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“That fucking bitch attacked me!” she sobbed, pointing at Nicole.
“Attacked you?” Drew said. “You broke into my room! Nobody invited you. I came up, and you were in my fucking bed in my shirt. I told you to get out. You fucked with the phone so I couldn’t have your ass dragged out of here, and when I said no, you came at me.”
It matched. Every word of it matched what Nicole had heard through that door. Get out. Put your clothes on. Let go. He hadn’t invited her. He’d told her no. Nicole should have felt better, and part of her did, but her hand was still shaking.
She looked at Phallon, sitting on that bed crying like she was the one who’d been wronged, and laughed once, ugly and loud. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Hey! Settle down,” the big one snapped.
“She’s the one who—” Nicole started.
A woman’s voice came from the doorway. “Drew? Oh my God. Drew.”
It was Mrs. Kiernan, still dressed up from the ceremony, with Mr. Kiernan right behind her, his tie pulled loose. They must’ve heard it all the way down the hall. Great. Mrs. Kiernan looked from Phallon, crying on the bed in her son’s shirt, to Nicole, standing next to a knocked-over chair with her coat all twisted and her hand bleeding, and then to Drew’s face. She put a hand over her mouth.
“What happened? What happened to his face?”
“She happened to his face,” Nicole said, pointing at the bed. “She hit him.”
The big guard didn’t take his eyes off her. “When we walked in, you were the one fighting.”
“Maybe if you’d gotten here sooner, I wouldn’t have had to beat her ass.”
“Nicole.” Mrs. Kiernan’s voice cut across the room. “You’re not helping. You’re only making this worse. Please stop shouting.”
Nicole stared at her.
Of course. A half-naked woman was sitting on her son’s bed in his shirt, and her son was bleeding from the face, and the thing that needed handling was Nicole’s volume. It was the same polite little chill she’d gotten across the dinner table two weeks ago, just louder.
“Ma! Don’t you fucking put this on her.”
Mrs. Kiernan reared back. Then her eyes cut to Nicole, and Nicole knew exactly who she was blaming for that.
“Hey.” Mr. Kiernan grabbed Drew’s arm. “Don’t you talk to your mother like that.”
Drew shook him off and took a step toward the guards. “I told her to get out.” He swayed, and his father caught his arm again. “I told her like ten times, and she wouldn’t fucking leave.”
“Okay, sir. We’re going to sort all this out.”
“Then sort it out, and quit yelling at my girlfriend. She didn’t do shit.”
“So you’re calling the cops on her, right?” Nicole pointed at the bed. “Or at the very least getting her ass out of here?”
The guard rounded on her. “One more word out of you, and NYPD’s taking you out of here.”
“What the fuck is your problem, man?” Drew said.
The guard reached for her arm, and Drew moved faster than she’d have believed he could and put himself right between them. “Don’t you fucking touch her.”
“Mr. Kiernan, step back right now, or you can both explain it to NYPD.”
His father kept one hand on Drew’s arm and stepped up right beside him. “You don’t threaten my kid. You got something to say, you say it to me.”
“Sir, I’m going to need you to calm down too.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“Tommy.” Mrs. Kiernan had hold of his sleeve. “Everybody, please, can we just . . .”
