Colt added with a condescending scoff, “Didn’t think so.”
I felt the comment sting. Colt had designed it to land in a way Travis couldn’t ignore.
Like clockwork, Travis’s right shoulder coiled, and his elbow flared. The punch cut a tight shape through the rain as the crest of Travis’s class ring cracked against Colt’s cheek.
Metal on bone.
Colt’s head snapped to the right and his teeth clicked. He stumbled back and staggered as his heel shaved a small strip from the faded tread of my old stairs.
A thin cut opened where Travis’s ring had sliced Colt’s cheek. Blood beaded, then threaded along Colt’s jaw toward his collar.
My camera caught the entire arc without a stutter. Colt stayed in the exact same position he’d been in, shoulders down, hands open. He took a beating like a weathered post.
“Hold,” I said, for the record, loud enough my camera could hear it. “Do not hit him back. Stay in the camera’s frame.”
Colt obeyed in a way that made heat curl inside my body, low and disloyal. His palms remained open, his breath quiet. His eyes on me, then back to the lens.
Travis rocked back and finally saw what the lens saw. Sixty seconds of footage that would write his future. Back to prison, and fast.
He spat in my direction as if he needed to leave a mark that would never matter and dragged his hood forward as if he still had time to hide his face or conceal his identity.
“Keep filming,” Travis growled. “See how far it gets you.”
But he had already turned to walk away. Wet hedge brushed his coat but let him pass untouched. Colt shifted slightly as Travis moved past him.
Travis’s footsteps found the sidewalk, then the street.
Moments later, he disappeared into the night.
Across the street my neighbor’s light stayed on. The figure behind the curtains didn’t bother to pretend not to watch.
“Stay,” I said to Colt, my voice slightly smaller. “Hands open.”
He obeyed without a flicker. His palms were visible, shoulders down. Blood traced his mouth like ink that hadn’t yetdried. The longer Colt held the line I’d drawn, the more the knot in my spine loosened.
Relief hit hard. The short video clip would travel faster than any excuse Travis could provide. Probation rules were strict: no contact, no violence.
He had given me both.
Colt had taken heat so I wouldn’t have to check every shadow that crossed my porch for the next year. He’d given me safety, packaged neatly and timestamped.
A choice I’d let happen; that wasn’t lost on me.
“Come inside,” I said before my brain agreed to say it.
Colt crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. He set his back against it as if he planned to hold the whole block there. Metal hummed and the house listened.
His fingers slid under my jaw and pointed me up to lock eyes with him. “Look at me.”
I did.
Colt’s mouth caught mine. Heat, mint. The floor tilted. He didn’t taste careful or hesitant. He tasted decided.
He guided me with his hands, swapping our positions so that I was backed against the door. The chain breathed; my silent answer did, too. Colt pressed his weight against me and eased me into the frame. Forearm beside my temple. No pin, no mercy. His chest sealed to mine, his weight translating through wood. My spine understood him before my brain ever caught up.
“Still,” I said, smaller than I’d meant to.
Colt stilled the way a storm goes calm. But it seemed temporary. As if he were paused, a loaded spring. I realized how much I wanted to feel it release.
