Keeping Emma in the dark was easy enough. Or perhaps not that easy. Your palms felt clammy, especially when Billy's gaze was not wavering from your screen. He didn't trust it, and made sure you stuck to your word and didn't secretely do something stupid, like tipping off the coppers or telling your friend that they were with you and were basically keeping you hostage in your own house.
Your cell made a soft plopping sound as you dropped it beside you on the mattress and exhaled, feeling a weight being lifted from your shoulder just after Emma confirmed she'd be gone for a few hours. You rose from the bed and fidgeted with the loose (H/C) strands at your shoulder, one of the most obvious signs you were nervous.
There was so much you needed to discuss, you didn't think an entire day of talking would cover it all.
The silence went uninterrupted for a while, and you began pacing back and forth in the centre of the room. Now that you felt sober and could think clearer, everything came flooding back to you. The constant drumming against your skull transitioned into the nagging of voices, telling you to confront the men, which was exactly what you were planning to do.
"So why did you do that?" You questioned, barely able to take a quick glimpse out of the corner of your eye. Stu only pulled up his shoulders from his spot on the bean bag.
"You know what I'm talking about, Stu." His features remained casual as you accused him of playing dumb. "Who was the text from? At least tell me that."
"No one you should care 'bout..." Stu's voice oozed with dismissal, and alarms clang in your brain as you quickly put two and two together.
"Don't tell me…" you let the sentence linger. Another shrug of the shoulders confirmed exactly what you were thinking. "You can't just..." you cut yourself off, swallowing and shaking your head in disbelief. "You can't just try to keep people out of my life like that. It's unfair! Jed did nothing wrong!"
The air between you grew thicker, and as you peered over at Billy who was laying on the bed with his hands folded behind his head, the muscle in his jaw tightened, betraying his uneasiness.
"And what do you have to say about it, Billy?" You didn't give him time to think of what to come up with, weren't giving him any time at all. "Billy."
You were getting frustrated by his silence and he was getting frustrated at the lack of it. Hell, he was just frustrated, his eyes taking on an iron harshness as he directed his stare right back at you.
Billy grew frustrated by his frustration, and he could go with his initial instinct to brush it off, but he ended up doing the opposite, cranking his neck to the left to look away as his irritation took hold. "Ya shouldn't be talkin' to that whimp."
The very way he'd pronounced whimp sounded hateful enough to spread a trail of goosebumps down your arms. They had no right to be so hostile towards the reporter, let alone attack him when you were resting in the hospital.
The knot in your stomach tightened when Billy made his opinion about the matter very clear. "We shoulda put a pistol to the fucker's head after we broke into his office."
Your jaw dropped. "You broke into his office?!"
"Yup." He confirmed, simple and short. You watched as Billy's eyes glowered with pride and his face took a moment to relax. Whenever Billy forgot to sound sarcastic, he actually sounded very attractive. "Went to his house–watched 'im for some time," a snort crept from his lips. "Turned out Mr. Perfect wasn't alone."
The next minute was long, fuck, did it feel long. Of all that was going on in your brain, you couldn't begin to decipher how you felt or what you were thinking. Did they know you were the one visiting Jed, then? Had they seen you?
No, they couldn't have. All of the curtains had been drawn shut, you were sure of it. Recalling Emma and yourself making jokes about it. The only time they could have spotted you was when you rolled into his driveway with her and when you went back to your place with Jed.
"Gotten real close with him, have ya?"
You were more than impressed with yourself by not showing any signs of fear other than the tightening of your grip on the pillow you were hugging to your chest. So they had seen you. Question was, what did they know?
One look into Stu's direction made your heart inexplicably ache. There was confliction in his eyes, but unlike Billy's, they weren't murderous. They were clouded by all sorts of emotion, pain being the most prominent, but something told you that neither of them had seen anything other than you leaving through the door. There was definitely aggression coming from Billy's body language, but not enough to make you think he was going to hurt you.
You kept a calm surface, raking your brain for what to say to defend yourself. For a moment, it felt like you were going to come clean and confess your fuck-up with Jed by telling them what had taken place, but you didn't get the chance to when Stu murmured something under his breath.
"That guy's one shady figure." He looked up at you and there was a deep furrow between his eyes.
"'Shady figure?'" Billy repeated flatly. "This ain't some dun dun dun flick."
Your eyebrows rose comically, silently asking what the hell a dun dun dun flick was. From behind you, you could hear Billy take a steadying breath to compose himseld. "You've seen 'em. The ones buildin' suspense and drama 'til they hit the climatic ending?"
You could see Stu's depressing mood crumble a little bit at this, his voice taking on a chiming ring of excitement as he sunk further into the bean bag. "Like all good pornos."
You groaned, shooting Billy a long-suffering look from over your shoulder. The murderous glare was no longer there as all you recieved a lousy shrug in response.
Stu went on to add something to that last part, but you didn't hear it, really. You just wanted to get to the point.
Before long the two were stuck in an argument once more, and though you heard them loud and clear, you didn't really listen to any of it. Your face began to flush crimson, but it wasn't from butterflies fluttering in your stomach. You were actually starting to see red but didn't mutter a word, feeling tears prickling at the edges as your hands balled into fists.
"(Y/N)?" The look on Stu's face was a whirlwind of worry. It was the gentle rubbing of his hand on your forearm that made you flinch and turn away. "Did we say somethin' wrong?"
Not that question. You could feel their pair of brown and blue eyes on your back, searching as to why your demeanor changed so abruptly. The floodgates broke all at once and you started to sob, feeling like you had carried the burden of bottling everything up for years instead of weeks.
Were it weeks? Were it years? You had no clue anymore. The moisture brimming in your gaze spilled over as you whipped around, ready to give them the scolding of their lifetimes.
"You can't keep doing this!" You cried. Stu practically jumped up, slowly approaching you, but you weren't having any of it, shoving at his chest—pushing him twice until he almost lost his balance. "You can't keep pretending nothing's going on! You can't keep treating me like this!"
Billy didn't do as much as blink with no small amount of bewilderment while Stu was making no effort to defend himself. He wasn't even trying, and somehow that made it feel even worse for you. His mouth was open, lips parted as he gaped at you, looking dumbly taken aback by your outburst.
"You... You lied," your voice hitched at the last word. Both of them did, but the one closest to you was the one that accused Randy right after you regained consciousness in the hospital. Stu took advantage of your memory loss. Took advantage of you when you were the most vulnerable. But then again, even that could have been Billy's idea. Billy was the one pulling the strings most times, after all.
"You LIED to me about EVERYTHING!" You choked out much louder, the rawness in your throat filled to the brim with heart ache. You only now noticed that you were visibly shaking, but you didn't care. Couldn't care. Caring only brought you more pain.
Stu met your glare with eyes that looked taken aback and yes, actually a little afraid. "No, baby..." He whispered, but then didn't seem the point in lying. "Please babe, calm down. Billy 'n me only did it to protect–"
"Protect me?" You stared at him stupidly for a moment, laughed, and scrubbed a hand furiously through your hair. "I don't think you know what protecting someone means. Keeping the truth from me isn't... Deleting someone's messages isn't–that's not protecting!" You continued, pressing on despite the tremor in your voice. "That's called being selfish and possessive. You even blamed a dead man for the shit you've done. Do you even realize how fucked up that is?!"
Billy held up a hand. "Easy," he said casually, his lack of emotions enough of an answer for you to piece together that yes, he knew all about Stu's lie. How couldn't he. What a shock. "Don't get so riled up."
And just like that, your anger was ignited like fuel thrown onto fire, exploding with heat as you turned on him, looking livid. "No way..." Your lips managed a weak, trembling smile. It wasn't a nice one, mirthless and not reaching your eyes. "There is no fucking way you have the balls to tell me I shouldn't get riled up! How dare you?" You yelled again in an undignified shriek. "What are you gonna do if I don't calm down, Billy? Kill me?"
The look on his face was priceless. You almost wished you had filmed it so you could play it out for him. "Go for it—" you opened your arms, as if inviting him to do it. "I don't fucking care anymore."
There, you'd said it. It was out.
Stu sagged at your exclamation, looking like he had been gutted with your words, eyes wide and face draining of color.
"(Y/N)..." He uttered your name, glancing up. "You don't mean that... This ain't you talkin' like that..."
Moving your vision towards the window, the morning light shining through the room caught the obvious fury and conflict in your expression as you fought the urge to close the curtains. You had developed something of a chronic fear of windows, much preferring them to be covered as long as possible in case someone was peeking through them, violating your privacy.
You inhaled an unsteady intake of air and let a smooth, barely controlled one slowly escape. "You can't keep people away from me. Jed has only been nice to me, and you went to destroy his fucking work place? Can't contain your jealousy?"
It took Billy less than a second to stand in front of you, now looking like his blood was boiling over as well. "You're really defendin' that rat?"
"Why wouldn't I? He's done nothing wrong."
You and him looked intently at each other, silent, like a Mexican stand-off. Anger rose, jangling your circuits. Billy looking like he was completely done with you was worse than any sort of physical pain.
"You choose him over us."
You didn't say anything. You couldn't. The words got lodged in your throat. Billy's statement that sounded more like a question was a trap. No matter how you answered it, it was always going to be the wrong response.
You swore, you swore you could see the whites of Billy's eyes turn red, but not from anger because his eyebrows dipped down not to form a scowl or a glare, but a thoughtful expression.
"Stu," Billy murmured, gaze stuck on the floor. There was a beat of silence before he said, "let's get outta here."
You were left stunned into speechlessness, watching Stu press the palms of his hands into his eyes before he unlocked the door and disappeared around the corner muttering something that sounded awfully close to goodbye.
Goodbye? Why?
After what felt like a long while of just waiting for the other to say something, Billy seemed to have gathered his thoughts, made up his mind about something. "(Y/N)," and the way he spoke your name it was like he was apologizing, even though you knew you'd never get an apology out of him.
In the next passing seconds, you heard that rare spark of vulnerability flare up in his words. "We're always watchin' over you, yeah? Take care of yourself."
Before you could even process of what to make of that sentence, Billy pulled you to him for what was the longest embrace you had ever gotten from him.
And then he was gone.