Stanton Box Set

Joshua glares at her and I start to panic again. I think he’s losing control.

Natasha

Weeknights are meant to be relaxing and calm but I have never been so anxious. I was a regular person. I had a normal life … that is until Joshua Stanton came back into it. Now it seems I jump from one nightmarish situation to the next. Totally unrelated stupid things that are making my head spin. I feel like I am in an out-of-control plane and I don’t know if the landing is going to be ok or if I am going to crash and burn. Cancer, serial killers, hit men, body-guards, paternity … Jesten, Joshua’s feeling about me. I just want some damn peace … with a boyfriend who I know loves me. Why can’t I be in love with a normal man … a boring, weedy, slightly overweight man? My stomach clenches as nerves fill my system and I look at my watch for the fiftieth time tonight. Why haven’t they contacted me yet? It’s Tuesday night and I’m waiting for the call from Bridget and Abbie to let me know that the fight between Jesten and Joshua is over … and that Jesten is still alive. Nine pm—it’s got to be on soon. I got home from the hospital at seven and have been waiting ever since. I put my head into my hands as I sit on the toilet. This is a nightmare. How am I supposed to be calm when I know what is going on in the Luna Park Convention Centre just across town? My phone rings, it’s Abbie.

“Hello,” I answer.

“Hi, it’s Abbie.”

“I know who it is, what’s happening?” I snap.

“Right, so Joshua is fighting Jesten. I just saw it on the draw.”

“Shit.” I was hoping that they wouldn’t be put against each other.

“Are they fighting right now?” I ask.

“No, not yet, I will call you when it starts.”

“Ok,” I hang up.

I walk into the kitchen and pour myself a vodka with soda and go out onto my balcony and light a cigarette. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I need to calm my nerves. I’m a walking cot case.

I pace up and down my balcony for another forty minutes with my stomach in my throat. What if Joshua actually hurts Jesten? What if Jesten hurts Joshua? No, that won’t happen, Joshua is too strong. Maybe I should have gone. Shit, this is total bullshit. I dial the number again.

“Hello,” Abbie answers.

“What’s happening?”

“I think they are next,” she replies.

“Oh shit.” My heart starts to thump.

“Hey, did you know that Bridget likes Ben?” she asks.

I frown. “Who told you that?”

“Cameron and Murph.”

“Huh?”

“Apparently they ring each other all the time.”

I screw my face up as I hold my hand in the air. “What?”

“I know that’s what I said and now she is sitting with him and they are giggling and flirting and shit.”

I shake my head as I listen to this story. “Are you serious?”

“Totally, oh here they come. I will call you back,” she yells over the noisy crowd.

Oh my god, oh my god. I pace through my apartment with my hands on my head.

Twenty minutes later my phone rings. I snatch it from the table. “Hello.”

“Ok, so.”

My eyes widen. “So what.”