The Stranger, Mark Ayre [microsoft ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Then Jess bent double and wheezed with pain.

In a shot, Eddie was across the room, his arm around his wife, leaning down to put his head beside hers.

“Baby, baby, are you okay? Is little one okay?”

Abbie closed her eyes. Could hear the baby’s cries in the distance and had to take deep breaths to combat the ghostly sounds.

The front door was still open. As Eddie directed his wife to the sofa, Abbie had to fight the urge to bolt into the street, into the night, and away from this town. Not an option. Summoning all the strength she could muster, Abbie took the door and pushed it closed.

Jess was back on the sofa, Eddie at her side. She had a hand on her belly and was taking deep breaths. He put a hand over hers, but she knocked him away.

“I’m fine, idiot,” she snapped. “Baby’s kicking, and I overexerted myself trying to reach your little slut of a mistress.”

“She’s not my mistress.”

“Oh, whatever, Edward.”

“Not a slut, either,” Abbie added, then took a step back when they both shot daggers her way. “Don’t worry, you weren’t to know. Just an FYI.”

“Danny did this?” Jess said, gesturing to Eddie’s face. She got a nod in response. “That shit. Why do you let him keep taking? You bail him out time and again, and for what? A bloody nose and a pissed off pregnant wife. Where is he now?”

Eddie glanced at his wife’s round tummy. Maybe he feared she would, upon discovering Danny’s location, go give Eddie’s little brother a piece of her mind. In doing so, she could easily do herself, and the baby, a mischief.

From her tummy, he looked to her eyes. There was no saying no to anger like that.

“He wanted to go home, but it’s not safe. Abbie saw us fighting and stopped Danny kicking in my skull. She’s letting him use her hotel room. I said she could stay in our spare.”

“Abbie sounds like a saint,” said Jess, looking to the subject of her sentence as she spoke.

When attacked, verbally or physically, directly or via passive-aggressive sarcasm, Abbie was used to reacting, to fighting back. Because she needed Eddie’s trust and because she didn’t feel quite herself, she gave Jess a pass.

There was a silence. Then Jess shook her head and pinched her husband’s arm.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked.

“What?”

“The spare bed isn’t going to make itself. And I’m sure our guest would like to sleep at some point tonight.”

Jess put a little too much emphasis on the word sleep. Eddie looked uncomfortable.

“Sweetie, you know I’m not sleeping with her. I mean for God’s sake, I wouldn’t—“

“Bring her here? Yes, even you’re not that stupid.”

“Right, but I wouldn’t—“

“Just go and make the bed, Eddie.”

Before Eddie could say anything further, Jess had gripped his shoulder and shoved, pushing herself to feet and making her husband wince. Once she was up, Jess turned and pointed to the stairs. Eddie still looked unsure.

“Go on,” she said. “I’ll make our guest a drink. Just wash up before you start, won’t you? I’m sure Abbie doesn’t want to sleep on sheets caked in blood.”

Jess turned away, making it clear the conversation was over. At least on this topic. At least for now. She turned to Abbie and gestured through an arch to the kitchen/diner.

“Shall we?”

“I bet it’s cold out there. Water won’t cut it. How about hot chocolate? I love a hot chocolate on a cold evening.”

Abbie would have liked a whiskey. As Jess held up a purple container of chocolate powder, she forced a smile and said, “Sounds nice.”

The kitchen/diner was a decent size. An island separated the two with a basic wooden table on one side and the kitchen appliances on the other. Abbie wanted to sit, but Jess hadn’t offered a seat, so she instead passed the island and stood out of the way in the kitchen, by the sink.

She said, “I want you to know I have no interest in your husband.” This wasn’t strictly true. Abbie had a great interest in Eddie. Just not a sexual one. For now, that was all that mattered.

Jess did a half-turn, frowned as though unsure what Abbie was saying, then turned back to the hot chocolate with a laugh and a wave.

“No, of course not. And if you were having an affair, Ed would never bring you here while I was home. He was right about that. Bound to happen eventually, I suppose.”

Opening the fridge, Jess withdrew the milk and poured some into a pan. She placed the pan on the hob, turned on the flame, and went to the cupboard to grab a couple of mugs.

“It’s the baby,” she said, returning to the stove. “It’s in your womb, kicking your bladder and your kidneys and whatever else, but it also takes over your mind. Like a parasite. Which I suppose is technically what it is. It makes you crazy, pulls your emotions this way and that. Makes you paranoid. I never would have reacted to your arrival like that pre-pregnancy. I promise. What did I call you? A skank?”

“A slut,” correct Abbie.

“Oh, that’s awful, isn’t it?” said Jess, as though someone else had delivered the slur. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Duck’s back,” said Abbie.

“What? Oh, like water off a. Clever.”

Abbie wasn’t sure it was clever but didn’t pass comment. The milk began bubbling in the pan. Jess poured powdered chocolate into the mugs then killed the hob’s flame. With swiftness but care, she poured the milk into the mugs, then turned to Abbie, twisting the pan so the end of the handle was exposed.

“Put that in the sink, would you?”

As Abbie performed the task, Jess said, “I still don’t trust you, mind.”

Releasing the pan, Abbie turned back to Jess. “Nor would I expect you to.”

“Course not,” Jess said, removing a teaspoon from a drawer and stirring the first cup of steaming chocolate. “What kind of woman puts