Page 28 of Brick
The chill from the ice pack seeping into her bones, she tugged the fuzzy blanket off the back of the sofa and snuggled beneath it. Well, almost. Her left arm had to stay out to keep the cold to her face. “So, you saw nothing, then?”
“I wouldn’t say nothing.” Carol shot her a sly smile. “I saw him walk you to the door and kiss your hand.” She swayed from side to side in a swoon and batted her eyelashes. “So sweet. Tell me everything.”
She shrugged the shoulder beneath the blanket. “He still thinks his life is too dangerous for me to be around. Just like Will. Of course, no one bothers to care what I think.”
“What do you think?” There was the question again. Her friend kept asking it, and the answer should have been easy, but Liv’s judgment sucked. Thankfully, Carol had been a steady beacon for months.
“I think…I want a chance to know him.” Frustrated, she tossed the ice pack on the table and burrowed deeper beneath the blanket. “He’s so gentle with me. And he looks at me like—I can’t even explain it. He looks at me like I’m everything. When he does that, it doesn’t even matter what he’s doing when we’re not together.”
She flinched at her own words. “Maybe it should. I know it should, but it’s like all the stuff I should worry about goes away. He acts like I’m a dream come true. Me. When have I ever been someone’s dream come true?” She shook her head. “Never. I wasn’t Ryan’s for damn sure.”
Carol slid under the blanket with her and grasped Liv’s cold hand with her warm one. “What’s his name?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know? They call him Brick, but I don’t know his real name.” Acknowledging it aloud only highlighted how ridiculous it was. She steeled herself for Carol’s inevitable laugh.
But it didn’t come. Instead, her friend asked gently, “What do you know?”
“I know I want to keep feeling the way I do when he looks at me.” She sighed. “I know he’s a good guy underneath whatever shitty circumstances he’s in. He wants to get away from it. He wants to keep me away from it. I know he’s had a hard life.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cushion, her hand slipping out of her friend’s. “I think he lost his parents too, but he didn’t have someone like Will or Izzy to make sure things would be okay.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
She could hear no censure in Carol’s voice. It was one of the things she loved best about her friend. Though Carol did sound tired and looked it, too.
She didn’t even think before she answered. “Yes. I’m not sure how, but yeah, I’m going to see him again.”
***
When she woke up the next morning, Liv found an eye patch on Carol’s coffee table. Her friend must have planted it there during the night. Gamely, she tried it on, but she quickly ruled it out. First of all, the elastic rubbed against the bruise which had blossomed as she slept, making her more uncomfortable than ever. Secondly, the patch only covered about half of her swollen purple flesh.
Third, she looked like a fucking pirate.
A wannabe pirate with a black eye the size of Texas.
She dragged herself into Carol’s bedroom, hoping to beg a ride home, but her friend had looked so exhausted last night, she couldn’t bring herself to wake her. So, she Ubered. A quick shower and half a bottle of concealer later, she figured she could pass as someone who hadn’t run into a fist the night before.
She was right. No one even glanced at her twice as she powered through the day. By lunchtime, she managed to even forget about it herself. It wasn’t until Devon returned to her classroom at the end of the day, he gave her reason to remember.
He spoke softly, but his voice was ice cold. “Who hurt you?”
Her hand flew to her eye, and she flinched when her fingers ran over the tender skin.
“Make up doesn’t last all day. It’s starting to show.”
Crap. She should have anticipated this on her own.
“You shouldn’t be with somebody who puts his hands on you.” His nostrils flared. “Tell me who did it, and I will make sure he never does it again.”
“Oh honey, a man didn’t do this to me.”
He shook his head like she disappointed him. “You gonna tell me you walked into a door? You got hit with a ball?”
She sat down in one of the chairs and gestured for him to join her. “I got hit with my sister’s fist when we sparred at the gym.”
Devon’s eyebrows shot up. “You fight?”
“Not very well, obviously. I weaved when I should have ducked, and she hit me even though she was trying to miss. Believe it or not, she actually teaches classes on this stuff.” She pulled out her phone and pulled up her sister’s profile page on the website for the gym before handing it to him.