. “We’re having a private conversation, friend.”
“You’re in a private business you weren’t invited into,” Landon says. “Leave.”
“You going to make me?”
“If I have to.”
Brett takes half a step forward. Not much. Just enough to test the edge. Landon doesn’t move. His stillness isn’t a dare—it’s a wall.
“This is a joke.” Brett’s mouth twists into something that might pass for a smile if you’d never seen the real thing. He jerks his chin toward Landon without meeting his eyes. “She’ll be done playing with her little mechanic soon enough.”
His hand shoots out for my wrist, fingers splayed.
Landon’s palm smacks Brett’s forearm away. “Last warning.”
Brett’s jaw clenches, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. “Touch me again, grease monkey, and they’ll find pieces of you from here to the county line.”
The fluorescent lights buzz. A drop of melted snow slides from Landon’s boot to the floor. His eyes never leave Brett’s face as he says with deadly precision, “Get out.”
Brett’s fist swings wide, knuckles whistling past Landon’s ear as Landon shifts his weight to the balls of his feet. Landon’s right arm snaps forward—crack—and Brett’s head jerks sideways, spittle flying from his lips. Brett’s shoulder slams into the door frame. “Fuck,” he hisses through clenched teeth, one hand braced against the wall. His eyes narrow to slits as he lunges forward again. Landon’s forearm deflects the blow, and his fist connects squarely with Brett’s eye. Brett doubles over, gasping. The overhead lights flicker once.
