Monsters in the night

4

As the grip around his wrist got even tighter, he tried and looked around for somebody to help him. The park was deserted, not a soul was to be seen. He tried to shout, but a rough push in his chest made him gasp instead. The stranger hissed in his ear threateningly. His palms started to sweat. He inhaled deeply. The stranger pushed him against a hard something, most likely a tree, and all air got squeezed out of his lungs. Then a sharp pain shot through his face as a cold fist hit him.

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And stirred the soup on the stove, humming along with the song on the radio in order to get his head off Dec's weird behaviour. After his friend had stormed out on him, they hadn't spoken a word. Nothing but dead silence had been shared between them during the script meeting and the first rehearsal. This rehearsal was usually the funniest rehearsal of them all because it wasn't actually too serious. Its job was to set up the rough surroundings of everything, the cameras got set up and the perfect positions written down, tech like lights and microphones got checked and fixed if necessary, new ideas like a new walking way on stage or a stunt were tested. Points where the boys would stand throughout the whole episode the most times got marked with different coloured duct tape on the floor. All in all it wasn't really a serious rehearsal and more bickering and having fun than anything.

But fun was far from what it had been like today. Dec had made sure to avoid Ant's and everyone else's glances, had never made eye contact, and the small jokes or comments on something were rather forced. Ant on the other side was tempted to catch Dec and talk to him again, but the whole day had shown him that it was better not to.

They had gotten a lot of weird glances from the crew, all of them obviously wondering why they weren't interacting, but nobody had seen a reason to ask. The rehearsal had passed by way faster than usual, but also on their way home, Dec had been silently staring out his window. The sun had been setting once Joe dropped Ant off at his house and the younger man felt almost relieved to eventually get out of the car. Watching the backlights slowly disappear down the street, he wondered if this completelymessed up day stood in any relation with the weird feeling he had had the past Saturday.

"Dinner's ready", Ant called, getting no response, only feet which were rushing down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Would you lay the table, sweetie?", he asked over his shoulder as his oldest daughter entered the kitchen. The girl rolled her eyes. "Why do you adults always say that dinner's ready when it actually isn't?", she complained, but took bowls and spoons out of the cupboard nevertheless. And added a bit of salt to the soup and only shrugged his shoulders, hiding his grin from his daughter. "Because we want you children doing the hard work", he teased and carried the pot towards the table.

"Where are your sister and mother, huh?", he asked as they both sat down. As if on cue, the two missing girls entered the kitchen, Anne-Marie stopping at Ant's chair quickly to share a peck with him. "Ugh!" Daisy turned her head away in disgust and her parents chuckled. "Just wait until you have a boyfriend", Anne-Marie teased and for a few wonderful moments, Ant was able to finally relax as his stepdaughter started to exclaim how she would never have a boyfriend. For a few moments, everything was as it should be.

The dinner was peaceful. The smalltalk they held was mostly about the girls school and hobbies - Poppy proudly told her parents of the presentation she was about to give in social studies the last week and Daisy complained about a girl in her gymnastics class that would never do a task right. It was flowing easily, nothing that was hard to swallow, and after they had finished, all four of the small family felt full and contented.

"Can we watch TV a little bit?", Poppy asked. Immediately, Daisy agreed and both of them looked at their parents with pleading doe eyes. Anne-Marie got up and said: "We can, but only if you quickly help us cleaning up here, alright?" Ant, getting pulled out of the wonderful world where no sorrows existed, piped up. "It's okay, honey, I can do that. I needed to make a phone call anyways, I can clean up this meanwhile."