Nice Guy

(Image of silhouette under streetlamp)

“Help me!”

A hand clutches Sadie’s shoulder and she shrieks, spins around, and shrieks again. Under the streetlight, the face staring at her is deathly pale, caked in blood, one eye purple and swollen shut.

“My god, Steven! What—” 

“Bobby! He’s trying to kill me!”

Her neighbour’s voice ends on a high, thin note of panic, and Sadie’s heart hammers, then she laughs out loud.

“Good one Steven! You scared the life out of me!”

At the end of their shared driveway, a cluster of tiny monsters passes by, their goody bags full.

“No! I’m not joking!” Steven scrabbles at Sadie’s arm, his fingers making desperate claws, his eyes so wide she can see white all around the pupils. “I found out! I found out what he did!”

Sadie’s breath catches, as a dark figure looms behind her terrified neighbour.

“Ok Stevie, come on now.” She recognises Bobby’s deep bass voice before his face takes form in the streetlight’s eerie glow.

“No!” Steven screams, still clutching at Sadie’s arm like she’s a life raft in a flood, and for a heartbeat she wonders what the hell is going on.

Then Bobby laughs, putting his big bearpaws on his younger brother’s shoulders to steer him back to their half of the driveway. “Come on, Stevie, show’s over. Leave it to the little kids.” He pulls Steven, still struggling, toward their doorway, casting an apologetic glance over his shoulder at Sadie. “Sorry,” he mouths.

Sadie gives him back his smile, and is rewarded by a conspiratorial wink. Such a nice guy, she thinks, looking after his kid brother like that. She’s never heard mention of parents and she doesn’t like to ask. From what little has been said, it seems something tragic might have happened. Steven’s a bit of an oddball, friendly one moment, furtive the next. She’s only spoken to him a few times since they moved in. Damaged, that’s the word. He’s lucky he had his big brother to get him through it, whatever it was 

Bobby is his rock, she guesses, a steadying influence. He’s always so charming, easy to like. The opposite of his jumpy brother. Funny, she wouldn’t have pinned Steven for the kind to get into Hallowe’en playacting, but she has to admit, his performance back there was pretty convincing. Really had her going for a second! She smiles at her own credulity. What had she been thinking? That Bobby was some kind of monster? She’s never met a nicer guy.

She wonders again if he has a girlfriend, if he’s lonely. If she should maybe take food over one evening, see if she can tempt him to a taste of her home cooking. Or a taste of something else. She glances over at his door, but it’s shut, the porchlight off. Out of candy?

A bunch of trick-or-treaters come clamouring up, and put the whole thing out of Sadie’s mind.

Next day, she’s in the garden with her coffee, when a rhythmic scraping makes her peep over the fence. Bobby’s digging up his yard. Stealthily she stands for a moment, watching his hard muscles move under his thin t-shirt. It’s November, but he’s sweating. Sadie’s tongue tingles to lick it off him, but she hides the thought behind an innocent smile.

“What are you up to?”

He turns sharply, then his face relaxes into a smile. “Sadie! You made me jump!” He straightens up, wiping his hands on his jeans. Her eyes follow the broad fingers that leave damp prints on the taut fabric over his thighs. “I’m concreting the yard.” He gestures at a mess of gravel, sacks of sand and a small cement mixer. “No time to keep it neat.” He smiles ruefully, and Sadie’s stomach does a little skip.

“Can’t Steven help?” she asks.

“He’s not here right now. Staying with relatives.” Bobby rubs the back of his neck, glancing away, and Sadie gets the feeling she’s touched a nerve. They must have argued. Maybe about what happened on Hallowe’en. She could tell Bobby was embarrassed by it.

“That’s nice,” she says brightly. “Teenagers can be tough. It’s good to have a break now and then.” She pauses. “So, you’re all alone over there,” her voice gets a little flirty, testing the water. “If you want to come over one night, I could cook dinner. Make a nice change not to eat alone.” She kicks herself mentally. Way to go Sadie, nothing sexier than desperation.

But Bobby’s smiling warmly back, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes.

“That’d be nice,” he says.

“Oh good,” she makes herself take a beat, not sound too keen. “This weekend, maybe?”

“Great! Can I let you know? Got a few things to sort out.”

“No problem. You know where I am.”

He holds her eye for a second too long, long enough for Sadie to feel heat creeping up her throat despite the November morning. She makes herself turn and go back inside. As she sits at the kitchen table waiting for her heart to slow down, she hears the scrape, scrape scraping resume, and her mind wanders back to hard muscles and sweaty skin. She considers what she’ll cook. Something spicy.

But the yard next door gets concreted and Bobby doesn’t call. Sadie leaves it a day, then two. She’s about to give up and take the hint, when she sees him on the driveway, hammering a sign into the dirt of the border.

For sale.

Forgetting she’s still in her dressing gown, she rushes outside.

“Bobby! You’re moving?”

He turns and flashes that warm smile that undoes her insides. “Afraid so, Sadie. Work, you know.”

“What about Steven’s school? When he comes back from your relatives.” Her voice thins out nervously as she realises maybe that’s something he doesn’t want to talk about. His smile certainly has cooled a little.

“He’s not coming back,” he tells her, stiffly.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s for the best.” The smile’s back again, and it makes Sadie reckless.

“We should have a drink before you go,” she blurts, before she can think better of it.

“Sure.”

“This evening?”

He pauses, considering. “Sounds good,” he says, and the gleam in his eye sends little tingles down Sadie’s back.

She’s in the shower, shaving her legs, when she hears his front door slam. Through the steamy window she watches him load garbage bags into his car. Must be going to the dump, she thinks, clearing out. She’d better make the most of this evening. He closes the trunk and something small drops onto the street without him noticing. Sadie’s halfway out of the shower to tell him when she realises she’s covered in soap. By the time she’s rinsed and dried herself, his car has long gone.

Going down into the street she finds what fell – a phone. Funny, it didn’t seem to drop from his pocket. She thinks back. No, she’s pretty sure it came out of one of the bags. But who throws away a phone? She presses the button and it turns on right away.

The lock screen is full of message notifications.

She pauses for a minute. She knows she shouldn’t. But then she thinks about their drink that evening. Wouldn’t it be better if she knew about a girlfriend? Less embarrassing, for the both of them.

She swipes.

It’s not Bobby’s phone.

The lockscreen’s classic teenage boy: electric colours and muscled cartoon warriors facing off. Why would Steven leave his phone? It clearly still works fine, with all those messages, even though the battery’s almost out.

The preview only lets her see a little bit, of course. But she reads anyway. Her eyes widen.

“S-man, you good?”

“Steve?”

“Dude, you left me on read!”

“Steve?”

“Steve, you ok man?”

She keeps scrolling. So many unanswered messages. Sadie hadn’t guessed he was so popular. But it looks like he just dropped all his friends when he went to stay with those relatives. Seems nobody’s heard a word from him since. 

Sadie thinks of Bobby, and her heart clenches.

That poor guy. She’s willing to bet Steven cut him off dead too.

She goes back inside to finish getting ready. She’ll take his mind off things. She’ll return Steven’s phone then too.

A few years after they move in, the new neighbours dig up the concrete on the back yard, and find something they hadn’t bargained for. Soon the place is festooned with yellow tape and white plastic.

The police find two bodies: a teenage boy, and a woman, with a phone still clutched in her fingerbones. They do a little research on the owner, and discover two more bodies at a house the next town over.

They never do locate the new victims’ eldest son.

He seemed like such a nice guy, the neighbours say.