“Bodie!” we all shouted together.
He looked up, nonplussed.
“Cole?”
“Oh. Yeah. That.”
Shedding his jacket, he laid his glasses on his way into the kitchen. He returned with a beer, his heavy footfalls echoing loudly in the silence of our dismay.
“So I found him at the gym, just like you said,” Bodie began. “He was in the corner, working a heavy bag. Punching like there was no tomorrow.”
We were hanging on his every word. In the meantime, I began studying his face, looking for bumps or bruises, then inspected his hands, looking for cuts and scrapes. Somehow, everything was normal.
“So I go up to him, and the asshole doesn’t even stop punching. He doesn’t even look at me, he just keeps on hitting the bag.”
Carter scratched his chin. “He recognized you, right?”
“How could he not?”
“Alright, so then what happened?”
“I started talking, and immediately he pulls off his shirt. That’s when I figured he wanted to fight. I took a step back to get ready for him, and that’s when he hit me… in the face. With the sweaty shirt he’d just taken off.”
“Eww,” said Sawyer.
“Yeah,” Bodie agreed. “After that, he walks right past me, toward the locker room. So I follow him, and he whips around and demands to know if I want the shirt autographed. Because if I don’t, I need to ‘fuck off.’”
Carter and Sawyer looked at each other, then back at him.
“Are yousurehe recognized you?” I asked.
“Yes,” Bodie continued. “Because as soon as I mentioned your name, he pulled me off to the side. We ended up alone, in this little circuit training room no one was using. Cole was breathing heavy and fast, and not from hitting the bag either.” His gaze shifted to me. “He was totally enraged. Like the mere mention of you set him off.”
“Andthenthe two of you fought?” Sawyer pressed.
“No,” Bodie growled. “We didn’t fight. I told him he needed to leave Hayden the fuck alone, permanently. I also told him if he came anywhere near her again — or The Refuge — that things would end very, very badly for him.”
I looked again, but there still wasn’t a single mark on Bodie. I just couldn’t believe it. I knew Cole too well.
“Well?” Sawyer pressed. “What did Colonel Crunchtime say?”
“He didn’t say anything at first,” Bodie admitted. “Then he laughed, and told me it wouldn’t be a problem.”
All three of us were in shock. The ensuing silence was so absolute, you could hear a spider’s footsteps.
“Wait,what?”
“He said that he’s done with your drama, and your games,” Bodie went on.
“Mydrama!?” I huffed. “Mygames!?”
Bodie shifted, uncomfortably. All of a sudden he was unable to look me in the eye.
“He also said… well…”
My eyes narrowed, but he seemed to have stopped speaking.
“Go on,” I urged. “I can take it.”
