Page 109 of Into the Dark
I say nothing, my expression impassive as I stare back at him.
“What you doin’ ’ere then?”
“We were at dinner. Then Rachel called and asked Jake to come in.” My tone is laced with accusation. He doesn’t miss it.
“Oh, did she now? Well, there’s a fucking surprise.” In fact, he doesn’t sound surprised in the slightest. “Never could mind her own fucking business that one… Where is he then?” he asks.
“I told you, downstairs. He won’t be long.”
“Yeah, well, if he’s downstairs with her yakking his fucking ear off he ain’t gonna be joining us anytime soon—trust me on that, sweetheart.” He laughs again and takes another swig from the bottle.
I reach behind me for my bag, feeling across the outside of it for my cell phone. As I’m about to fish it out, Kevin springs up from the chair with far more energy than he had a minute ago. I have to stop myself from cringing backward as he comes around the desk toward me, my heart rate kicking up a notch, causing my breathing to quicken too. I don’t want him near me.
Which door is closer, the one I just came in by or the main door? If I run toward either of them, will he stop me?
Oh god, this is ridiculous. I’m not going to run from him. I’m not going to let him intimidate me. He wouldn’t dare come near me. He likes to make me feel weak and unimportant because that’s what he thinks of women in general.
I pull my shoulders back and level my stare at him as he crosses Jake’s office, taking a step back out of his way as he ambles toward the drinks cupboard. His massive, hulking body teeters precariously as he bends down in front of it. His shoulders are wide and solid, the gray Nike T-shirt stretched tightly over a strong, muscular back.
He’s big. Intimidatingly big.
“You know what’s funny?” Kevin says as he inspects the contents of Jake’s cupboard.
I’m certain nothing he has to say would strike me as funny, but I respond anyway. “What?”
“Jake only started having this much alcohol around when you came on the scene.” He pulls out a bottle of vodka, reads the label, then shoves it back in. “He was at the gym kicking the shit out of a six-foot punchbag most days. Lifting weights.” He turns to me then and smiles wide. His teeth are white, but there are a lot of them in his wide mouth, and it makes him look almost wolfish. “Now he has a crate of Jack in his office every week. You really that much fucking work, sweetheart?” He grins wolfishly.
I give him a stiff smile. “I suppose you’ll have to ask Jake that.”
“Yeah, maybe I will. Though I doubt he’d find it funny either since Jay seems to ’ave lost his sense of humor altogether these days. He’s startin’ to be a bit of a fucking bore if I’m honest, babe.” He throws me a look of accusation before turning his attention back to the task at hand.
I glare at the side of his head before taking a sip of my Coke. “Maybe you should go down and see what he wants?” I suggest.
He stands bolt upright then, clutching hard to a fresh bottle. “Oh, I should, should I?” He twists the cap off and takes a drink. “Jay do whatever you tell him to do, does he?”
“Is that what you think?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I think, doctor.”
I straighten my spine and look him in the eye. “Then you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”
He laughs a loud laugh that sounds like a dog bark. “Better than you ever will, sweetheart. Better than you ever fucking will.” He throws another load of Jack Daniels down his throat, wipes his hand over his mouth, and gives me another of his heavy-lidded stares. He’s perched on the edge of the low cupboard now, legs apart and the bottle dangling between his thighs.
Jake, where the bloody hell are you? What the hell is taking him so long?
I’m still not comfortable turning my back on him—which is ridiculous perhaps—but with Kevin standing where he is now, both exits would require me to turn my back on him. Instead, I wander sideways toward the low coffee table and set the can down. Then I unclip my bag and retrieve my phone. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as I type out the text to Jake. The reception isn’t great, but I have 3G at least, and as I hit send I also send a silent prayer upward that it goes through. That he sees it. That he’ll come straight away.
Kevin watches me closely, a small hint of a smile loose on the right-hand side of his wide mouth.
“You really don’t like me, Kevin, do you?”
His laugh this time is like a crash of plates on a concrete floor: loud and sudden, making me jump. “Aww, come on now, doctor. What the fuck makes you think that?” He manages to look genuinely surprised.
“Just a feeling.”
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “A feeling?” he says. “And what other feelings you got about me, Alex, sweetheart? I’m curious now.” The smirk spreads across his mouth, and my body tenses so hard it feels like it’s vibrating from the pressure.
I’m tempted to say exactly what feelings I have about him. I’m tempted to say I find him disgusting and creepy, that the idea of Jake being anywhere near him makes me physically ill. I’m tempted to say he makes me want to commit violence and that if he calls Jake “my boy” once more then I just might.