Offside

It wasn't difficult to follow them, and I would have stayed right behind them if some asshole hadn’t cut me off and then stopped at the fucking red light as the car Nicole was in kept going. I pounded on the steering wheel and screamed, but there wasn't enough room for me to get around. By the time the light changed, the Jag was out if sight.

Now the township isn't all that big—not even big enough to be a township—so I just drove up to the corporation limits, pulled over for a minute, and added the address for Ron Jones into my GPS. Of course, the maps for the area seriously sucked because the subdivision was so new, and I ended up turning around a half dozen times before I finally noticed the huge, mosaic tiled drive that led to a large ranch house. I wasn't sure if I had the right place or not. There weren’t any other cars, not even in the driveway.

Fuck it.

I parked, went up the porch steps, and banged on the door.

Nicole opened it.

“Thomas?” Her expression quickly moved from shock to seriously ticked off. “What the...?”

Of course, now that I was there, I had no clue what to say or do. Before I came up with anything brilliant, the dark-haired guy walked up and stood behind her, glaring.

“I thought Sophie said you weren't going to say anything to him,” he said, his voice as dark as his hair.

“I didn't,” Nicole responded. She glared at me. “What are you doing here? How did you even get here?”

“In my car,” I replied.

“Don't be a shit!” Nicole yelled back at me.

The guy laughed.

“I saw you leave school...” I started to say, but I trailed off.

“You followed me?” she gasped.

“Not…exactly…” I stammered. “I lost you in town.”

“Then how did you get here?”

“Um…”

Shit.

“Dammit, Thomas!” Nicole yelled. She turned sideways to look at the man and ran her hands through her hair.

“I just want to know what the fuck is going on!” I finally yelled. I wasn’t really mad, just fucking frustrated with all of this shit.

“You don’t belong here,” the dude said, and I was pretty sure he must be Ron Jones. He looked a little familiar, like I might have seen him at a council function. “You aren’t welcome. Get back in your car and go.”

“Ron,” Nicole said softly. “Please—he’s already here…Once he sees…”

Nicole’s voice trailed off as a loud, unearthly wailing sound came from inside the house. It was like nothing I had ever heard before, and I immediately took a step away from the door.

Ron snickered.

“He won’t tell anyone,” Nicole said confidently as she walked back into the house.

“What, out of the goodness of his heart?” Ron didn’t even bother trying to hide is contempt.

“Don’t fucking yell at her!” I really, really didn’t like him talking like that to her. I took a step forward again but then realized I was making a move on a local bigwig. I faltered then heard that insane sound again and cringed.

Nicole disappeared behind the door, and I fought the urge to go in after her. I mean, it’s not like this guy was going to punch me or something to stop me. As a public figure, he knew better than to do something so stupid. Nicole was only gone for a second, and when she came back, she was holding…

…a little kid.

A baby, really.