The Fighter's Block (31 page)

“Just eat the damn thing.”

“It looks real.”

“It’s a cupcake.”

“No, the stupid bug on it.”

Marnie looked at the plate of ‘em another time and shrugged. “That’s Dani for you. Just eat
it.”

Paul shrugged and stuck half of it in his mouth. He settled his taste buds for a few seconds and then raised his eyebrows with surprise. “Holy shit, that’s good,” he said
with a full mouth
.

It made Marnie
laugh
, just the idea of him saying shit while he
had mouth full of
chocolate. But then the temptation
finally affected her
and s
he grabbed one from the plate and bit into it. Not having tried one when Dani offered, she had the same reaction as Paul. No wonder Jaime was about to have an orgasm.

“Jesus that’s good,” she
mumbled
. “Is that cherry in the middle?”

Paul nodded as he shoved the other half of the cupcake into his mouth. The two of them stood there in the kitchen, each devouring a dainty little baked treat. After a minute Marnie pulled a beer out of the fridge and offered it to Paul. He smiled at the gesture and opened it, took a swig, and passed it to his wife. She took a small drink, and then set it on the counter between them. There was something about that moment—the two of them eating cupcakes in the middle of the night, sharing a beer. It touched down in Marnie’s chest, deep, somewhere she hadn’t felt a stir in a while. She looked at Paul, her husband of almost five years, the only real man she’d known since she was a teenager. Their eyes connected, their souls eve
n, and whatever was in those
damn cupcakes made Marnie want to devour him too.

She stepped past the counter when he did, and when he pulled her to
him,
she kissed him hard, pressing her body against him. Neither of them cared if it was the kitchen counter, the floor, or the bed, but they moved around the apartment like old times. All of the fights were forgotten; all of the money troubles didn’t matter. It was just the two of them, like it used to be, and the rest of the world didn’t matter.

There was an
unusual stillness that night,
peacefulness, as they shared the same bed for the first time in
four
months.
Marnie kept a leg over Paul’s, and she remained against him, softly touching his chest with her fingertips. They lay there for almost an hour, barely speaking but enjoying the closeness. Neither of them wanted to ruin the moment by say
ing the wrong thing, b
ut when Marnie said, “
I need another
fuckin
’
cupcake,” they both
exploded with laughter
.

Chapter Sixteen

Dani was eager to get home. It was Friday and Van would be home
after a busy July 4
th
weekend
. She’d spoken to
him on the phone several times and
stopped
at the firehouse
to hav
e lunch with him once
, but it didn’t beat being home together. They had no plans, no commitments, and Dani was looking forward to a romantic newlywed-type weekend with her husband.

But when she walked into the apartment at five-forty that evening, she instantly sensed something was wrong. It wasn’t just the sounds that she heard, but it was a mood, a feeling in the air. Her attention was directed to the TV
right away
, where the images she saw practically punched her in the stomach. Van was sitting on the couch, facing the act, but his eyes were directed to the floor
, unable to watch
.

Dani wanted to throw up.

“What are you doing?” she asked, not even expecting an answer. She was crying when she realized what was happening,
just as she caught site of herself rising up over Brian on the bed, telling him things that he
wanted
to hear.

S
he
rushed across the room and
barely found the button to
shut
it off. She faced Van, fully expecting the anger to unleash. But he just sat there, now with his head in his hands. He looked up a few seconds later, and the hurt and destruction on his face was harder on her than if he’d been angry.

“It’s not what you think,” Dani said automatically. She didn’t know what else to say, but she just stood there crying, waiting for him to say something. “Van? I swear to you, it’s not what you think.”

He took a deep breath, unsure of what to say. He did believe her,
he wanted to,
but it was just too hard to digest
. He knew that was the apartment building that Brian had lured her to, and there she was, willingly playing to his every wish?

He still could not speak, and Dani found herself in misery, totally humiliated.
Even without seeing the entire video, she knew what Brian had done, what specifically he wanted Van to see.
She stood there for another minute and cried, all of the memories coming back to her. She was weak, and pathetic, and she let Brian manipulate her. Why didn’t she see it coming? Why didn’t she see his plan?

“Van,” she finally sniffled. “I love you. So much…”

He stood from the couch, his heart splitting because of her meekness and because of his vulnerability to her. He took a quick breath of air and said, “Dani, I love you too…” He wanted to say more, but he didn’t know how. He wasn’t sure how to talk about this. He didn’t know where to start.

Dani realized this, and as painful as it was, she had some explaining to do. She would have rather he saw the beginning of that night, what happened before she finally stopped fighting Brian.
That
she could have stomached; not what she had to do to
finally
get out of there.
And to think that he’d somehow recorded it?
She should have known…

She started with a soft voice, trying to keep it calm. “I resisted him. I did
,
Van. But he held me down and…” She sniffled and wiped at the side
s
of her face, slick with tears. She took a deep breath and said, “Everything I told you before is true. When I said that he held me down and forced
himself
on me, that was true. And it was awful…” Her voice broke, and Van’s heart broke some more. “He held a knife to my face
.
”

Van tilted his head. This was new. “He what?”

She swal
lowed and stepped closer to him
so she could reach out and touch his face. She held a finger to his cheek diagonally. “He said he was going to cut a six-inch scar into my face if I didn’t
stop fighting him
.” Dani paused, truly ashamed by how vain she’d been, how maimed she would have felt with such a hideous mark on her
for everyone to see
. She didn’t know if Brian would have done it or not, but at the time she felt she didn’t have a choice. He was going to continue doing what he was doing one way or another, and she just wanted it over with.

“So he made you
act the part of a consensual, um….”

She exhaled and barely said, “None of it was real, Van. I swear to you I only did and said what would get me out of there faster.
He just kept saying all this stuff, like what he was going to do to you and… I just couldn’t take it anymore, Van. I just couldn’t bear to think about him hurting you. And I knew he would. I knew that he’d follow through. I knew that he’d find a way to do it. After that I just… I just wanted it over. He promised he’d leave you alone. What you saw, w
hen I—”

He held his fingers up to
her
m
outh and she
stopped. “I only saw the first few seconds, and then you walked in. I didn’t watch when I realized what it was. I was just… I was numb.”

“Please don’t watch anymore of it,” she begged
quietly
.

She closed her eyes and more tears cascaded down her face.
With
in
the darkness
in
her own eyelids she could almost shut out the pain she saw on Van’s face, and when she felt his arms wrap around her to pull her close, a sound of relief poured out of her. She cried against him
because
he let her. She held onto him for dear life
because
he let her.

He loved her even more because he couldn’t help it.

Something changed in Van that day. He felt himself harden inside even more, but at the same time he was absolute putty. The two things could not coexist, could they? Bad things happened to good people all the time. He knew that. But they were not going to happen to him and Dani. No way. He wasn’t going to let miserable people ruin his life, or the people that he cared about.

Brian was going to be one sorry son of a bitch.

Dani saw it in him right away. It was as if all the sweetness in him was being sucked away while something else took over, something darker.
What Brian had done made her angry—she hated him, every fiber of his being—and she considered countless acts of vengeance, just to settle the score. But she knew that Brian would never give in to defeat. She knew that he would always be around to make her life miserable. 

However, he seemed to have a continual affect on them anyway. S
he couldn’t believe it when she answered the phone the next day, the
fire
station looking for Van, and it was then that she learned what
Van had
done. She was stunned. She sat on the couch with a cup of tea while she waited for him to return from his run, and when he did, she immediately stood and said, “You quit the fire department?”

Van looked at her for several longs seconds. She looked so delicate, fragile, especially holding a stupid cup of tea.
She
was abso
lutely beautiful, too perfect;
too
sweet
to be
manipulated
by a fuck wad like her ex.

He exhaled and tossed his key on the table by the wall and headed to the kitchen for some water.

Dani followed him there
. “Van, tell me what’s going on.
You’ve been trying to get on there for a few years now. You’re close, aren’t you?”

“Not really,” was all he replied. He downed an entire glass of water and then refilled it again.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “You just started getting time there again. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Things change.”

“Like
what
?” she exclaimed, starting to get frustrated.

“Like
life
,” he countered.

She was at a loss for words. He was angry all of a sudden, and when he forcefully set the glass on the counter, she was surprised it didn’t break. He turned and faced her, leaning
forward
onto the counter that was between them. “This is who I am
, Dani
. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“You’re a lot of things
,
but di
sappointing
is not one of them,
”
she replied evenly.

The room was sil
ent for some time
.
Dani was aware of his struggle. The idea of her with Br
ian didn’t settle well with him
and she didn’t expect it to. Intimate relationships were generally kept private—what you didn’t really know couldn’t affect you as much—but
she knew
Van didn’t have those blinders
anymore.

She stepped around the counter and put a hand on his arm
that was
hot
with sweat
. “I’m sorry for what this has done to you. This is why I wanted to stay away. I was living with this, my own personal nightmare, so you wouldn’t have to. There’s no way I wanted you to know what I had resorted to that night.
I didn’t feel worthy of you anymore.
I’m sorry
,
Van. I’m so sorry.”

Her sincerity slapped him in the face. He shook his head and exhaled as he wrapped her in his arms. “No, I’m the one that’s sorry.” He kissed her forehead and then tucked her under his chin. “
God, I love you. You’re everything to me.
Dani, I just don’t know what to do about this. I’m torn.”

She took a step back to look at his face. “
I can’t make you forget about it, I know that, but please Van… I don’t want you to think about it, okay? I just—”

“That’s not what I mean,” he shook his head.
“
It’s not even relevant to me, I promise. Y
ou’re my wife
now
and it’s you and me
. Everything else is in the past. I’m talking about Brian
himself
. I mean I understand why you don’t want the video to go to the police, but what now? He’s not getting away with this. I swear to God that he’s going to suffer for this, one way or another.”