Kristen Ashley - For You

Now Colt brought his gun up, his head cocked to the site and he aimed at Denny and I knew he was finished fucking around, even if Denny was no longer armed. Denny was bent double, one hand to his bleeding shoulder, the other hand dangling useless. His eyes, seething with palpable hate, were on Colt and he was panting like a dog.

I didn’t do as Colt asked. I went to Susie and pulled her dead weight up. I managed to get behind her and grabbed her under her pits, trying to be careful and failing because I was panicked. I pulled her around, yanked her down and she thudded against the floor.

I was bent double, dragging her across the floor, still watching Colt and Denny as Denny grabbed the axe with his good hand, not giving up, so insane he didn’t know he’d lost or not caring. His right shoulder was bleeding, even if Colt didn’t have a gun, he could do little harm with a gunshot wound and an axe in his left, non-dominant, hand.

Then, suddenly, coming from everywhere, the room was filled with men.

“Drop it, Lowe,” Sully demanded but Denny raised the axe unsteadily in his left hand, his eyes on Colt, a half a dozen guns aimed at him.

I fell to my knees then back to my ass as someone else shouted for Denny to freeze and I pulled Susie into my body, between my legs, protectively wrapping my arms around her ribcage. I didn’t know why I did this but I did.

And I didn’t know why I did what I did next.

But I did.

“Don’t, Denny, please, don’t,” I whispered, Denny froze, everyone froze but only Denny’s eyes came to me.

I shook my head at him. “Please. For me?”

“We hafta be together,” he told me.

God, he was totally fucking crazy.

My head was still shaking. “You don’t stop, you’ll get hurt.”

“His has to be the worst,” Denny declared, his eyes shifting to Colt and me, back and forth, back and forth, so fast, he was making me dizzy.

“It has been, Denny. I promise. It’s been the worst, for both of us,” I said and his eyes settled back on me. “When you took me away from him all those years ago, he’s been living with twenty-two years of the worst. So have I.”

“He hurt you.”

“He never hurt me, Denny.”

“He cheated on you with Amy,” Denny told me. “I saw him, you saw him.”

I tipped my head to the side before saying, “You know he didn’t do that. You know.”

“He did.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“February –”

“You took away my life,” I whispered.

His head jerked, his face grew slack for a second as if not comprehending then that crazy light lit in his eyes again and he said, “Don’t you see? I’m tryin’ to give it back. We had everything, Feb. You and me. We had it all. We were happy. So fuckin’ happy, we laughed all the time. You laughed all the time. I made you laugh. I’m your Alec, you love me, you always did and now I’ve come back.”

“You’re not my Alec. You never made me laugh. Colt made me laugh and you took that away too. You’re not Alec. You’re not Colt. You’re Denny.”

“I’m your Alec.”

“You’re Denny,” I repeated and went on. “And I’ve got it back, Denny, but I’ve lost a lot of it. You took it away. You tore it from me. Everything I had, everything I ever wanted, you took it all away. Happiness, laughter, family, babies, Alec, the real Alec, my Alec. You took it all away. Don’t make this worse. Please, just don’t. Put down the axe.”

He shook his head. “I did all of this for you. For you. I coulda made you happy. I could still make you happy.”

“It’d make me happy, you put down that axe.”

“Feb –”

“Don’t hurt anyone else for me, Denny. Not even yourself. Just put down the axe.”

“You don’t understand. Why don’t you understand? Everyone knows, everyone knows it’s Feb and Alec. It’s always been Feb and Alec. It’ll always be Feb and Alec. No one’s loved you like me.”

“You’re right about that,” I whispered. “No one’s loved me like you.”

He read my words wrong, he read them like permission, his eyes went back to Colt and I knew, I knew what I was trying wasn’t going to work.

“No one’ll ever love you like me,” he murmured and it was a vow. “All I’ve ever done, all I ever was, was for you.”

Then he lunged, I closed my eyes and screamed but I still could hear the gunfire all around me.

“What?”

“You heard me, Feb.”

I looked at Doc, speechless.

Doc patted my knee and got up, saying, “You can put your clothes back on.”

I didn’t move.

Instead, I asked, “How?”

He was walking to the sink and he turned to me, brows lifted, face carefully blank but, if I could think at that moment, I would have sworn he was trying not to laugh, and he repeated, “How?”

I was back to speechless.

“Feb, I’m guessin’ you know how.”

“But –”

“Have you and Colt been using protection?” Doc asked.

“No… but –”

“Then that’s how.”

“I’m forty-two years old,” I reminded him.

“You still have a period?”

“Well, not anymore.”

He chuckled. I went back to staring. He turned back to the sink and washed his hands.

When he came around again, drying them, he said softly, “Get off my table, February, get dressed and go tell Colt you’re pregnant.”

Then he tossed the paper towel in the trash and walked out of the room.

“Hey Kath,” I said, walking in the front door of the Police Station.

“Hey, Feb,” Kath said back, grinning huge.

Since she couldn’t know I was pregnant and probably wouldn’t be grinning huge at that knowledge, (like I was grinning on the inside), just maybe grinning, I asked, “What?”

“Well, let me see…” Kath said then leaned forward when I made it to the front counter. “I gotta count ‘em down. First, Bethany kicked Cory’s ass out last night.”

I leaned forward too and repeated, “What?”

“Walked right into Tina Blackstone’s house, caught them in the act and threw a fit to end all fits.”

I put both hands on the counter and leaned forward. “So that’s what all that noise was about last night. Colt was so pissed, I had to get creative so he wouldn’t go over there and wade in.”

Kath nodded, still grinning. “Forgot, you and Colt live across the street from Tina.” Then her face changed, it went dreamy before she said, “Creative with Colt, bet that was fun.”

“It was,” I affirmed with my own smile, because it really, seriously was. “Anyway,” I went on, deciding to share my own gossip, “Bethany may be loud but, the shocker is, Tina’s louder.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. She always struck me as someone with a big mouth,” Kath noted.

“Yeah, a big mouth is one thing, a loud mouth another. Bethany could win awards and still Tina’s a lot louder.”

Kath laughed then one upped me. “Did you know Bethany went into labor right then and there?”

“No joke?” I breathed.

“No joke,” Kath replied, “and, right after she had the baby, a little girl, by the way, she kicked his ass out. They hadn’t even cut the umbilical cord. Rumor has it, he’s moving in with Tina.”

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” I muttered and Kath’s grin got even wider. “Wonder how Tina’ll take to Cory playin’ around.”

“You and Colt might want to consider soundproofing,” Kath suggested and I figured that’d be a good idea. “But that’s not it,” Kath told me.

“What’s it, then?” I asked.

“Colt fucked Monica Merriweather.”

I blinked fast about a dozen times before I asked again, “What?”

“Yonks ago he told her he’d give her an exclusive on the whole…” she stopped talking, her expression changed and she waved her hand in the air in an effort to say words she didn’t really have to say, “then, he didn’t.”

“I know.”

“She’s pissed. She’s been in, like, every day for the last two months since it went down. Gettin’ in Colt’s face, gettin’ in everyone’s face and gettin’ nothin’. Colt’s sealed up tight. Sully’s sealed up tight. Everyone’s sealed up tight. Monica is persona non grata even more than she was persona non grata and pretty much everyone hated her before. Now she’s not gettin’ anything not just on that thing but on everything. She’s been locked out.”

“I know that too, Kath.” And I did, Colt told me all about it.

“Welp, did you know Monica and Colt had a showdown just two feet away from me not ten minutes ago? Apparently, that reporter from The Star’s got a book comin’ out and before it’s even in the bookstores he’s sold the movie rights.”

I knew what she was saying.

I couldn’t say I was pleased there was going to be a movie made about the Denny mess and I was also not pleased there was going to be a book but Colt warned me this was probably going to happen. We’d been through weeks of reporters hounding us anywhere they could get to us before they realized we weren’t talking, Sully wasn’t talking, the FBI weren’t talking. They finally figured out they were only going to get the information released as a matter of course and then the next story came along and they lost interest.

What I could say was I was pleased that Monica wasn’t going to make her career from it. Colt had told me about her and since the day Denny came back to town she’d been a serious pain in the ass. Calling Colt, calling me, stopping by the bar, coming to the Station, bothering me when I was at Mimi’s. She’d written three articles about us and made some shit up and it wasn’t nice shit. Colt lost his cool and talked to Eli Levinson. Eli was one year ahead of Colt at high school, the wide receiver on the football team who went to law school, opened up his practice in town and Eli owed Colt a favor. Eli paid up by slapping Monica and The Gazette with a cease and desist which included a threat of litigation should they libel us any further. The Gazette had gladly printed a retraction and also just as gladly used that as an excuse to dump Monica’s ass. We’d heard word they’d fired her yesterday.