Page 46 of Anxious Hearts

‘I said, get the hell out of my cafe. We don’t serve cowards who abuse the staff.’

Finn drew his shoulders back and bared his teeth.

Oh, fuck, Kelly thought. She looked around. Everyone was watching them now. One young man had taken his phone out to film the show.

‘Finn!’ Kelly hissed. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

Finn turned to Kelly. She nodded at the guy filming the exchange.

It was a mistake. Finn advanced on him. The man stood up and backed away from his chair but wouldn’t put the phone down.

Despite her concern for Finn and the panic that was kindling inside her, Kelly had a moment to feel utter disdain for the amateur cameraman.

She could almost see the dollar signs in his eyes as he refused to drop his weapon.

The more Finn reacted, the juicier the footage.

She knew that brutal equation from personal experience and knew she had to act before this spiralled completely out of control.

She moved fast, ducking between Finn and the cameraman. She gave the man her brightest smile and it momentarily stunned him into inaction. In that vulnerable second, Kelly whipped her arm out and snatched his phone away.

She turned to Finn. ‘Run!’ she barked.

Finn hesitated but, even in his drug-addled state, managed a second of comprehension and darted away. Kelly turned on her heel, eyes on the phone in her hand, navigating to the door by instinct.

‘Give me my fucking phone,’ the young man yelled.

Kelly deftly flicked her thumbs, deleting the video, then emptying the trash so it was erased forever.

She threw the phone in an arc over her head but didn’t look back to see if the action had its desired effect: slowing down their pursuer.

Instead, she focused on the woman one table from the door, who was pulling her own phone out of her purse.

Kelly reached her just as she raised it to begin filming.

She zigzagged to the side to stay out of shot and, as she passed, slapped the phone out of the woman’s hand, sending the device crashing into the cafe window and then to the floor.

Kelly fled through the exit and ran as fast and hard as she could for as long as she could until her lungs burned and her legs screamed in protest. Heaving for breath, she turned around and dropped to a squat, elbows on her knees, head in her hands.

She looked up to see if she’d been followed but there was nobody on this quiet back street.

Sweat mingled with the tears in her eyes and turned the world into a watery blur.

She blinked rapidly and then wiped away the confusion.

Stood up, regained enough breath to carry on and headed back to her apartment.

***

Finn was seriously out of shape. By the time he made it back to Kelly’s place, he was sweating profusely and struggling to breathe. It hadn’t been that far to run but it had been enough to completely exhaust him.

Kelly wasn’t back yet so he used his key, which he had never taken off his key ring, to let himself in.

He stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

He looked absolutely bloody dreadful. Sickly pale, sweating, hollowed-out cheeks and eye sockets.

He spent as little time looking at himself as possible these days.

It didn’t matter once he sat in the makeup chair.

They always restored him to health for the screen.

Finn drew two bags out of his jeans pocket.

One contained a small quantity of white powder; the other, half-a-dozen pills.

Finn stared at them. What will I need for Kelly’s return?

Up or down? Fight or flight? He remembered what she was like at the cafe, eviscerating him with her eyes, commanding him with her tongue.

It was a simple choice in the end. To go up against a power-house like Kelly, you needed to be at least ten feet tall.

He opened the bag, carefully prepared two lines on Kelly’s bathroom counter and lined up his nostril with the specially designed metal straw, ready to suck in the powder.

He placed his thumb over his unoccupied nostril, drew hard on the other and ran the straw along the line.

His head filled with a million bees, darting around inside his skull.

Once the buzz in his brain calmed enough to focus, he lined the straw up along the second line and repeated the movement.

Only his time, when he made it to the end of the line, it wasn’t the sound of bees’ wings that rang loudly in his ears. It was Kelly’s voice.

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ she cried. ‘Doing that shit in my home ? Do you have any respect for anyone but yourself? What the fuck, Finn?’

Finn stood up and saw the little pocket rocket in the mirror.

She was absolutely primed to explode. Her cheeks were red, her hands bunched into fists on her hips, her nipples poking through her light cotton T-shirt.

Finn had always known Kelly was hot. Of course he had.

But when she stood there like that, so worked up and passionate and alive – well, fuck – she was the most desirable woman on earth.

‘You are so fucking hot,’ he said to her reflection. And then he burst into laughter, because it was all so funny. And he felt invincible and commanding and – well, fuck – he felt incredibly bloody horny now as well.

Kelly’s look of utter disgust only served to make Finn laugh even more. She was adorable. Like a puppy full of rage but unable to do anything about it while still being unbearably cute.

‘Get the fuck out of my apartment and do not come back until you’re clean and sober.’

Finn turned to face her. ‘Oh, come on, Kel. Don’t be like that. We’re the warriors, remember?’

Kelly shook her head. ‘I’m a warrior, Finn. You’re nothing but a fucking coward.’

But her words deflected right off him. He was untouchable. She was growing boring now.

Finn walked past her, careful to deliberately brush her arm with his own just in case it might stir her into action. She shuddered and that made him laugh. Because why the fuck not? Why the fuck not laugh? It’s better than fucking killing yourself.

Finn stopped at the door. He slowly and deliberately unwound Kelly’s apartment key from his key ring.

He held it up to her in a mock solemn salute.

‘The key to your door and to my heart,’ he said grandly, before tossing it across the room to her.

She didn’t move a muscle, just let the key land softly on the carpet.

All the while, she stared at Finn with unfiltered rage and contempt.

Fuck, she looked funny like that. Finn giggled as he left, shaking his head at his feisty little friend. He was sorry he had to leave. But maybe Ashley would be up for a reconciliation.

He forgot about Kelly almost immediately and began to imagine the way Ashley would welcome him back when he knocked on her door. It put an extra spring in his already buoyant step.