The floor is fucking freezing when I get out of the shower. The walk from the bathroom to my room feels like I'm walking through the arctic tundra. I quickly get dressed in sweats to warm up, but I know exactly what could warm me up real quick...
Tessa should be done with her meeting now. It's been like ten minutes, and I need my cuddles. I go to her office door, and don't hear anything, so hopefully that means she's done.
"Tess?" I knock softly on the door, but don't get a response. As I turn the knob, a loud bang sounds from the front door. Who the fuck could that be? The knock sounds again, even louder this time, so I walk away from Tessa's office towards our front door. I open it, and to my surprise, it's two police officers.
"Can I help you?" I ask them as I open the door. The look me up and down, look at each other, then raise their guns in the air towards me. I panic, throwing my hands up in the air.
"Keep your hands up and get on the ground!" One of them yells.
"What the fuck!?" I step backwards as they walk into my home, surrounding me.
"You heard me! Down on the ground, now!" He yells even louder, and I get on my knees.
"What's going on? Why am I getting arrested?"
"Where's Tessa Young?" The other officer asks.
"Tessa Y-, what? Why? What's going on?" The officer puts handcuffs around my wrists as I lay on my stomach flat on the floor.
"Sit up." He pulls at my arms, and leans me against the wall.
"Tall, muscular, dark eyed foreigner, just like the woman said." The officers talk to one another.
"Can someone please explain to me why I am being handcuffed in my own home!"
"We got a call from a Tessa Young about an unwanted man in her home." They tell me, and my heart sinks. I move to stand up to go check Tessa's office, but I can't seem to get up without use of my arms.
"She's in her office, go check. Second door on your left." I tell them, but they just stand there. "Go fucking check, please!" I swear, if she's not in there.
One of the officers thankfully walks down our hallway.
"There's no one in here... Mr..."
"Hardin Scott." I tell him. "Tessa's my wife. This is all one big misunderstanding, but where the fuck is she?"
"Ms. Young described the man as tall, muscular, and foreign. You match the description quite perfectly, Mr. Scott." One of the police officers says as he jots something down on a notepad while the other steps away to radio something back to the station.
"Yeah! Because there aren't any other tall foreigners in fucking New York City! Now where is Tessa Young!? You said she called you about someone being in our home?"
"That would be correct."
I try to get up, but the officer puts his hand on his taser. "Don't make me use this."
"This is bullshit! You got the wrong guy! My wife could be fucking kidnapped with god knows who and you're worried about me!" I yell. I feel my throat begin to close again, meaning a panic attack is coming on.
"Just stay seated, and be quiet, or we will have you put in the car."
Where the fuck is Tessa? What tall, foreign guy was in our home? What did he do to her? Holy shit, holy shit, holy...
The door opens, and the officers draw their guns. It's Tessa.
"Woah! Hey, I'm Tessa Young... I called." She says with her hands up in the air.
"We got him, Ms. Young." One officer says as he lowers his gun, and step out of the way to reveal me.
"Hardin?" Tessa runs over, and I notice she's bare foot, her tights are ripped, and legs are bleeding. She bends down next to me. "This isn't the guy who broke in. This is my husband." She tells the officers.
"We apologize, ma'am, but we were told he was a tall, foreign male."
"Can you take me out of these fucking hand cuffs now?" I say. They hurt like a motherfucker, and I haven't been in them since I beat the shit out of Zed at university. Well, actually that's not true... but that's a few stories for another time.
One cop comes over to unlock my handcuff while the other one pulls Tessa aside for questions. They sit at the table. Once the handcuffs are off, I walk over to Tessa who's in mid conversation.
"Are you okay?" I interrupt. I examine her knees that are pretty cut up.
"I'm fine. Are you? I'm sorry that you got put in handcuffs."
"It's okay. What the hell happened?" I ask.
"She was just about to tell me." The police officer gives me a dirty look. "Ms. Young, please." He looks to Tessa. Her hands are shaking, and she's picking at her nails. I'm terrified to know what she went through, and by looking at her current state, I can tell it wasn't pleasant.
"Well... Hardin went over to our friends house while I came home. I was looking at photos in the kitchen when suddenly, a hand clasped over my face. He began... touching me a little, nothing too crazy..." I tighten my grip on her hands. "and he just said he wanted revenge for losing his job. He was the Uber driver we had that sexually harassed me." She turns and tells me. "I don't remember his name..."
"Walter. His name is Walter Schmidt." I tell the officer, squeezing Tessa's hands even harder to try and control myself. His name is one that I'll never fucking forget. That fucking asshole came back and touched Tessa again? I'm seeing red.
"Suspects name is Walter Schmidt." The officer says into the radio. "Don't worry, ma'am. We'll find him."
"Thank you."
"Are you alright? Would you like to go to the hospital to get looked at? I see you have some scratches on your knees."
"Oh, I'm fine. I tripped while running down the road." She tells them, and I'm curious of where she went. Did she go to Landon's after I already left?
"We will update you when we find Mr. Schmidt." The officers both reach out their hands to shake Tessa's and mine, and she thanks them once more. "Just make sure you keep your door locked at all times."
Once they leave the house, Tessa closes the front door and locks it. Slowly turning around to me, she then bolts into my arms, hugging me tight.
"Thank god you're okay. If anything were to happen to you... to our baby." I say into her hair.
"I'm fine. The baby's fine."
I can feel her body trembling against me. I want to kill this Walter motherfucker so badly, I don't know what's stopping me from going out on the streets right now and hunting him down myself.
"I'm never leaving you alone, like actually never now."
She laughs against my shoulder before pulling back. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea." She wipes under her eyes, smudging her makeup.
"Let me look at your legs." I wrap my arm around her shoulder and walk her to the bathroom. I lift her up onto the sink counter to get a good look at how bad they are.
"Can I?" I ask her if I can pull down her tights, and she nods. As I pull them down, she winces. There is a lot of blood, but the cuts aren't terribly deep.
"How the tables have turned." She laughs as I wet a towel to clean her wounds.
"Yeah, I guess so."
When I touch her knees, she winces once more. "How don't you wince during these things?"
I shrug. "You get used to it." I decide to change the conversation back to what happened earlier. "So where did you go after you ran out?"
"I went to this old woman's house down our street. Her name is Darla, and she let me use her phone to call the police."
"Why didn't you call me? You know my number."
"You forgot your phone here."
"Well, what about Landon?"
"I don't know his number by heart, and I didn't grab my phone-" She freezes, and her eyes widen. "Oh shit!"
"What?"
"My meeting with Noah and Shannon! I missed it and I need to call them." She tries to get off the sink counter, but I hold her down. "Hardin!"
"Tess, let me finish this, they can wait."
She shakes her head. "No! I can't! It's been an hour! It was a really important meeting!"
"Baby, it's okay. They'll understand your situation." I tell her. Of course she is freaking out over her job, when she just went through yet another traumatic event. Tessa's strength never ceases to amaze me.
"It was such an important meeting! Of course I fucking missed it." She puts her hands on her face.
"Just let me finish cleaning you up, then you can go do whatever you need to do."
She sighs, and nods. Thank god.
"Ow!" She kicks her leg out when I put some alcohol on the cut. I remember acting this way when I got my first couple cuts, but the more you get them, the more used to the pain you get.
"Sorry." I place some ointment on her cuts, and apply a bandage to both legs.
"There. All set." I kiss her bandages. When I look back up at her, she's looking down at the floor, not blinking or even moving her eyes.
"Hey..." I lift her chin so she can look into my eyes, but when she does, her eyes are glassy. "Do you want to talk about it?"
She shakes her head, as I expected. Tessa isn't one to talk about things that hurt her, but she is always so persistent with getting others to talk about what hurts them.
"Could you get my pajamas from the bedroom please? I want to get out of this dress." She asks me in a quiet voice.
"Of course."
I walk into our bedroom, and pull out a pair of fuzzy pants for Tessa to wear, and one of my t-shirts. I know she'll want to wear that. When I walk back, she's still sitting on the counter staring into space.
"Do you want me to help you?" I whisper to her, and she nods, raising her arms up for me to take her dress off. The dress is difficult to take off since she's sitting on the counter, but somehow I manage to take it off without too much of a hassle. I turn to pick up the shirt off the toilet seat, but when I look at her again, I see faint bruising on her arms.
"Your arms." I touch them, and she winces. "They're bruised."
"I figured they would be." She shrugs as she takes the shirt out of my hand, and throws it on.
Now it's me who's staring into space. The anger inside me is building and amplifying, and I don't think I've been this angry in a long ass time.
"They'll go away. It's alright." Tessa touches my face to bring my attention back to her. She then hops off the counter to put her fuzzy pants on, sliding them carefully over her bandaged knees.
"I hate that he did this to you." I say under my breath.
"He'll get caught, Hardin. It'll all be okay. Now, I have to go call Noah and Shannon." She brings me into one last hug. "I love you so much." She whispers against my neck.
I pull back, and bring my lips to hers. I kiss her softly and tenderly, not wanting to overwhelm her with anything. "I love you, baby."
She gives me a kiss on the cheek before walking out of the bathroom to make her phone call.