Eavesdropper

Beck POV I saw the car before she did. It was sitting in the driveway with rain beading on the hood, and the engine had been cold for hours. I watched her see it. She stopped on the porch with her key in the door, and her back went straight. Then she went inside. I should have pulled away. I had gotten her home dry, and I had gotten my number into her phone. That was more than I had any right to. The decent thing was to put the truck in gear. I cut the headlights instead. I only needed to know she was okay. That was all it was. She had never given me a reason to think he was that kind of man. In three weeks I hadn't seen her flinch, or caught fear on her skin, or found a mark that a dead branch hadn't put there. He ignored her. That was his crime, as far as I knew. But I had just watched a woman walk into a house at three in the morning, angrier than I had ever seen her, and I couldn't leave without knowing. I rolled the window down an inch. Rain came in. So did the house. The television was on low. Somebody was breathing slow and heavy on the couch. "Travis." Nothing. "Travis!" A grunt. The couch creaked. A bottle tipped over and rolled across the floor, and I knew what he had gone shopping for. "What? What time is it?" "It's three in the morning. You were supposed to pick me up." "Shit." He yawned. "I sat down for a second. I must have fallen asleep." "I called you three times." "My phone's in the kitchen. It's not a big deal, Lane. I fell asleep." "It's pouring. It's a mile, in the dark." "So how'd you get home?" "My boss drove me." I waited for that to matter to him. Another man had driven his woman home in the middle of the night. It should have mattered. "Okay. Well, good," he said. "So you got a ride. What's the problem?" My hand closed on the steering wheel until the leather creaked. "The problem is that you offered!" I sat up straighter. It was the first time I had ever heard her raise her voice. It wasn't a yell. It was barely above talking. But it had an edge on it, and it shook, and it was real. I hadn't known she had this in her. There you are, I thought. There you are, baby. Give him hell. "I didn't ask you for anything," she said. "I was going to take the car. You said you needed it. You said you would come and get me, and I believed you. I stood in that bar for forty minutes, calling you, and making up excuses for you, because I was too embarrassed to tell him you forgot." Him. That was me. She had been embarrassed in front of me. She had put on that bright voice and reached for the lock, ready to walk a mile in the rain, so I wouldn't know. I had almost let her. "Babe, I work all week," he said. "I'm on nights. I'm tired. I said I was sorry." "You didn't, actually." "What?" "You didn't say it. You said it wasn't a big deal." It went quiet. I listened to his heart. It was slow and thick with beer. He wasn't angry. He was just annoyed, like a man whose nap had been interrupted. I listened to hers, too. It was going hard, but there was no fear in it. She was only mad. That was my answer. She was okay. He wasn't going to lay a hand on her. He could barely get off the couch. I could go. "I'm sorry. Okay?" He blew out a breath. "Jesus, Lane. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?" It wasn't an apology. He wanted her to stop. Don't, I thought. Don't take it. Stay mad. You're allowed. I heard her breathe in. She held it. I could picture her face going smooth, the way it did behind my bar when somebody was rude to her. "Nothing," she said. Her voice was light again. "It's fine. Go to bed." "You coming?" "In a minute." He went. I listened to him climb the stairs, slow and heavy, and drop onto the mattress. He was snoring before she had moved. She stood in that living room for a long time. Then I heard the bottles. She picked them up one at a time, and they clinked all the way to the kitchen. The tap ran. I knew what she was pouring out. I sat in the dark with rain coming through the window and my jaw aching. I could have torn that door off. I could have walked in there and told her she never had to say it's fine again as long as she lived. I had no right to any of it. I was her boss. I had given her a ride. I reached for the key. The back door opened. I heard the hinge, and then the rain got louder, like she had stepped out under the edge of the roof. She didn't say anything for a moment. I heard her breathe in, and the breath caught halfway, and she had to start it again. "Hey, big guy." Her voice was thick. She was holding it steady the way she would hold a full tray, with everything she had, and it was shaking anyway. "Are you out there?" It cracked on the last word. She swallowed. I heard that too. She wasn't crying. She wasn't going to let herself. She had stood in front of that boy and said it's fine without a wobble, and she had saved this for an empty yard and a stray dog, because that was the only place she thought nobody would hear it. My hand came off the key. She was calling for me. She just didn't know it.