A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  I dropped my ass onto the floor beside the couch. My thoughts were jumbled. All I knew for certain was that I wanted to kill the bastard I used to call my best friend.

  Savannah, at this point, was kneeling beside me on the floor. “He won’t hurt me, Tris. And we need to report this—it’s a criminal act!”

  Tristan was inconsolable, now writhing around on the couch so violently I thought he was going to further injure himself. “No. No, you guys. Promise me, just promise there will be no cops!”

  Savannah looked over at me, completely speechless.

  “I can’t let him get away with this, Tristan.” That was the truth.

  At those words, Tristan started to get up off the couch, which obviously pained him greatly. “Then I’m leaving. You guys promise—no cops—or I’m fucking outta here!”

  “Okay, okay, Tris. We won’t tell the police. So now, lay back down.” Savannah’s voice had become soft and crooning. “We promise, no police.”

  He looked up at me for my assurance and I nodded too, not knowing what else I could do at that moment. “But I’m going to fire his ass from Dalton Builders.”

  Tristan started up with more of the same moaning and twisting that had just ceased. “No, Robby! He’ll come after her—he told me so! You can’t fire him either….” His voice trailed off and his body became still. But after a few seconds, he added with a sniff, “He said he’d hurt her if you fired him.” Silent tears continued to rain down his cheeks.

  I had to make Tristan’s crying stop. And I would do whatever it took to comfort him, to help him find peace so he could get some rest. “All right. I won’t fire his ass, but I’m not gonna just drop it with him. I can’t.”

  My words seemed to soothe Tristan slightly. He took a deep breath, which served to make him grimace in pain. “Thank you. Thank you, Robby.” His eyes fluttered closed.

  I needed time to think this through. At the moment, I was completely overcome with feelings of powerlessness and guilt, as I knew my presence in Tristan’s life had brought all this pain down on him. And on Savannah, because sure as shit, Tristan’s pain was her pain. “I’ve caused this pain to the two people I care about—the two people I love—the most!”

  And right then, in the midst of our pain and anguish, the three of us actually took a moment to stop and study each other. Tristan’s eyes popped open, and he looked first at Savannah for her reaction to my words of love, and then at me. Savannah came to my side, hugged me hard around my neck, and looked at me with an expression of reverence that I knew I didn’t deserve. It was as if we’d gotten caught up in a tornado of emotion, all of us flailing around helplessly in midair, and the only thing that could bring us back to the ground was the sight of each other’s faces.

  “Let’s just wrap up this ice inside the towels and take him to bed, Robby. You can help ice his stomach and chest and I can ice his back, and we can hold him between us and keep him warm. And we can talk about this situation more tomorrow.”

  “That’s good, a real good idea.” Tristan voice was weak, crackly, and exhausted.

  “You guys go to bed. I’ve got to take care of something really important right now.” There was no way on earth Mikey was gonna find comfort on his soft mattress and pillow tonight if I had my say. Not while Tris was suffering. Because no, I couldn’t let it go, not even for just this one night.

  “No, Robby. I don’t want you to do it tonight.” Tristan again looked up at me, and it wasn’t difficult to read the plea in his eyes. “I need you now.”

  “I just can’t believe he did this to you! I’m so sorry, baby.” Once again, a tidal wave of anger and guilt flooded over my head, not a pleasant mix to drown in. I found myself on my knees next to the couch, my head pressed to the unharmed side of Tristan’s chest. And I realized I was now crying, or more sobbing, as Tristan had been before. “I’m so sorry this happened!”

  Tristan rose unsteadily to his feet, and then, very ironically, he attempted to help me to my feet, as if I was the one who could barely stand. I’d never known a man so completely selfless. “Come on, Robby. Let’s go to bed. It’ll all be better in the morning.” He was actually comforting me like I’d been the one who’d been beaten senseless tonight. I shook my head to clear my brain.

  All three of us clung together as we slowly made our way down the hall.

  When we got to the bedroom, I pulled down the covers and Savannah helped Tristan into the middle of the bed. Then we pretty much fell on either side of him, each of us icing our designated parts of his body. After fifteen minutes, Tristan was shaking with cold and fear and shock, so we dropped the wet towels onto the floor beside the bed. Tristan curled up on his side facing me, with Savannah spooned up against his back. I took him in my arms and cradled him to my chest like the treasure that he was to me. Then somehow we all fell asleep.

  NONE of us slept well. At one point in the early morning hours, a disconcerting sense of being watched woke me from my fitful sleep. In the dull light of dawn, from deep within the narrow slot between Savannah and me where he was tucked, Tristan’s haunted dark eyes stared up at me. And when I caught him looking at me, so completely absorbed in my face, he didn’t do the “embarrassed Tristan” thing that I was used to. There was no dipping his head down to escape my regard. Instead his gaze intensified. And as he continued to stare at me, I began to squirm. What thoughts were passing through his mind? Was he looking for something in my expression? Was he searching for answers in my eyes? I was not enough of a man. I would never be enough to deserve a person like him.

  But as quickly as the possibility had entered my mind, I knew I had to dismiss the concern that Tristan was searching for something inside me. Because that wasn’t it at all. His expression seemed too pensive for that type of scrutiny. Tristan, I decided, was gazing at my face with hope. He was trying to muster the courage to believe he’d already found what he was looking for in me. This realization prompted me to move. I hunched my shoulders a bit, pressed a single kiss to his forehead, and said, “I love you, Tristan, and I’ll be here for you.”

  I hoped like hell I wouldn’t let him down.

  And after sending me a tiny melancholy smile, he closed his eyes.

  Chapter 26

  Robby

  “DAMN it! I knew we should’ve iced it more last night.” Perched on the edge of the couch, I held ice packs to the swollen purple welts that rose on Tristan’s chest and stomach. I tried to swallow back my disgust at the entire situation, but I couldn’t seem to rid my throat of the lump that had firmly lodged itself there. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I know all about how important icing is from all of the football injuries I had.”

  Tristan tried to pull the ice from my hands, but I held fast to them. “Stop babying me. I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” From the little hitch in his voice, I knew he had just revealed a small but painful truth of his past.

  “Judging by the size and color of these welts, some of your ribs have got to be broken. Are you sure you can breathe okay?” I ran my fingertips lightly over the distended skin, knowing that I was every bit as responsible for his beating as Mikey was. I’d practically led Mikey right to the guy and placed the bat in his hands. My stomach twisted with regret and guilt, a sensation with which I was becoming quite familiar.

  “I’m fine, and I really think you should go to your meeting—”

  “I’ve already cancelled it. Business can wait.” Huh? The Robby I used to be would never have considered putting business on the back burner for anything. I admitted to myself that I liked this part of the new Robby much better. “You talked to your boss when I was in the shower, right? He’s going to give you some time off?”

  “Yes, for the hundredth time. And when I go back, he’s gonna put me behind the bar until I can lift trays.” He was trying to calm my worries, but I’d had a high school football injury in which I’d broken several ribs and I knew it was no fun at all. “So you don’t need to—”

  Just the
n, Savannah, her small frame still enclosed in a pocket of frigid December air, pushed through the front doorway. “Breakfast sandwiches and coffee for everybody.” She was trying so hard to sound chipper, but one look at her told the story of how she was really holding up: not well. Tristan had been her entire family for a long time. She had nursed him back to health once before when she’d found him again after years of homelessness, and her haggard expression spelled out the fact that she’d never expected to have to do it again. But thanks to yours truly, her gentle roommate was writhing in pain on the couch, unable to work. Unable to move. Probably struggling to even breathe, but too kind to admit it to me.

  And I was champing at the bit to find Mikey. Despite what I’d promised Tristan, I wanted nothing more than to fire him, and then to call the cops on him, and while we were waiting for the cops to come, to beat him until he couldn’t remember his own first name. Then I’d remind him that his name was Mikey, and I’d beat him until he forgot it again.

  A bag of warm breakfast food from the S-Squared Diner was dropped lightly onto the table and Savannah removed the coffee cups from the tray. “Go ahead and open the bag. And help Tris sit up a bit so he can eat.” She clearly had no interest in eating, and I could relate. Food had no appeal when I knew Tristan was suffering right there beside me. Taking a cup of coffee, she plopped into the chair and leaned back, still not looking at us.

  I did as she asked, fully aware of Tristan’s wincing when I helped to reposition him on the couch. I unwrapped his sandwich and held it to his lips.

  “Uh, I can feed myself.” He tugged the food from my hand and took a tiny bite. “Thanks for getting this, Savi.” His voice was shaky.

  Across the room, Savannah sat up in the chair and looked directly at Tristan. “We need to talk about a few things.”

  We both looked over at her, wondering what was so important.

  “Tris, I’ve decided that until you are better, I’m going to pick up a few shifts at the diner.” She took a long sip of her coffee but kept her gaze fixed on the floor. “I already talked to Gus this morning, and he said it would be no problem whatsoever.”

  I felt Tristan’s shoulders straighten, and then I heard the short gasp of pain that accompanied his involuntary movement. “No. You aren’t going back to work. We’ve discussed this. I work, you study.”

  A loud huff of air escaped from Savannah’s lips. “Be reasonable. You aren’t going to be able to work for six weeks and we have bills to pay!”

  “Six weeks?” For a second, I thought Tristan was going to bounce up off the couch and get into her face. “I’m not gonna be outta the game for no six fucking weeks, Savannah!” I turned sharply to stare at him. I’d never before heard him curse like that. Then I looked back at Savannah questioningly, but she only had eyes for Tristan.

  Behind me on the couch, Tristan’s body began a gentle rocking. “No. No, you can’t work. No, no.” He almost sounded like he was chanting.

  Savannah got up and crossed the room. Unsure of what to do, I stood and allowed her an unobstructed path to the couch. She knelt on the floor beside Tristan’s head and raised her hand to his hair. “Tristan.” She said his name softly as she worked her fingers over his scalp, and I noticed that his rocking motion gradually stopped. “You need to rest so you can get better. You won’t heal if you start lugging those trays and running around the restaurant too soon.”

  It had been a long time since I’d seen a face so grief-stricken; the man was dry-eyed but clearly distraught. “I take care of you, Savannah. I take care of you!”

  For a moment it was quiet. Savannah bent down to press her cheek to the side of Tristan’s face, mumbling something about how they didn’t have enough savings to live on for very long, and that it was okay, she’d wanted to take some time off school anyways.

  “Let me help.”

  In unison, my partners’ heads snapped in my direction.

  “I want to help. I have savings. I-I….” I was stuttering.

  Savannah sat up. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears and her face went a ghostly white. And Tristan, as a matter of fact, appeared exactly the same way. “You’d help us?”

  I nodded. “Of course I would.”

  “But why? Why?” His voice was hoarse. And very skeptical, I should add. It appeared he didn’t trust my good intentions.

  Knowing I should be highly insulted in the face of their reaction, I felt the blood drain from my face. “Because I love you guys.” I guess it was really that simple. We all stared around in a circle, and it once again seemed like the simple sight of each other’s faces possessed sufficient power to pull us safely out of the raging floodwaters. “My lease is up January first, and it’s mid-December now, so I could just write off the rest of December as a loss and move….” Christ, I’d almost invited myself to live with them.

  “Yes, Robby, yes! You can move in with us and then we can share our expenses and—” Savannah was absolutely overjoyed. The look on her face matched her jubilant voice.

  I hadn’t fully absorbed the enormity of what I’d apparently requested and Savannah had apparently agreed to, until I heard Tristan’s voice.

  “And then we can be together.”

  And that was what it really boiled down to, wasn’t it? Yes, if I moved in, Tristan wouldn’t have to rush back to work before he had healed, and Savannah wouldn’t have to cut down on her studying to get a job, because I could pick up the financial slack. But we all knew what it really came down to was that we would be together. For meals, for game nights, between our jobs and classes. We would sleep in the same bed every night and wake up in each other’s arms every morning.

  Like a family. An untraditional one, but a family, nonetheless.

  “Yes, then we can be together,” I said with a smile. Our little group of three had turned something awful into something beautiful. But that did not mean that the magnitude of what Mikey had done escaped me for so much as a split second.

  IT WASN’T until late in the afternoon, when we all crawled back into bed for a much-needed nap, Tristan again wedged snugly between Savannah and me, that we finally talked about just what had happened with Mikey. I had bided my time, waiting patiently all day to receive this information I simultaneously dreaded and craved. The facts I needed with which to confront Mikey.

  In a monotone voice, Tristan had briefly explained about the phone call he’d received at the bar and how he’d agreed to meet Mikey to discuss mending our friendship. He hadn’t gone into much detail when it had come to specifically what had happened with the bat, but then, he really hadn’t needed to. In fact, he’d told us very succinctly that Mikey had “hit” him, but his voice had slurred a bit when he’d said it and he’d kept shaking his head, as if to stay focused. It was like he could somehow force his brain to detach from his physical pain so it could only affect his body, not his mind.

  “Tristan never started fights when we lived out there.” Savannah glanced toward the window, and I knew that she was referring to the city streets. “Robby, he really never did. And he was usually clever enough to avoid a fight to begin with, but if he had to, he had the street smarts to turn things around in a fight. I mean, I saw him do it plenty of times.” At first it seemed that she was speaking to me, but she switched her focus onto Tristan. “What I don’t get is why didn’t you take Mikey down when you knew he was going to beat you, or maybe even kill you. I just don’t get it.” She broke into a sob that seemed to rise from her fear of what could have happened as well as frustration at Tristan’s inaction.

  But it appeared that Tristan had nothing more to say. He closed his eyes as if to close the subject.

  I ran my fingers through his dark silky hair. “Why didn’t you knock Mikey on his ass, even just long enough to get out of there? ’Cause God knows he deserved whatever damage you could’ve wreaked on him. Tell me the reason.”

  For a while Tris stayed quiet, but eventually his mouth curved into a slight smile. “I just couldn’t hurt him, Robby.�
�� He licked his lips to moisten them. “I could never hurt a friend of yours.”

  My insides, from my throat to my heart and all the way down to my gut, clenched like an enormous, angry fist. According to Savannah, Tristan could have easily made Mikey very sorry for having even considered hurting him, but he didn’t out of his regard for Mikey’s friendship with me. “I’m gonna kill him.”

  “No, you’re not.” Tristan moved his hand lightly down the length of my arm. “And you’re not going to call the cops or fire him either.”

  “But what he did to you, I can’t let it slide. I can’t.” I pounded my fist into my palm.

  Savannah leaned up on her elbow and sent me a perturbed look. “You can’t fix everything with your fists.”

  “But I told Tristan he’d be safe, and then he got hurt because of me. And what did Mikey want from you, anyways?” I was trying to stay calm, but I already knew that I was on a direct path to losing it. “Exactly what did he say to you?”

  “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” With some effort, Tristan turned his aching body away from me to face Savannah. Feeling a bit as if I’d been dismissed, I glanced down at his lower back where the T-shirt he wore had lifted, exposing the thick purplish-black raised stripe. Another overwhelming surge of anger flooded into the veins in my arms and my neck and my head.

  “Yes, it matters to me! What did he say? Tell me! Jesus, Tristan, tell me now!” I’d lost my cool.

  Without turning back over to face me, Tristan replied flatly, “He just wanted you to get ‘the message,’ whatever that is. Okay? That’s all. And now it’s over and….” I heard him exhale loudly before he finished his thought. “I don’t want you to fight him or fire him. He’ll go after Savannah.”

  “But, Tris—”

  He was insistent. “You know how the saying goes, Robby. ‘Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.’ We can’t afford to completely alienate him because we need to know what he’s up to.”