The Fighter's Block (8 page)

She sighed and answered,
“He said if I don’t come and get my stuff tomorrow, he’s
going to toss it all on the street
.
”

Van looked at her carefully. “Dani, I asked you twice about helping you get your things and you said it w
as all taken care of.
You mean it’s not? What about your friends that you were going to take with you when Brian was at work?”

She sighed. “It just…didn’t work out that way.
We’re all busy at different times.
”

“Then just let me help you. Why won’t you let me help?”

“I just…I don’t know. I don’t want there to be any problems.”

“There won’t be a
ny. I can take care of myself. A
nd after I grab a
couple
guys from down the hall, we’ll get it done it no time.
Don’t worry about it, okay?
” he said, taking her hand.
He kissed her wrist
, savoring a soft scent of vanilla.
“
Just let me know when it’s a good time
tomorrow
, and we’ll make it happen.”

His offer was sincere, and it made her feel grateful.
“
Thank you,” she told him. “Uh, i
t’s probably best to do it when he’s not home
, though
.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“But he doesn’t work on Sundays.”

Van slowly nodded his head. “Gotcha. So he just wants to get you over there. Dani…”

“I know, I know. This is why I just didn’t want to deal with it. But I can’t let him get rid of my things. I mean I don’t care about a lot of it
,
but there are some things that are really important to me that can’t be replaced.”

“I understand. So…give him
a
call, tell him you’ll be over in the morning, and
then
a few of us will
come and
help you haul stuff out. Will everything fit in my truck?”

She thought about it for a second and nodded her head. “
M
aybe.
I don’t really have that much because I sold most of the big stuff before I moved
in with him
.
I do have a couch and a recliner…a few smaller furnishin
gs… B
ut the rest of it can fit in boxes
.”

“And where can it all go?
”

“Uh, my sister said I can use one side of her garage for now. I’ll see what I can get to fit there first, and then decide.”

“I don’t really have too much room here, but you’re welcome to store what you can.”

Dani smiled but shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I think I need to just…keep it all together.

She meant that she wasn’t about to depend on anoth
er guy to house her things.
Van understood that,
and
he decided not to argue
.

Chapter Four

Brian was pretty pleased that Dani called him that night. She didn’t spend any time talking to him other than to say she was coming by in the morning to start boxing up her things. But he was glad he finally got her to call.
And
he was going to see her in the morning.  

She arrived at eight like she said she
would, but to Brian’s surprise
(and dismay),
she wasn’t alone.

“Just give me an hour to box things up and then I’ll get everything out of here,” she said to him on her way into the apartment
. She dropped
several flattened boxes on the floor, along with a roll of
packaging tape and some
trash bags.
Two other guys came in with her
and she pointed to the
gray
couch. “That’s mine,” she told them. And then she pointed to a recliner
and
an end table
and added, “And
those
, too.”

Cody and Paul picked up the couch without effort and worked to get it out the door.

Brian turned to Dani and said, “What the
fuck
are you doing?”

“What do you mean what am I doing? You told
me to get my stuff out of here.
”

“Dani, I wasn’t serious! You can’t just move out! And get them the hell out of my apartment!”

“What? How did you e
xpect me to get my stuff
? I surely couldn’t count on
you
to help me, so I had to enlist some
muscle
!”

And muscle was right
. Those two guys looked a little rough
, and Brian was leery.

Van e
ntered the apartment
after the guys shimmied the couch out
. Dani had asked him to give her a minute to talk to Brian first, but he couldn’t stay
in the hall
when he heard their voices rise. A
nd w
hen
Brian
saw him
,
he
was instantly caught off-guard
. He
stared
at him
for several seconds, trying to piece something together.

“What the fuck is this?” he growled at Dani.
She honestly brought
him
?

Van dropped his keys into his pocket
and didn’t acknowledge Brian at all. Since there was no way he was going to leave
Dani
alone in the apartment, he started putting boxes together for
her
while she packed them with books, music, and movies.

Brian was furious. He couldn’t exactly kick them out, so the only thing he decided to do was go to the bedroom and start tossing all of her clothes out of t
he closet. If she wanted to play this out a little longer
, then
he was more than willing to let her
.

When he was done with the closet, he moved on to the bathroom, dumping whatever was hers into
a
box
and tossing it with the pile of clothes. Eve
rything that he could find of
hers got tossed into a big heap, and then he shoved it all out the door for her to deal with.

“Thanks, Brian,” she said
sarcastically when he was done.

She
opened
a large trash bag and began stuffing her clothes inside of it.
She did it silently, even though she really wished she could say to Brian what she wanted to say.
She especially felt brave enough to do it because Van was there, but she decided not to aggravate the situation any further.

Five
bags later she was done
and entered the bedroom to grab what she knew
was
missed—a few things in the nightstand and
in
the
dresser
, and a very special handbag that hung on the closet door
—and stuffed all of those things into a bag as well.

She didn’t care about any
thing
in the kitchen except her blender
and slow cooker
, and she
didn’t mind leaving her bar stools
behind
. The furniture she wanted was already loaded into the truck, so Cody and Paul went to work
taking out
the
rest of the
boxes and bags.

“Where’s my laptop, Brian?” Dani asked. She was packing up a few things at the desk, but her computer was not
sitting
on it.

“How would I know?” he scoffed.

“Brian, where is my laptop,” she asked again, more firmly.

“I
don’t have your laptop
. Look around. Turn the place upside down.”

Dani wasn’t sure what to do. Her computer had everything on it. She knew this was the last place she left it because she’d been working on it before they left for the club that night.
She
had needed it all week, but she’
d put off coming back to the apartment for as long as she could
.

“Brian, I need my computer. For whatever reason you’re keeping it from me, it’s not worth the hassle, okay? I just want my computer.”

“I don’t have your goddamn computer!”

“Hey, relax,” Van finally said to him.

“You shut the hell up! You’re lucky the police aren’t here right now!”

Van smiled and nodded at Brian’s cast. “How is your hand healing, by the way?”

“Fuck you.”

“And go ahead and call the cops,” Van told him
with a shrug
.

“Just get the hell out of here,” Brian told them with a wave of his hand.

“Brian, I need
my computer!
I’m serious; I’m not leaving without it.”

“Well, then you wasted your time packing your things because you’ll be here a while.”

By then Cody and Paul entered the apartment again, and Van
told them
, “We’re looking for a laptop.” He began searching the apartment, and so did both guys.

“It’s blue,” Dani added, joining the hunt.

“Get out of my stuff!” Brian shouted.

“Then just tell her where it is,” Van replied.

“It’s not
even
here!” he finally admitted.

Dani glared at him, ready to scream.
She took a deep breath
to keep herself calm and asked
, “Where is it?”

“I’ll get
it
to you later. Just get out of my apartment.”

“Tell her where
the fuck
it is,” Van said, getting fed up with this guy’s crap.

Brian was about to smart off to him again, but as pissed as he was, he decided to just get them out of his
sight
.

“It’s at Andy’s,” he told Dani.

She stared at him for a second and then let out a tiny bitter laugh. “Are you kidding me? You gave it to Andy so he could hack into my stuff?”

Brian didn’t answer, and when Van asked Dani if she knew where Andy lived, she nodded her head.

Van motioned for everyone to leave, but before he shut the door he looked at Brian and said, “And computer hacking is a federal offense, so if anything happens to her
information
, you’re in deep shit.”

Andy knew that Dani had a mob coming for her computer, so he had it ready for her the second there was a knock at his door.

“I didn’t do anything to it
,” was the first thing he said to her when he handed over the laptop. He didn’t even unchain the door and just passed it through the narrow opening. “Brian wanted your passwords, but I didn’t do it. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but leave me out of it.”

He shut the door and
several
locks switched.

Dani didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but she could only assume that he really did go through her computer. She wasn’t going to take any chances, so she was prepared to do what she needed to if he had.

She held the laptop to her chest to exhale a deep
breath. Van knew she was upset
and that the morning had been really hard for her. He didn’t know what to say to her, though. Dealing
with
Brian had certainly been nerve-
racking
,
but
he worried that it wasn’t the end of it. The guy had some serious problems, and Van was concerned that he wouldn’t
be leaving
Dani alone.
In fact, he could almost feel it.

It was
two
o’
clock by the time
they
got back to
Van’s
apartment.
Dani’s
things had been dropped off at Jaime’s house, and Cody and Paul headed for their own apartments down the hall.

“Thank you so much,” Dani said, wrapping her arms around Van’s waist. She laid her head against him and took another deep breath.

Van held her close and smoothed her hair. He didn’t say anything because he just enjoyed holding her.

“How long until you have to leave?” Dani murmured.

He glanced at the clock. “Uh, about
two
hour
s
.”