“Please Brett, for me, leave it alone.” If she wasn’t here, I would probably end the fuck, but she’s a woman with feelings. Begging me for the life of the piece a shit that accosted her.
“Give me your phone, you didn’t turn it all the way off by the way, that’s how I knew this asshole was hassling you.”
I searched through her phone for her dad’s number and hit dial. “Chief, no this isn’t Laurie, it’s Brett Cantone.”
“Laurie, the boys...”
“No nothing like that. I need someone down here at the restaurant where she works, her boss just tried to molest her, we’re pressing charges.”
She looked like she wanted to argue but I quieted her with a look and a kiss to her brow. I’m not the type to let shit like this slide. “It’s jail or a wheelchair, choose your pick, but we’re not sweeping this shit under the rug.”
I’d just dealt with some bullshit of my own, where a female employee, out to make a quick buck, tried to get me for sexual harassment.
When she couldn’t get me to fall for that one, she upped the stakes and tried to set me up for date rape. All unbeknownst to me, who just thought I had an overzealous intern on my hands.
Thank fuck I didn’t have any interest in her and was never really alone with her, or who knows what might’ve happened.
That’s how I knew that this thing with Laurie was real.
When I met her, I was not in a place where love and relationships were high on my list of priorities. In fact, I was pretty much over the female of the species if I remember correctly.
“Someone will be here soon.” We ended up spending all day with that shit because the asshole wanted to press charges for getting the fuck knocked out of his ass.
I didn’t give a shit, but my future father in law had a little talk with him that seemed to change his mind.
“We barely have enough time to pick up the boys, we’ll order in tonight, you’ve had a long day.”
My adrenaline was still pumping and I knew we still had another round to go, might as well get it over and done with. After today I wasn’t leaving anything up to chance.
“You know what this means don’t you? You’re not going back there.”
“Brett don’t start that again, he’s only one of the managers, the others are nothing like him.”
I checked my watch real quick before pulling over to the side. I had six minutes to kill.
“I listened to that fucker manhandling you, it took me more than five minutes to fucking get to you, you really think I’m gonna let you go back there?
“It’s my job Brett.”
“Fuck this bullshit Laurie; I can buy that place a hundred times over, you don’t need to work much less in a place where you were fucking molested.
You know I can take care of you and the boys, you also know that I’m in love with you, if you’d stop being scared long enough to accept it. Think about this shit from my side. Do you really expect me to let you do this shit?”
She didn’t say anything, just played with her nails and stared out the window. I wasn’t sure if she was thinking over my words or not, but it didn’t matter, she had lost all argument when that fucker put hands on her. She’d be lucky if I let her out the fucking house again.
“Time’s up, we gotta go get the boys.” Was it fair that I was using this fucked up situation to my advantage? Probably not, but hey, she wants to play tough, I’ll use whatever the fuck I got.
I didn’t let her sulk like she wanted to when we were at home. Instead I dragged her into every conversation I had with the boys.
After dinner I gave them their baths and left her to get them dressed for bed, because I had one more thing I needed to take care of before the day was done.
“Chief, it’s me again. Do you know where I can find this Jonathan kid?”
“Why would you be wanting to do that son?”
“I want the boys, I need to meet with him and see how I can make that happen.”
“Well now, his name isn’t on their birth certificates.”
“It isn’t?”
“Nope, she was steamed at him for running off, so she didn’t acknowledge him.”
“Hmm, that’s good, but he still knows that they’re his and I’d just as soon take care of this now.”
“Sure I know where he is, but I still don’t see the rush, didn’t you and my daughter just meet?”
“Listen, I know you ran me, so you know that in the not too distant future I’m going to put a ring on your daughter’s hand whether she wants me to or not.”
“Uh, how does that work son?”
“Let’s just say we’re working on two different timetables, mine’s a little faster but not to worry, I have no doubt she’d catch up.”