Two apartments; Friday evening; Bridget and her NPC brothers
As soon as Phin and the kids were gone, Bridget marched over to the bar in the kitchen to grab her phone. Her younger brother Brad lived about forty-five minutes away, so she wanted to make sure he was actually home before she went storming over there.
After a few rings, he answered. "Hey B, what's u--"
"Are you at home?" Bridget cut in with a frown.
"...yeah, why?"
"Stay there." She hung up and grabbed her keys. Time to pay him a visit.
Brad called Bridget a few times during her ride to his apartment, but she didn't answer the phone. When she finally got there, she banged on his door. He let her in a few moments later, looking deeply confused and more than a little concerned. He also looked like he was about to head out for a night on the town.
"What the hell's going on, Bridge?" he demanded as she swept past him to enter the apartment.
"He's the father of my children, Brad," she said, not quite shouting yet, but getting there. "They're staying with him this weekend and now they have to wonder what's wrong with him. You promised me you wouldn't attack him!" Okay, now she was shouting.
Brad held both hands up in innocence. "Whoa whoa whoa, what the fuck are you talking about? I haven't seen Phin for months." His eyes widened, more out of hope than concern. "Someone attacked him?"
Bridget heaved a sigh with what seemed like her entire body. "Don't play dumb," she insisted, though she was well aware that Brad's skills at lying tended to diminish once he was caught. "I saw the bruises."
"Bridget, I swear to God, I want to kick the shit out of him so bad, but I'd have no idea where to even go to find him and do this." He arched his eyebrows. "How bad was it?" In his imagination, Phin had two black eyes and pretty much his whole face was covered in ripened bruises. It was a pretty picture.
"Bad enough that he's moving slowly and wincing every time he bends over." Bridget frowned. Brad would be unable to contain his smugness at that news if he'd really done it. Instead he just looked impressed.
"I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with it," he said. "Unfortunately."
"If you didn't do it, then who..."
Realization dawned on both Smith kids at the same time. Neil.
"Oh shit," Brad gasped, unable to suppress a sudden laugh.
Bridget scowled. "It's not funny."
"Oh yes it is," Brad shook his head. He was fully grinning now. "Shit, B, how is he even still alive?"
Bridget punched him hard in the shoulder. "I'm going to find out." She turned and opened up the door, leaving as quickly as she came in.
"He deserved it!" Brad called after her, the amusement still ringing in his voice.
Bridget could not believe it. She'd confided in Neil, well, because they were close, and also because she knew he would respect her wishes and not go beat up the father of her children. Days before the kids were going over to stay with him, even! She spent the car ride to his apartment fuming, clutching the steering wheel so hard it ended up leaving some indentations on the palms of her hands.
When she got to Neil's place, she let herself in and went searching for him. Hopefully Layla wasn't around.
"Neil? Where are you?" she called as she went down the hall.
Neil was in his spare bedroom, earphones in, ipod settled in an exercise armband on his left arm. He was in the process of doing his daily thousand push-ups. He was grunting out a count as he did them and was up to eight hundred and fifty-seven. He thought he'd heard something. He waited until he'd gotten to eight hundred and sixty to stop and pull hos earphones out.
"Spare room!" Neil called out, moving to sit on the exercise mat on the floor as he wiped his forehead off and pushed his hair out of his face. He hadn't realized that Phin would be taking the twins this weekend or he might've gone easier on the guy.
Bridget marched on into the room and started ranting as soon as she saw him. "What the hell is wrong with you? You know I didn't want you to hurt him! Things are hard enough at home as it is without you exacting vigilante justice on my behalf, leaving bruises where the kids could see and ask questions!"
Neil's eyebrows shot up as soon as he saw her round the corner. He put his hands up as he climbed to his feet. "Whoa, first of all, I hadn't intended to punch him in the face. That just sort of happened." He said. "Second, I thought he had the kids next weekend not this weekend. Andlastly , it was not 'on your behalf.'" he air quoted and then held his hand up to stop her so he could finish. "It was on my behalf. I like to keep my word, and I held off for a long time but asyour brother I can only take so much of watching you pretend you're not falling apart."
Bridget kept opening her mouth to butt in, but Neil always cut her off. But when he finally finished, her mouth fell open to just hang there. It took her a few moments before she spoke. "You like to keep your word?" she repeated, her eyebrows arching up as high as they could go. She didn't know what he was talking about.
Neil nodded. "Yes. And I actually didn't, only because of the kids. I warned him if he hurt you that I would kill him. He didn't listen."He shrugged. Neil was normally the opposite of barbaric caveman, except for when in the ring. Brad was the irrational one, not Neil.
And Bridget was back to gaping. "...what the fuck, Neil? Are you honestly saying you would have killed him for cheating on me?"
Neil shrugged again. "Probably not literally killed, but I would have done more than the tiny bit I actually did." He'd let Phin off easy in his opinion.
"You call that tiny?" Actually, he probably would. Bridget shook her head. "Regardless, what about keeping your word to me? That you wouldn't go after him?"
Neil dropped his jaw. "I never promised you I wouldn't go after him." he insisted. "And I've let it go for months now and that's a long time to witness what you've been enduring while idly sitting by." In fact, he was surprised Brad had lasted this long but then again, it was baseball season. "I'm not programmed to let all of that just slide." Especially not after he'd remembered how happy Bridget had been those first few months after Neil had first met Phin.
Bridget frowned. "Okay, maybe it was Brad who gave me his word. But still. I never made you promise because I thought I didn't have to! I'm coping. And I don't see what good beating the shit out of him is going to do. Or did. He's the father of my children. I need him intact."
"He is in tact. I deliberately left him in tact. I only hit him a couple times. He deserves worse y'know." he frowned. At the time, he'd known it was a bad idea but he'd felt it necessary.
He let out a sigh and roughed his hand through his hair. "Look, I'm sorry. But a guy can only passively witness so much..." And Neil certainly had his limits. Also, Bridget said she was coping but he didn't buy it at all.
"You're supposed to be bigger than that, Neil," Bridget crossed her arms. "Maybe you left him intact this time, but what's going to stop you from going and doing it the next time he pisses you off? 'Cause we all have to face the fact that he's not going anywhere. Even if we get divorced."
Neil looked about as offended as he felt by that. "Name once in the past that I went after an ex-boyfriend of yours no matter what horrible thing they did to you." he challenged, moving his hands to his hips as he frowned.
"You can't because I was bigger than that every other time. So I let it get the best of me once, sue me." he set his jaw at that last stuff she said.
"You still shouldn't have done it," she said simply. She was losing steam after seeing Neil take offense.
Neil sighed again. "I know," he said, before he turned his eyes down and murmured his way through an apology. He really didn't like itwhen she disapproved of him.
Bridget let out a breath of air and stared down at her shoes. After some silence, she said, "He didn't tell me it was you. Or anything about it. But it was pretty clear what happened. Mostly. I thought it was Brad first."
Neil couldn't help but smirk at that last part. He cleared his throat and shook his head afterward. "Brad's innocent for the first and only time in his life." He replied.
"He'll be happy to know that," Bridget said, looking up. "He is happy." She was sure Neil was going to get a congratulatory phone call from him soon.
Neil arched his eyebrows and forced himself not to smirk proudly at that. He let out a sigh instead. "I'm sorry." He told her again. He didn't want to make things worse on her, but c'mon, the guy had it coming!
Bridget let out a sigh. "You can make it up to me by never doing it again."
Neil let out another sigh, pressing his lips together as he narrowed his eyes as her for a moment. "Deal," He finally, reluctantly, agreed. Then he held his arms out for a truce hug, despite the fact that he was a little sweaty from his workout.
The Smiths were used to giving each other sweaty hugs. Wait, that sounds bad. Anyway, Bridget returned the embrace and when she stepped back, patted her hands on her pants to dry them off. "Deal."
Neil smiled a little at her wiping her hands off. He reached up and wiped his neck off and then reached out to pat her cheek. Brothers were supposed to do gross things like this, y'know. He had to keep her on her toes.
Bridget scrunched her nose up and took a step back. "It's bad enough I have to take care of the kids' gross bodily stuff, now you too?" she smirked as she lifted her shoulder and leaned down to wipe off her cheek.
"You've had to put up with my gross bodily stuff for longer than you've put up with theirs," He smirked. "You should be used to it, no, enjoy it, at this point." He nodded.
"I'll start leaving you used tampons and say the same thing," Bridget smirked.
Neil scrunched up his face. "That's a completely different and much nastier ball game then workout sweat."
Bridget shrugged her shoulders up with a smug grin. Grossing her brothers out always felt like an accomplishment. "Says you. They're both all-natural."
"That's a different caliber though and therefore a low blow." Neil insisted.
Bridget snickered. "Boxing idioms from you are puns by default and automatically undermine any argument you make. So I win." She lifted her two hands up a bit in a low cheer.
Neil dropped his jaw and let out an undetermined noise of disapproval. Then he dropped his shoulder and tackled her, carefully of course, to the mats on the floor and started relentlessly tickling her sides, which he usually only reserved for the twins.
"I beat you with wits so you resort to violence!" Bridget shouted before she let out a laughing yelp and kneed Neil in his leg. "Typical!"
Bridget knew how to take care of herself but Neil was still bigger than her and tickling tended to make 'fighting back' turn into 'flailing about'. "When you pee yourself, you're cleaning it up." He retorted, ignoring her comment and sticking his tongue out at her.
"Nope, I clean up enough urine, thank you very much!" Her voice went super-high on that last word as the tickling became too much. Bridget reached for his arms to stop the madness.
Neil relented a little bit when she grabbed his arms but not completely. "Which is why you would have to clean up your own, to showcase your mad urine cleaning skills!"
"Don't you have some push-ups to do?" Bridget retorted, gripping his arms tighter as she pushed them away from her ticklish spots. "You're gonna lose your count."
Neil laughed and got in a few more tickles. "Eight hundred and siiiiixty." He sung out with a smug little smirk down at her. He wondered what time it was and if he was going to have enough time to finish his push-ups and get a shower before Layla was supposed to be coming over. Maybe he should ask Bridget to stay for dinner now, or something.
Bridget immediately started shouting out random numbers. She knew he probably wouldn't lose his count right now, but in the past she'd been known to be successful.
Neil laughed. Her tactic was usually more successful when he was in the process of doing those push-ups and counting. He finally stopped the tickling after a couple more minutes and moved to roll and lay down on the mat next to her, chuckles dying down. "So...plans for the rest of the night?" He asked.
Bridget needed to breathe for a bit first. She made sure she punch Neil in the arm as she caught her breath. "Going home...maybe shopping first." There was still a little bit of time before a lot of the stores closed. She could go and spend Phin's money and make herself feel better.
Neil laughed at the punch. He shook his head a little when she said she was going shopping. Bridget loved shopping about as much as Brad loved baseball. He looked over at her as she caught her breath. "Want to stay for dinner?" He asked though he doubted that would trump the idea of retail therapy for her. He had to ask regardless.
Bridget put both hands on her stomach as it heaved up and down. She turned her head to face Neil. "I dunno." The temptation to shop her cares away was strong, but having dinner with her brother could be a help as well.