The Fragile Ordinary

“She’s sixteen.”

“And?”

“She’s walking out of here without you hassling her, Dean.”

I peered around Dean to see his face had darkened with fury. He stepped into Tobias, shoulders thrown back, his chest puffed out and his fists clenched, ready for a fight. “Do ye realize who yer talking to, wee boy? I’m not just some pissy wee wanker at yer high school ye can boss around because yer a big guy. Ye mess with me and I can end ye, right.”

There was something about the malicious gleam in his eyes, the air of invincibility he gave off, that made me believe him. What the hell had I walked into? What were Stevie and Tobias involved in?

Nausea swam over me, and I clutched Tobias’s shoulder to stop myself from vomiting my anxiety all over Dean’s peeling linoleum floor.

Tobias tensed. “Just let her go, Dean,” he said more softly now.

Dean shook his head. “I’m king here, not you. Ye want her, ye get the fuck out of here with her...and I swear, Tobias, if I ever see yer ugly face around me again, I’ll give you a kicking in ye won’t wake up from. Understood?”

To my disbelief, Tobias hesitated.

But only for a second.

He gave a short, jerky nod, turned around and, without looking at me, gripped my biceps in his arm and forcefully led me out of the flat.

“What about Stevie?” I yelled over the music.

Tobias ignored me.

“Tobias!”

“He doesn’t want to leave. Come on!”

“You don’t need to drag me! I’m coming willingly!”

Yet Tobias didn’t let me go. Even when we met Vicki halfway down the stairs and she let out a huge exhale of relief, he didn’t let go.

“I thought I was going to have to call the police or something,” Vicki chattered nervously as we all hurried down the graffiti-covered stairwell. “What happened in there?”

“I...” actually don’t really know. “Tobias?”

He didn’t say anything. Not until we were outside and he finally let me go. “What the hell, Comet?”

I flinched under the force of his anger. “What?”

“What were you doing here?”

“It was my fault.” Vicki grabbed my hand in support. “I heard about the party and dragged her here.”

“You didn’t drag me here.” I shook my head, not willing to let her take the blame. “I came because I heard you’d be here. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” My own anger overwhelmed me now that we were safe from the clutches of Dean. “Because you and Stevie are taking drugs? Cocaine, Tobias!”

“Jesus Christ, keep your voice down,” he hissed, glancing around the darkened streets. There were a number of streetlights out in this neighborhood. I had to wonder what kind of place it was if none of the neighbors would complain about the awful noise coming from Dean’s flat.

Or maybe...they were just afraid of him.

“What is Dean involved in? What are you involved in?”

“I’m not taking drugs,” he said forcefully. “Now let’s go. I’ll walk you both home.”

“Tobias.”

“Comet, move!”

I glared at him but began to stride forward. “You’re not the boss of me, Tobias King.”

“Now you get sassy? Shit,” he muttered, his long legs eating up the ground ahead of us.

Vicki clung to me as we hurried to keep up with him. “Thank you.” I gripped her hand tightly. “For staying.”

She gave me a small, sad smile. “I know things have been weird between us until recently but I still love you.”

“I love you, too. I’m sorry. About everything.”

“Me, too.”

Tobias threw us an exasperated look over his shoulder, and we kept quiet the rest of the long walk home. When I tried to ask questions he ignored them until I was wound so tight with worry and anger I thought I might just explode.

Vicki led us to her house from Main Street. She hugged me before going inside and said, “Come around mine tomorrow. Please?”

I nodded. “Definitely.” We had a lot to talk about. A lot to put right in our friendship. Despite the horrendousness of our evening, something positive had come of it. It could lead to Vicki and I being closer than ever.

Once she was safely inside, Tobias fell into step with me while we walked toward my house. Too angry to speak, I stewed in silence.

As we approached the esplanade, Tobias touched my elbow and drew me to a stop. I stared up at him, a million questions in my eyes. Yet instead of answering any of them, he did the one thing I didn’t expect. He lifted a hand and pressed his cold fingers to my cheek, brushing the tips across my cheekbone. That light, tender touch and the stirring emotion in his gaze sent a shiver down my spine.

“Tobias?”

He blinked and dropped his hand, shoving it back in the pocket of his jacket. “You scared me tonight, Comet.”

Disbelief cascaded over me. “I did? Me? I scared you? Tobias, I saw Stevie snort a line of cocaine! And when I tried to find you, I was accosted by some idiot who threatened to kill you and made it sound like he could actually do it!”

“He probably could.” He scrubbed a hand over his hair and bit out a curse.

“What is going on? Please, tell me.”

He studied me a moment and eventually sighed. “Can we go back to yours?”

Like Kyle and Carrie would even notice. “Of course.”

By the time we got to the house and I let us into my bedroom, I was a jittering wreck. Massive waves of nervous energy were emanating from Tobias, making me worse. He was rarely nervous about anything. Once inside my room, I waited impatiently as Tobias slumped down on my bed, elbows on knees, head in hands.

I shrugged out of my jacket and unwound my scarf. Still waiting.

“Comet,” he huffed, not looking up. “Sit down, okay, you’re making me nervous.”

“You’re making me nervous.” I sat on the armchair across from him. “You and Stevie didn’t kill someone, did you? Did Dean dispose of the body for you and now he’s blackmailing you?”

Tobias’s broad shoulders shook and he lifted his head to stare at me with amusement tinged with sadness. “You’ve got to stop reading so many books.”

“Never.”

He smiled at me, his look so tender that I squirmed with the need to shoot across the room and throw my arms around him. Instead I met his gaze and asked directly, “What happened back there?”

“I just chose you over Stevie,” he said.

I swear my eyebrows must have hit my hairline at this pronouncement. “What?”

“Stevie and some of the guys have been hanging around Dean more and more. Dean is a dealer. And he’s part of something bigger—we’re talking an adult-sized, criminal gang who deal drugs and steal cars for a living. Dean deals cocaine to kids. Blair Lochrie High School is one of his grounds. He sells to quite a few kids there.”

At our high school?

Class A drugs at our high school?

“Bloody hell,” I whispered. “Where have I been?”

“Where I prefer you—safe with your nose stuck in a book.”

“Tobias... Stevie?”

Hearing the worry in my voice, he winced. “I tried, Com. I tried to keep him out of it, but he’s so messed up and I couldn’t stop him. I hung around to make sure he was okay.”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” God, please let that be why he was avoiding me.

“Yes.” A million apologies swirled in his gorgeous eyes. “I didn’t mean for Stevie to find out about you, because I didn’t want you anywhere near the stuff he was getting involved in. But then you two got along, so well I thought you might...have feelings for each other, so I told him that he either stopped hanging around Dean or he stopped hanging around you. He agreed keeping you out of that stuff, away from the boys, was better for you. So we stopped coming around as much and then stopped coming around at all. Tonight was his initiation into Dean’s crew. It was supposed to be both our initiations, I guess, because Dean was sending Stevie to some other party with drugs, and I was following Stevie as backup. Now I’m not.”