Chapter 16
It hard started to rain and since we had just ran away from our ride, we were stuck walking. Unfortunately it was a long walk too.
At this point it was only a light drizzle, but with our luck it was bound to pick up.
“Taylor? I’ve been meaning to ask you something for a while now,” I played with the ring on my finger.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Where did this ring come from? I mean like, wow, it’s a doozy of a ring.” It was a giant rock, it was beautiful. It was almost like the ring I had always dreamed of having. Course I thought Josh would give it to me, but whatever.
He grabbed my hand and looked at it, “Actually, it was my grandmother’s. She gave it to me right before she died, told me to give it to a special girl.”
“Oh wow,” I started to slide the ring off and hand it to him, “Here, I can get some other ring that I can use. I wouldn’t want to use your grandmother’s.”
“No,” he held his hand up refusing to take the ring back, “If you don’t wear it, it’s just going to sit in the bottom of my underwear drawer. I highly doubt that’s what my grandma would have wanted.”
I felt bad wearing something that clearly meant a lot to him but I put it back on, “Fine, but I promise to give it back once I shamelessly break your heart.”
He laughed, “That’s all that I ask for.”
Then the rain really started to pick up, we could barely see where we were going. We decided to duck into a bar to wait for the rain to slow down.
We got a table and a couple of drinks and decided just to hang out. It was strange; I had never just hung out with Taylor before. Other people were always there, or we were just straight up fighting.
He showed me how to play pool and darts, and for once I didn’t want to punch him in the throat.
Everything was going great until the guy from the alley a couple of weeks ago walked in. We didn’t even notice him because we were having such a great time until he walked right up to Tay. “Taylor.” He grunted. His voice creeped me out, and his breath smelled like cigarettes.
All the laughing and goofing around was completely gone from Taylor’s voice. He pushed me behind him and said, “Derek.”
Derek peered around Taylor and looked at me, “It seems to me that you’ve got a new girl, I hear she’s your wife.” He had eyes that reminded me of a snake; they made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Taylor stepped in front of me, blocking Derek’s line of view. “What do you want Derek?”
“Why so harsh, we used to be good friends, remember?” Friends? What?
“What. Do. You. Want.” Taylor asked more harshly.
Derek put his hands up and pretend to be offended, “I just want you to come back is all.”
“I don’t want to.” Come back to what? I was getting really starting to get scared.
I wasn’t stupid obviously this guy was involved with some bad stuff, and if Taylor had been involved with him the past that mean he had probably don’t some questionable things.
Suddenly the ‘joking’ or whatever it was that Derek was just doing was gone. He got right up in Taylor’s face. “I wasn’t asking if you wanted to, I was telling you what I want. And if you remember, I always get what I want.” He winked at me. I thought I was going to throw up. “I’ll be in touch soon with a date and time. You know what to do.” Then he turned and walked out.
“FUCK.” Taylor punched the wall. Everyone turned to look at him.
“Come on,” I grabbed his hand and we walked back to the apartment in silence. At least no one was home when we finally go back there.
When we were finally inside, I turned to him. Pissed. “Taylor.”
“Haley, don’t.”
“I think I deserve an explanation, what the fuck was he talking about? It didn’t sound like you were going to feed the homeless or cure cancer. What was he talking about?”
He got right up in my face, “It doesn’t matter ok! It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong Taylor! We’re married! It has EVERYTHING to do with me now! Did you see the way he looked at me?!” I yelled.
“I’m not blind! Of course I saw! It was a threat, ok? If I don’t do what he wants he’ll hurt you.”
“Tell me again how this has nothing to do with me?” I asked bitterly.
“JUST LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE. You don’t have to worry about it, I’ll keep you safe.” Then he stormed off into the kitchen, but I was right behind him. I wasn’t giving up this time.
“You’re not actually going to do it are you?” I was scared about his answer. I didn’t know which I was more scared of though.
“You’re better off not knowing.”
“STOP DECIDING THINGS FOR ME! I’m a big girl! I can handle it! I’m not going to start crying if you tell me you’re some sort of drug dealer or in a gang.”
I could see the internal debate going on inside Taylor; at least he was considering telling me. It was a start.
“I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but fine. If you want to know so badly I’ll tell you. I’m not a drug dealer or in some kind of gang. A couple of years ago, my family got into some finical problems. We needed money, lots of it and fast. My dad kept blaming me, telling me it was my fault. So I got a job, as you already know, but that wasn’t enough. So one day, Derek, approached me and told me he had a way I could get money fast.” He took a deep breath and continued, “So he entered me into a street fight. It’s like fights on TV where people place bets, only it happens in dark alley ways and it happens to be illegal. I was good though, I made a lot of money and I really helped my parents out. They had no idea where the money was coming from, and they didn’t ask. Anyway, Derek was like my agent, he got me fights and I gave him some of the profit. He had tons of guys like me, but I made him the most money. I managed to get out about a year ago,” He shuttered at the memory, “but now he’s back for some reason. And if I don’t do it, he WILL hurt you. Goddammit. I can’t believe this is happening.”
I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say.
He did though, “You can’t tell anybody ok? Not the boys, not the police, NO ONE. It’s too dangerous.” Then he walked up stairs into our room and slammed the door.
Wow.
