Helena Hunting: Cracks in the Armor

“Thanks for fixing this for me,” he said as I rifled through the box of games.

Everything was outdated, but there were still some cool games. I put in the original version of Call of Duty and we faced off against each other.

It was good to hang with the guys. Not that I didn’t like chilling with Lisa and Tenley, but being a fifth wheel gave me some perspective on how Hayden must have felt when Tenley was gone.

Between classes and work, Sarah was rarely available these days. She kept saying it would get easier once her internship started, but the way I saw it, it would only get worse.

Right now she had occasional downtime. The internship meant she’d be working five days a week, plus pulling shifts at The Sanctuary. I’d been against her working there, but she said bartending wasn’t lucrative enough.

Besides that, I wanted to punch out her boss. He’d instated a rule that meant I wasn’t allowed in when she was working. He said I couldn’t be objective, and it impaired Sarah’s ability to do her job properly. Jamie and Hayden both agreed. But how could I be objective, when the fucknut told me he’d watch out for her personally? While staring at her chest.

Three rounds in, the TV let out a beep. A message appeared at the bottom of the screen indicating Tenley and “guest” had entered the house.

“Ah, man, that’s wicked,” Hayden said.

“I can make it so it recognizes all of us.”

“Yeah?”

“For sure. I’ll do it next time I come over.”

Hayden’s excitement over the prospect gave me the opportunity to take him down. I shot his player in the head, splattering digital brain matter all over the screen.

“Eat it, Stryker!” I shouted.

Female chatter came to an abrupt halt. Hayden’s attention moved from the screen, where his player lay in a pool of blood while mine loaded his body with a spray of lead.

“Hey, kitten, how was the juice bar?” The smile on his face fell as the drink in Tee’s hand slipped out of her fingers and hit the floor.

Thick pink liquid splattered up her shin and spread in a pool at her bare foot. Tee’s eyes were trained on the screen, wide and confused.

“Kitten?” He dropped his controller.

Her panicked gaze shifted slowly to Hayden, oblivious of Lisa’s hand as it came down on her shoulder. The tremor in Tee’s body was visible from across the room. “Where did you get that game?”

“Chris found the Xbox in your office. I thought it’d be okay to hook it up—”

“Why are you playing that?” she asked. “ How can you play that?”

“Shit,” Jamie muttered.

“It’s just a game, kitten—”

“That was Connor’s,” she said, eyes shifting back to the screen, the gruesome 3D scene replaying over and over. “All of those were his. I was going to give them away.”

“Turn it off,” Hayden barked over his shoulder.

I fumbled with the remote. Whatever was about to go down wasn’t good. The entire room hummed with energy, none of it positive. I hit the Off switch to shut down the game and the satellite station came on, showing a gangster rap video with some chick’s mostly bare ass shaking on the screen. It would have been hilarious if the timing wasn’t so poor.

“Seriously?” Lisa shot me a look.

“Shut it the fuck off,” Hayden said in that eerily calm way of his.

I hit the right button this time and the screen went blissfully blank. The silence that followed was painful. Tee put out a hand to stop Hayden as he advanced on her, but he ignored it. Skirting around the mess on the floor, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth.

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry, kitten. I should have realized—we’ll get rid of it,” he murmured, pulling her close.

His arms went around her, and she stood there stiffly while he continued to talk, his voice low so none of us could hear. It took only a few seconds before she relaxed against him, her palms coming up to rest on his shoulders, her fingers curling around and gripping hard. Jamie elbowed me in the side and inclined his head toward the kitchen. I followed him, giving Hayden and Tee the privacy they needed. As we passed, Lisa’s fingers trailed over the back of Hayden’s hand before she stepped away. His eyes lifted. She didn’t say anything, just gave him a look that spoke of apology even though she’d done nothing wrong.

We put on our shoes in silence. It wasn’t until we were through the garage and outside into the crisp night that any of us finally spoke.

“H is going to be so pissed at me tomorrow.”

“It’ll be fine.” Lisa patted my arm in assurance.

“Like hell. Did you see Tee?”

“It’ll be fine,” she repeated.

“I don’t know. Maybe—” I turned around and considered going back to take the heat off Hayden. If I explained about it being my idea, maybe I’d get him off the hook.

Lisa caught my arm. “Don’t even think about it. Those two are working things out the best way they know how. They don’t need anyone interrupting.”

The photographs on their bedroom wall came to mind. “Good call.”

We piled into the car. As we headed toward my apartment I checked my phone again. Sarah still hadn’t responded; but then, she kept her phone in her locker when she was working. The Sanctuary dress code for waitresses was pretty explicit: the less she wore, the better the tips. There weren’t a whole lot of places for her to store a phone when she was on the floor.

“Can we stop at The Sanctuary on the way?” I asked.

Jamie glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “I thought we talked about that.”

“I’m just gonna leave a key for Sarah. In case she wants to come by later.”

“I don’t know why you don’t just give her one,” Lisa said from the passenger seat.

What Lisa didn’t realize was that I’d given Sarah a key plenty of times. She’d just never kept it. I figured it’d make things a shit ton easier if she had one. Otherwise, she had to call before she came over, or I had to drop one off so she could let herself in when she worked late, which was typical of her shifts at The Sanctuary. But every time I handed one over, it ended up on my counter before she left. I’d never told her explicitly to keep it; I thought it was implied. And now it had become this thing I didn’t have the balls to address. Because if she didn’t want a key, it confirmed what I didn’t want to know: that she wasn’t as into me as I was into her.

Jamie pulled into The Sanctuary lot and went around the back where staff parked. No one was manning the back doors. I didn’t like it. Someone should have been posted there to watch out for the girls when they were coming and going. Annoyed by the slack security, I headed for Sarah’s car. As expected, she’d left it unlocked.

When I’d mentioned it to her before, she’d said the car was a beater and she didn’t keep anything important in there, so locking it was pointless.

I slid my apartment key under the front seat and locked all the doors before I got back into Jamie’s car. I fired off another text to Sarah as Jamie drove the short distance to my apartment. Lisa was quiet—either because of what had happened at Hayden’s or because we had stopped by The Sanctuary, I couldn’t be sure, but I felt bad either way. I got why she didn’t like the place.

Things had been different between Sarah and me since she started working at the club. We were stalled in some kind of limbo; not moving forward, treading water. It made me feel shitty. Especially since Hayden and Jamie were so happy most of the time. Still, I was reluctant to say anything to Sarah about it. I didn’t want to lose the one good thing I had because I wanted something different out of it than she did.