Beneath the Surface

Jax

“Keep your kids away from me and my house!” I storm back to my house and slam the door. God I can’t believe those little terrors broke my window on their first day living next door! It’s going to be hell living next to them! I walk into my kitchen and grab my coffee mug to get some coffee before work. I am halfway through pouring a cup when I hear a quiet knock on my door. I walk over and pull the door open to find the twins standing on my porch. My eyebrows draw together as I notice one of the boys is huddled up against the other one, almost behind him, and seems to be trembling as he stands there. What the hell? Is he that scared of me? Why? Sure I yelled at his mom a minute ago, but it wasn’t that bad!

“What is it?”

“We’re sorry we broke your window. It was only an accident.” The other one says tentatively.

I look at the other terrified looking boy again and immediately feel bad for being such an asshole. I don’t like being around kids anymore but maybe it wouldn’t hurt me to be just a little bit nicer to them. “Don’t let it happen again.” They both nod.

I close the door and walk back into my kitchen to finish my coffee before I leave for work. What was that about? Why did they seem so scared? That’s not a normal reaction to someone just because they yelled. I don’t get it. What would make a child so scared of people? Are they abused? I’m pretty sure the cop in me is just being paranoid, but I decide to keep an eye on things next door and see if anything else strange is going on. I hear another knock and swing the door open to find Dillon.

“What’s up Dillon?”

“Why were you an asshole yesterday? You didn’t even introduce yourself. You just walked in the house and slammed the door. What the hell man?”

“You already know I hate women! Now I have a single one living right next door to me with her two little boys to drive me insane. Walk in the living room and check out the window!”

“You sure it’s just that you hate women? You usually aren’t rude to them. You normally just ignore them. I think it has more to do with how hot this one is” He says it with a smirk on his face and I glare at him but don’t respond.

He turns and heads into the living room, and I follow behind him. He bursts out laughing as he crosses the threshold. I glare at him again, I really don’t see what’s funny in this situation. I scan my living room. There are two front windows looking out into the backyard. One of them is shattered with glass all over my floor. The glass coffee table is also shattered, I guess the baseball hit it when it came through the window.

“What the hell happened here?”

I continue to glare at him for finding this shit funny, “a baseball happened.” The asshole actually starts laughing harder.

“You know what? I think them living next to you might actually be good for you. Teach you some compassion. You going to try and tell me you never broke a window when you were little?” I just shake my head at him and go to grab my travel mug of coffee so we can head into the station.

As we walk down the steps of my front porch discussing what we have to do today we both jerk our heads around when we hear a popping sound. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Pain explodes on my left leg, side, and arm. We both dive behind my truck in the driveway. I am bent double this shit hurts so bad. “Oh what the fuck was that?” I look at Dillon to find him with his hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking, while he looks at me with wide eyes. I look down to see my suit splattered with paint. “Holy hell! Those little shits shot me with paint ball guns!”

“That’s what you get for being mean to our mom!” Dillon loses it at this point.

A minute later Dillon stands up holding his stomach, still laughing, and looks over towards Lexie’s house. He bends over laughing even harder. “They just snipered you out of an upstairs bedroom window.” I stand up next to him and go to smack him on the head for laughing, but hear two more pops and feel pain in my chest. I drop back on my ass behind the truck.

“Oh shit just stay down man!”

“Well you were standing up! Why aren’t they shooting you?”

The asshole is trying to catch his breath from laughing so hard. “I guess because I wasn’t mean to their mom.”

When Dillon finally tells me the coast is clear I storm over to Lexie’s house, and bang on the door for the second time today. I feel Dillon come up behind me. It swings open to reveal the man I still haven’t been introduced to so I don’t know his name. He takes one look at me and roars with laughter. When he finally gets control of himself he yells for Lexie and Maddie. I am standing there fuming when they both walk around the corner into the foyer. Lexie’s hand immediately slaps over her mouth and her eyes grow as big a saucers. Maddie shares Dillon and the other man’s reaction and bursts out laughing.

“I don’t think it’s funny. This shit hurts like hell! All I was doing was walking down my driveway to go to work!”

Lexie looks like she feels really bad, “I’m so sorry I have no idea why they would do this! I promise I’ll take their paintball guns away for a while.”

Dillon steps up next to me with a smirk, “I know why they did it. They yelled out the window that’s what you get for being mean to our mom.” Lexie gasps and all humor leaves Maddie and the man’s faces. The man looks at Lexie.

“I think it’s kind of understandable that they would try to protect you right now.”

“I understand them wanting to protect me, Mason, but all he did was yell at me because they broke his window!”

I decide to speak up, “shooting people with paintball guns is assault! Or did y’all not know that? I could arrest the little terrors!” They all look at me like I’m the biggest asshole they have ever seen. Hello, I’m not the problem here!

Maddie yells,” Oh come on! They are nine years old! They thought they were protecting their mom because you were being an asshole this morning over a fucking accident! Little boys break windows sometimes, it happens. Lin… Lexie said she would pay to replace it so there really was no reason for you to yell like you did. The boys don’t respond well to men. Especially ones they find scary. We will talk to them and take the paintball guns away, there isn’t any reason to get the cuffs out.”

I look over at Dillon to find him smiling at Maddie, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Why do nine year olds even have paint ball guns?”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Lexie speaks up.” Our oldest brother, Shawn, has a whole lot of property and him, Mason, and the boys would play paintball out behind his house on weekends, sometimes, so he got them their own guns. They have never shot anyone with them before, except when playing with Shawn and Mason. I really am sorry.”

“Is this, Shawn, an idiot to buy two nine year olds their own paintball guns? Doesn’t he know how much trouble a kid can get into with those things? Did he ask the local police how many teens they arrest a year because of them? People have no idea how much trouble kids cause with those things!” All the siblings start to chuckle, but I don’t get the joke. I glare at them.

“I’m sorry Jax, but yes I’m sure he knows, and no he’s not an idiot.” Lexie’s eyes drop to my badge and come back to meet my eyes. “He’s a detective” she says with a grin.

Well shit, now I look like an idiot. Dillon is rubbing a hand over his mouth to try and hide his own grin. Fuck this! I turn around and walk away.