I looked at the table laden with enough food for a small army and couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. How many men had they invited to compete for their daughter's attention?
"I'll get it," Vivienne said tightly, heading back inside.
"So, Julian," Danny said, moving closer with the territorial confidence of someone who thought he had home field advantage. "What brings you to town?"
"I'm here with Vivienne," I said simply, watching his expression shift as he processed the implication.
"With Vivienne?" Steve echoed, frowning. "Like... together?"
Before I could answer, I heard a sharp squawk of indignation from inside the house, followed by Vivienne's voice saying firmly, "Let me go."
I was already moving toward the back door when it opened and a man I didn't recognize stepped outside. He was older, maybe fifty, with the build of someone who worked with his hands and the expression of someone accustomed to taking charge.
"Tom," he said, addressing Vivienne's father, "Could I have a word with you inside?"
Vivienne appeared in the doorway behind him, her face flushed with frustration and something that looked like embarrassment. She caught my eye and moved quickly to my side.
"Everything alright?" I asked quietly.
"Just a small misunderstanding," she said, but her voice was tight with controlled emotion.
Tom disappeared inside, leaving us on the deck with Danny, Steve, and Linda, who was wringing her hands and clearly trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.
"Well," Linda said with forced brightness, "Isn't this nice? Everyone getting to know each other."
Before anyone could respond, two more men emerged from the house—both younger, both with the kind of swagger that suggested they'd been drinking. They ignored Vivienne and me entirely, heading straight for the other men with the easy familiarity of old friends. Their whispered conversation was too low for me to hear.
Tom's head appeared in the doorway. "Vivienne, Linda, could you come inside for a moment?"
Vivienne pressed a quick kiss to my cheek before following her mother into the house, leaving me alone on the deck with four men who were looking at me with expressions that had shifted from curious to hostile.
The door slid shut behind them, and the two newcomers turned their full attention to me.
"So you're the boyfriend," the taller one said, crossing his arms. "I'm Mike, this is Brad. We don't take kindly to men who hurt women."
"Excuse me?" I said carefully.
"The black eye," Danny said, pointing at the house. "Tom mentioned she's got a bruise on her hip too. That's not an accident."
I felt my stomach drop as I realized what was happening. They'd seen Vivienne's injuries and drawn the obvious conclusion—that I was an abuser, that she was covering for me, that they needed to protect her.
"This is a misunderstanding," I said calmly, raising my gloved hands in a peaceful gesture. "Those injuries were completely accidental. I can explain—"
"Save it," Brad interrupted. "We've heard that story before. Men like you always have explanations."
I looked around the deck, taking in their positions, their body language, the way they'd spread out to surround me in a semicircle. Four against one, and they'd already made up their minds about what kind of man I was.
"Do you really think," I said, keeping my voice level, "That someone like Vivienne would stay with a man who abused her? Do you think her parents would invite me to their home if they thought I was dangerous?"
"Abused women make excuses," Mike said,stepping closer. "And parents don't always see what they should see."
I could see this was going nowhere. They'd decided I was guilty, and nothing I said was going to change their minds. The smart thing would be to wait for Vivienne to come back out, to let her explain what had really happened.
But the way they were looking at me, the certainty in their voices that I was something I'd spent my entire adult life trying not to be—it triggered something primal in my chest.
The back door slid open, and Vivienne's voice cut through the tension. "Julian, run!"
I could see her parents restraining her gently but firmly, preventing her from coming outside. She wasn't struggling hard—she wouldn't hurt them—but her eyes were wide with fear as she watched the scene unfold.
