“It’s over.”
“Don’t do this to us!” he pleads. “Not right before the biggest day of my life.”
He moves in and as I catch sight of him putting his arms around her. I practically fly out the door and haul him off her and throw him.
The shithead lands on my lawn on his ass.
“You do not fucking touch her,” I snarl. “Not ever.”
My chest rises and falls rapidly, and I remind myself to keep my shit together. It’s not easy.
“Leave,” I grind out.
“I’m tryin’ to talk to my-”
“Leave!” I order.
“Fuck, man, what the fuck? I could level you.” Though his words are threatening, his tone isn’t. The guy is afraid of me. He should be.
“Are you hurt?” Amelia asks him. “Mason!” she snaps, shooting me a look of shock. And then Amelia’s eyes go wider.
“Mase.. your eye!”
“It’s okay,” I say, hauling oxygen into my lungs to calm my shit down, then I turn to the loser. “Go.”
“Come with me, babe,” Rick says. “Come on. Let’s go talk away from this neanderthal.” He gets to his feet unsteadily. “I don’t care that you slept with him. I know things have been stressed lately, but we can get past this. That didn’t mean anything. What we have means everything.”
My eyes hit Amie’s and she looks panicked.
“You’re not taking her anywhere,” I snap.
“Shouldn’t she be the one to decide that?” He tries and shoots her a look, a look that’s an attempt at manipulation, like I’m in the wrong here.
“The biggest day of your life? What about my life, Rick?” she asks.
He sighs. “Amel-”
“Go.” She points to his car. “I’ll get my stuff out of your way as soon as I can. I’ll cancel everything that I arranged, you do the same on your side, and we’ll go from there.”
“We’ve spent a lot of money on this wedding. Money we won’t get back if the wedding doesn’t happen. A lot of effort. My mother’s office storage room is filled with gifts we’ve already gotten. We have almost four hundred people coming, and, Amelia, my grandmother and the anniversary…”
“Low blow. Weaponizing your grandma. Not wanting to upset her isn’t reason enough to marry you. We’re all wrong. It’s over.”
He stares at her with shock. And I can hear the guy’s heart racing.
“Amelia. Please.”
“I’ll make arrangements to pick up my clothes and things.”
“No. Come with me so we can go talk,” he pleads.
“Go, before I make you go,” I warn.
“That’s it? All this time, all that planning, all the money, down the toilet?” His face is redder again.
“All the money? Who cares about money if it’s a mistake to get married?” she cries out.
He grinds his teeth and then his expression changes. “You already took off your ring?”
She blanches.
“It’s inside,” I answer. “You want it? Amie, come inside. I’ll give it to him.”
“I don’t want it,” the guy says, “I had it made for you. I want you to have it on your finger. I want you to be my wife. I want you to think about this before you throw away what we have.”
“She’s already mine.”
He spins to face me, face red. “Stay the fuck out of my relationship, buddy,” he spits. “Fucking my fiancé does not make her yours.”
I take a step forward. “She’s mine. A hundred percent mine. Permanently.”
He steps back with panic, probably because of the energy coming from me, maybe the look on my face, the blood trickling down one cheek, I don’t know, but I advance, aggressively, so he backs up some more and then the idiot trips over the edge of the stone flowerbed edging and falls to the grass.
“This isn’t over,” he warns me while scrambling to his feet.
“It’s definitely over, Rick. Go home. Mason c’mon.” The door slams. Amelia has gone inside.
“It is over,” I tell him, standing over him, looking down my nose. “She’s mine now. And she won’t ever be yours again. Now you fuck off.”
“You’re not fucking my life up. That girl is marrying me.”
“You fucked your life up, nobody else,” I fire back, “Now, step off.”
I turn, go back into my house and close and lock the door. Then I find my phone and message the council group chat.
Code yellow!
I then send another message to explain.
Amelia’s ex came to my house. He’s leaving now. Make sure he’s not poking around the village. White Mercedes.
I take a picture of his car and forward it.
Linc or Joel, can you run these plates?
Instinct tells me this fucker might be a problem.
I look out and see his car gone.
My mate has gone upstairs.
My phone sounds off.
Linc: On it. Do we need to set up some border patrols for the time being?
Me: Don’t know if that’s necessary, but we should stay at code yellow until further notice.
Grey: I’ll get Bailey to activate the phone tree.
Everyone will get notified of the code yellow, and this will happen within a half hour or less. Those whose homes are in the more visible areas of the village get notified first. The yellow status means we’ve had an outsider here and might have outsider eyes prying for the foreseeable. This means extra vigilance and caution in public. No shifting without extra care to ensure no outsider eyes are on us and extra-careful conversations in public as well.