12 Rounds (14 page)

Her comment feels like a punch to the gut and it makes my anger explode from inside of me. I’m so mad that I’m grinding my teeth and I can feel all of the veins in my neck pop out. I pace the length of the kitchen, more like storm across, and try to calm down, but it isn’t working.

I scream.

It doesn’t help either.

With that, Tee exits, slamming my door and I do the only thing I know how to do to release all of my pent up aggression…

 I shove my left fist right through my wall.

Chapter Sixteen

~Hadlee~

There is definitely something going on next door.

First, I heard shouting.

Doors slamming.

Then it was like   the wall was being drilled with a jackhammer.

Now soft sobs bleed through the door coming from the hall. What if someone is hurt? Or needs help? I eye the grandfather clock in the corner of the living room. Its 7:30 pm. Lara won’t be home from work for another two hours. I feel nervous when I leave the condo when she’s not here, but the sobbing is getting louder and listening to it is breaking my heart.

Peeking, out my door, I see a girl. She’s young. Has to be between the ages of nineteen and twenty one. Her pale cheeks are flushed and she holds her face in her palms as the sobs come out. Her agony tortures me and my eyes water up just watching her. I have this thing about seeing other people cry. I can’t really explain it, but the second I see the tears fall, I lose it myself.

I slip through the crack in my door, leaving it open and quietly make my way over the girl on the couch. “Are you all right?” I ask slowly.

Startled, the girl’s head snaps up and she throws her hand over her chest as if she’s just had a heart attack. “Jesus,” she gasps. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“I’m sorry. I just heard you crying and I thought if it were me and I was in your shoes, I’d want someone to ask.”

She sucks back a few oncoming tears and smiles weakly. “I’ll be fine. Eventually. Thanks for asking.” She pats the empty spot on the couch next to her. “I’m Teagan.”

I sit down. “Hadlee.”

“Well, Hadlee. I’m sorry if all the racket disturbed  you. My brother can be a real dick.”

I stare at her, concerned. “He didn’t… He didn’t—”

She takes the words right out of my mouth. “Hurt me? Phyisically you mean?” I nod. “God no!” She dips her thumbs underneath her eyes and wipes away the remaining wetness. “My brother may have an awful temper, but he’d never hit a woman. My mother raised him better than that.”

She folds her hands in her lap and I place my hand on her shoulder. “Well that’s good.”

Teagan lets out a deep breath and her tears seem to have stopped. “I should have known better than to spring this on him.” She looks me in the eye, manages a half-smile, and I notice how green her eyes are. “I got married and he found out by noticing the wedding band on my husband’s finger. I tried to call him and tell him, but he didn’t get my voicemails or return my phone calls. She makes a hand gesture. “Then I show up out of the blue.” She groans and shakes her head. “I just should have known better. My brother is not the type who likes to be surprised.”

“I’m sure he’ll come around,” I say. “And congratulations on your marriage. That’s wonderful. How long have you been together?”

“Eight months. Look, I know most people balk at that, right? They think I don’t know him, but it’s not like that with Emerson. We were only together a month and I knew he was the one.” Her lips curl up into a radiant smile and I can tell just by the way she talks about him that’s truly and incandescently happy. “He finishes my sentences. We both love long walks on the beach. He says that every man should tell his wife how much he loves her at least three times a day.”

I laugh. “That’s amazing.” I bet   a lot of women wish they had someone like that.

She snorts. “Listen to me, rambling on to a complete stranger about my marriage and overbearing sibling problems. I’m so sorry you have to sit here and listen to this. You can walk away at any time.”

“I don’t mind,” I mention. “I think it’s nice when people want to talk about how happy and in love they are.”

“Yeah, me too.”

 A door slams somewhere in the four-plex and is then followed by plodding footsteps. By the time I look up Sean Reilly is standing right in front of me and I’ve got a blush of roses on my cheeks. “What…What are you doing here?”

Sean gives me a backward glance. “Me?” He points to his chest. “I live here and own the building. What are you doing here?”

“I live here too,” I say. Great. As if this doesn’t make things ten times more complicated. And what makes things even better is that he’s my freaking landlord!

I don’t look at him right away, but when I finally do I can’t help but gravitate toward his sapphire and emerald eyes. They’re beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like them.

Teagan is glancing between me and Sean, her brow furrowed, lips pursed. “So…” she trails off. “You guys know each other?”

“Kind of.”

“Sort of.”

Sean and I respond at the same time.

“I didn’t know we lived in the same building though,” I mention. “I know your brother from the gym. And well, yesterday he gave me a ride home.”

Teagan lifts an eyebrow. “From the boxing gym?”

“Well,” I say. “We haven’t met officially yet.” I will myself to look Sean in the eye again, but he’s beat me to it. I get the weird sense that he’s been staring at me since he walked out here. “It’s nice to see you again. I’m Hadlee.”

“Officially Sean,” he says and his lips quirk up into a half smirk. I’m surprised by the way he’s acting. The last time we met he wasn’t exactly the friendliest person in the world. In fact he was an ass.

My eyes sweep over him from his proportional face, all the way down to the tattoos on each arm,  just above his elbows. They’re swirly tribal designs and I find part of myself wishing his shirt was off so I could see what they looked like as a whole. My observation of him comes to an abrupt halt when I notice his left knuckes. “Oh my god! You’re bleeding!” Instinctively, I grab his hand. He stiffens when my fingers brush against his, but I pretend to ignore it and examine the cuts further.

Flaps of skin peel away from the area of flesh surrounding his knuckles and the cuts have fresh bright red blood pooling in them with brown dried blood running down the length of the face of his hand. Little particles of drywall, sawdust, and paint chips adorn the wounds and I think about picking them out for him, but don’t.

“What the hell did you do?” Teagan interjects, a strern tone in her voice.

Sean yanks his hand out of my grasp and frowns. “Nothing, Tee. Come back inside. We need to talk.”

Teagan stands. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She takes a step away from us. “You know we both have bad tempers and I think I’ve had my fill of arguing for tonight.” She walks over and kisses Sean on the cheek. “I’ll be here for the next three days. We’re staying at the Renaissaince Inn.”

“At a hotel, Teagan? Really?” Sean fumes, clearly upset that his sister chose to stay at a hotel over his place. “You didn’t have to stay at the condo you know. You could have stayed at the lake house.”

“You have more than one house?” I blurt out then catch myself and cover my mouth. “Sorry.”

Teagan waves me off like she doesn’t care, but Sean just glares at me, intensely. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Sean. What’s your schedule like?” Teagan beams and Sean’s frown deepens into a scowl. Somehow I assume that this might be a private joke between them.

“Evening would be better,” he says levelly.

“All right then.” From my observation, it appears that Teagan seems to be over whatever argument they might have had and Sean seems to be wallowing in it. Teagan faces me and extends a hand. “It was so nice meeting you Hadlee. It’s good to know that my brother has friendly and courteous neighbors.”

I take her hand and shake it lightly. “Likewise.” On the nice to meet you part.

She walks toward the door backwards and points to Sean. “You behave.”

Sean rolls his eyes and huffs, “Please.” Then Teagan blows him a kiss and walks out the door.

My attention snaps to Sean as he turns to walk back to his apartment. “Wait!”

He stills then glances at me from over his shoulder. “Yes.”

“You should let me clean out those cuts for you,” I offer. Part of me thinks  that maybe Sean has been on his own for a long time and isn’t used to people offering to help him. The other part of me thinks that even though he might refuse that he secretly does want to be asked. After all it is nice to know someone else is concerned about you. Once in a while.

“I’m fine.”

“But there are chunks of debris in them. They could get infected.” I wait to see if he’s going to continue walking to his condo, but he doesn’t. He stays completely still. Like he’s an ice sculpture in the middle of some swanky party. “Do you at least have any peroxide?”

“No.”

“Just let me clean them out, please. I’ll feel better if you do.”

He’s silent for a minute. And that minute seems to stretch on forever. Swelling and expanding like the entire sitting room of the fourplex is full of hot air. Finally his chest collapses and he gives in. “Fine.” He walks back over to the couch and plops down next to me.

I get up. “I’ll be right back,” I tell him. He gives me a nonchalant  shrug like he could care less, and with that I head into my condo to get some tweezers and peroxide.

When I return, Sean is sprawled out on the leather love seat, legs spread, one arm hanging over the back of the couch. I sit down next to him. Placing the peroxide and cotton  in my lap, I reach for his left hand, but the second my fingers brush against his skin, he pulls back.

I pull his hand into my lap with more force. “I thought you wanted me to clean these out.”

He grunts, so I take that as a yes.

Using the tweezers, I start carefully removing pieces of drywall. “I’d hate to see what was on the receiving end of this fist.”

That earns me a deep husky laugh. “Yes. I’m sure you would.” He sighs. “Sadly, the wall in my kitchen was the unfortunate casualty to my rage.”

“You should learn to control that rage,” I add as I pick the last scrap of drywall from his knuckle.

“You should learn to control that tongue.” When I look at him there’s a wicked glint in his eye and he’s staring at my mouth.

My skin tingles.

My mouth goes dry.

This guy makes me flustered. I feel like my nerve endings have grown wings and are flapping through my body. I don’t understand why he has to ruin  perfectly good conversation with his negativity. Without thinking about it I wet my lips. Then I say, “You’re rude.”

“So I’m rude,” he retorts. “At least I’m not fake about it. At least I own it.”

“I wouldn’t want to own that,” I mutter. “It’s fine to be opinionated, but there are times where you take it too far. Like I’m sure you just did with your sister.” I put peroxide on a cotton ball  and take his hand in mine again.

His hand goes rigid.

His whole body tenses.

For some reason I feel like the temperature in the room drops at least ten degrees and I shiver. I peek up up at Sean through my eyelashes, still cleaning the cuts on his knuckles and he’s glaring at me icily. “Don’t pretend you know anything about what just happened between me and my sister.”

“I’m not pretending,” I say matter of factly. “I do know. She told me.”

“She told you,” he scoffs. “A complete stranger?”

“Yes, she told me,” I snap. “A complete stranger.” I lower my voice and try to imitate his, mocking him. “You made her cry, you jerk. I came out to see if she was okay. When people are upset sometimes they just need someone to talk to.” I frown at him. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t know a thing about that.”

At that point, I’ve had it. Here I am, trying to be helpful. Trying to be nice. And he’s trying to be a smart assed  prick. I toss his hand back in his lap. “Here. Clean your cuts yourself.”

I go to stand, but he laces his fingers through mine. “Wait.” I sit back down. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely. “I know I can be an ass, but I don’t mean to be. I’m just not used to having conversations with nice women. Or women in general, really.”

My mouth drops open. “You’ve never had a normal conversation with a woman?”

He smirks deviously and his eyes darken. “We don’t talk.” He takes his bottom lip between his teeth for a nanosecond then releases it.

My eyes flit back and forth across his face.

They touch his lips.

His cheeks

His eyes.

Finally I drop my gaze to the cotton in my hand and dab it on his knuckles. I know my cheeks are flushed. My heart is beating so fast. I get what he’s hinting at. He’s referring to being intimate with a woman. Sex is a topic that always makes me uncomfortable. Not just because of my attack, but because I don’t know anything about it because I’ve never had it.

No, I’m not a complete prude. Before my attack I did some messing around with the boyfriend I had for six months. Mostly oral stuff. But it never went any further than that. I think that’s part of the reason why the only real boyfriend I’ve ever had dumped me.

Sure he said, “It’s nothing personal, Lee. I just think we’re going in different directions.” When really it felt like there was a sign on his forehead that said,
this girl doesn’t put out
, with an arrow pointing to me.

Most girls would have been upset by that, but surprisingly I wasn’t. I figure that if he couldn’t accept the fact that I wasn’t ready then he wasn’t worth my time. The only thing that upset me was that I wasted six months on the douchebag.

I blow on Sean’s cuts watching the peroxide bubble and fizzle as it cleans the scraped flesh. “I’m sure you don’t.”

“Sure I don’t what?”

“Talk when you do that.”

He lifts an eyebrow and chuckles. “That?”

“Yeah, you know.” I lower my voice and mumble as I open the band aids I brought out, “Sex.”

“Sex isn’t a bad word you know. You can say it.” His voice takes on a husky tone. “Sex.”

“I don’t think I have the authority to say it.”