What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 9

Bennett

This shit, right here, is exactly what I shouldn’t be doing in Red Bridge. I back away from the asshole on the floor and cross my hands behind my head as the possible consequences of my actions spin through my mind.

They’re not good, but fuck, the consequences of not doing something weren’t exactly good either. With the way he had his hands on her when I first saw them through the window, I doubt it would have ended there.

“Norah? Are you okay?” Josie fusses, having just arrived to the chaos a minute ago, holding two jugs of milk.

“Y-yeah,” Norah answers, but her voice is weak and barely a whisper. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not fucking fine!” the bastard on the floor shouts. “He assaulted me!”

“Bennett?” Josie looks at me, and my chest tightens. Fuck, I shouldn’t be involved in this shit.

“He punched me!” The asshole holds his nose while blood drips from both nostrils. It’s already made a path down the front of his white shirt, and his hands are coated from trying to wipe the excess from his face. “I want to file a report. And I need someone to get ahold of my lawyer.”

“Hold on. Let’s all take a minute to calm down. What’s your name, son?” Sheriff Pete Peeler asks and pulls a small notebook from the front pocket of his uniform shirt.

“Thomas Conrad Michael King III.”

Of course that’s his fucking name.

“Okay, Mr. King.” The sheriff jots something down on the first blank page in his notebook. “Let’s all talk this out, okay? Ben? Let’s talk this out.”

“Home health leaves in an hour,” I remind Pete, and my words make guilt sit heavy in my stomach. Even though it felt like I had no choice, I shouldn’t be involved in this. I should be heading home.

“I know, Ben.” His answer is soft, and his face is full of contemplation before turning back to the douche with the bloodied nose and the name that sounds like he was born with a gold-fucking-spoon in his mouth. “You got any witnesses to this alleged assault?”

“Witnesses? Are you fucking kidding me?” He scoffs. “The fact that he broke my nose is all the proof you need.”

“Yeah, but how do I know you didn’t fall or something?” Sheriff Peeler questions, and if I weren’t so busy with the anger and guilt racing through my head, I’d take the time to be impressed with the way he manages to keep his face stone-cold neutral. “People fall all the time and break their noses.”

“Are you serious right now?” the prick questions, his outrage evident in his widened eyes, but Pete ignores him and looks at Norah.

“Miss Norah, did you see what happened?”

“I…I…don’t know,” Norah says softly, the evidence of full-blown shock visible all over her petite body. Anger fires in the pit of my stomach, almost as though Norah Ellis is an arsonist herself. I swallow hard to smother the flames.

“I wasn’t here,” Josie states and steps up beside her sister to wrap a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I have no idea what happened. I was at Earl’s getting milk.”

“I came to get you,” Mayor Wallace defers, his hands up innocently.

Instead of questioning me, which I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to do, the sheriff offers the man on the floor a shrug. “Sorry, son. I can’t file a report if there’re no witnesses.”

“What?” the asshole shouts and gets up from the floor on two shaky feet. “What kind of cop are you?”

“I’m the sheriff of this town.”

“Tell him what happened, Norah.” The douche’s eyes are on her now, but she doesn’t say anything—to be honest, I don’t think she can as she takes a few steps back to get distance from him. She’s a hollow shell of the talkative pain in the ass I’ve been suffocated by since she got here. I hate that it spurs an uncomfortable twinge inside my chest.

“You’re such a fucking bitch!” the dick shouts at a volume so violent Norah flinches in Josie’s arms. Instantly, the flames are back, expanding at a rapid-fire pace, and within a millisecond, I’m completely overtaken.

I punch him. Again.

The crack of my knuckles against his jawbone reverberates off the walls of the coffee shop, and Josie’s voice is the next thing that fills my ears.

“Holy shit! Bennett!” she shouts as the man named Thomas stumbles back to the floor.

“Son of a nutcracker, Benny,” Sheriff Peeler laments and looks directly at me, but he doesn’t need to say anything else because his eyes are doing all the talking for him.

I just made him a witness. All of them, really.

So much for no report.

I am officially, irrevocably involved.