The new girlfriend.

I can read people very well... So, when a man comes into a coffee shop, towing the girl he’s with behind him, holding on to her arm all the time, I can tell something isn’t right.

As they pass me at my table, i gently run the side of my hand down the girls free arm. She shivers, then smiles.

At the counter, the man lets go of the girl to order and pay for the drinks. To his amazement, she walks straight over to me and sits down opposite me, instead of going to the table where the man has put his bag.

"Well, what now?", she says.

"Wait for the fireworks to start", i replied.

We didn’t have to wait long...

“What the fuck are you doing!”, the man shouts, storming over. The girl flinches as he grabs her arm.

“Take your hands off of her”, I said, quietly.

“Or what!”, the man sneered back.

“Or I’ll stop asking nicely”, I said, slowly standing up.

All the time, the girl had said nothing, shaking in her chair.

“I don’t want any trouble…”, she started to say. She went to get up, but a glare from me made her sit down again. As she moved, I could see the bruises on her arms, as well as how puffy her eyes were.

“How long have you been hitting her, you arsehole?”, I asked.

“None of your damn business”, the man snapped at me. He then tried to get the girl to stand up again.

My hand clamped down on his wrist.

“This is still me asking nicely”, I said. “Back off and leave her alone.”

The woman behind the counter then strode over.

“I’ve seen everything and called the police”, she said. “Now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The girl went to stand up again.

“Not you, sweetheart. Him”, the woman said, glaring at the ‘boyfriend’.

With a sudden burst of courage, the girl said, “I don’t know why you hang around me, anyway. You know I’m into girls.”

The man looked as if he had been slapped, then raised his arm to strike the girl.

Before he could, I was suddenly standing between him and her.

“Permission to eject this creep?”, I asked the café owner, who was an old friend of mine.

“Permission granted”, she said.

Seconds later, the man was out the door and on the street in a heap.

“Did I tell you I was neighbourhood security, and a PCSO?”, I said, with a smug grin.

When the police arrived, the man made the mistake of trying to claim he was the injured party, having been assaulted.

The police were having none of that, however. Especially when they heard our statements and saw the bruises on the girl. One of the officers was especially angry about it. She had got a daughter about the same age. They were also colleagues and friends of mine as well…

The man had a restraining order put on him, banning him from the same area as the girl. This meant he had to stop crashing at her flat and find somewhere else to live (where this time, he would actually have to pay the bills).

Still, he wouldn’t have been able to live there for much longer anyway. She had quit her flat and moved in with me, instead…