Brawler (23 page)

She forced a chuckle as she arranged her equipment, sometimes moving the same item more than once. “You’ve seen it plenty of times.”

“Never up close. There’s never been a chance to really look at it.”

I was playing with fire, but I didn’t care. When she relented and turned toward me, carefully pulling her shirt down just enough to expose the artwork, I sat forward and traced the pattern with my eyes, and only my eyes. I kept my hands carefully in place at my sides as I examined her skin and I lingered longer than I needed to. My eyes wandered from the ink to her collar bone, to her long neck, her strong jaw, her full mouth.

“It’s really good,” I told her softly, sitting back. “Bryce did that?”

She let her shirt snap back in place. “Yeah. He did it on my eighteenth birthday.”

“I should have come with you,” I said, feeling guilty that I hadn’t. I hadn’t been there at all, in fact.

“You were busy with Laney stuff.”

“Yeah, but it was your birthday. And a big one.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

“It didn’t then,” she shot back, her voice going tight.

“Yeah, it did,” I asserted gently, not put off by her anger because I earned it, “but I was caught up in other shit and I couldn’t get out.”

“Other shit as in my sister.”

“Among other things. I was on a track—”

“On a bullet train,” she cut me off, quoting me from the park.

“And I didn’t know how to get off,” I said, finishing the sentence I hadn’t been able to that day.

Finally she looked at me again, her eyes guarded. “What about now? Now where are you?”

“Now I’m pulling the e-brake.”

I watched her chest rise and fall rapidly as her heart thrummed in her throat.

“Kellen,” she said slowly, softly, “what are we talking about here?”

“Tattoos and trains. That’s it.”

“Really? ‘Cause it seems like a lot more.”

I searched her eyes. “Judging from the look on your face you can’t handle more, so for now it’s tattoos and trains.”

“What look on my face?”

“The one that says you’re scared as shit of what I’m saying to you.”

“I’m not scared. I’m worried.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going through a lot right now. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret. Maybe now is not a great time for big decisions or canceling plans.”

“Better now than when it’s too late.”

“Kel—“

I sat forward until we were nearly touching. “Jenna, I’ve never been so clear in all my life. I’ve never been so sure about the things I want than I am right now.”

“What do you want?”

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to hold her, to tell her I loved her, to take her to bed and know I could do it without losing myself and her and everything that mattered, and as she leaned in closer so that our lips were almost touching, I wondered what was stopping me.

You’re still engaged, dumbass
, I thought bitterly.

I sat back slowly, holding her eyes so she knew it wasn’t a retreat. I wasn’t running, I wasn’t afraid; I simply wasn’t ready and I was going to do this right with her this time. I wasn’t going to let timing and my own idiocy fuck us up again.

“For now,” I told her softly, “I want a tattoo.”

She nodded slowly, her face looking both disappointed and relieved. “You got it.”

I pulled my shirt off over my head and laid back on the chair. Jenna took the thin paper she’d traced the tattoo out on and placed it over my chest carefully. I kept my eyes on the ceiling and my mind out of the gutter as she worked. She was going to touch me. It was going to happen and it was part of her job. I needed to remember that.

“Put your arm out here,” she told me, tugging my arm away from my side so that she could sit closer to me. “Not too far. You don’t want to stretch your skin weird because the tattoo will follow it.”

“Around your waist like this?” I ran my arm around her, wrapping it securely at her hips to circle her in close against my side.

“Yeah, perfect,” she whispered.

She sat forward over my chest and got to work. I kept my eyes focused up on the ceiling and I didn’t speak to her. I didn’t know if she usually talked to clients as she worked, but with her sitting this close to me, my arm around her, and her hands on my bare chest, nothing felt like a safe topic. Everything felt like it could end with me pulling her down on top of me.

I didn’t realized I’d run my fingers over the bare skin of her lower back until she shivered against me, but once I knew, I couldn’t stop. I laid my hand more firmly against her to erase the ticklish feeling I’d accidentally given her, then I moved more deliberately. Just my fingertips making light, absent circles over her soft skin in an easy rhythm that fell in time with the buzz of her machine. She didn’t shiver again and she didn’t tell me to stop, so I didn’t. I silently caressed her back for hours as she worked, and it was so damn intimate I felt myself falling inside as I did it.

This was new for me. This was touching without intent. I wasn’t looking to get her naked, I wasn’t looking to arouse her or myself. I was touching her simply because the feel of her under my palm was something I enjoyed. It was comforting, soothing, and if it hadn’t been for the constant pin pricks of the needle she used to ink her gift into my skin, I could have easily fallen peacefully to sleep like that.

When the machine turned off and Jenna sat back, my hand falling away from her skin, it felt jarring. Like waking up to an alarm you didn’t remember setting.

“It’s finished,” she told me.

She stood back to give me room to stand, but then she was there behind me at the mirror. Her face was anxious, but when I looked at the tattoo on my skin, I couldn’t imagine what she was worried about.

“Whoa.”

It was beautiful and rugged. Sections of the cross looked like they were weathered and crumbled away, but the heart of it was still there. The strength and power behind the fact that it was still standing resonated through the image. Its rough exterior was complimented by the swirling, intricate scrollwork inside that was elegant and feminine, all of it swirling toward the center where it ended in the ornate initials of my mom’s name. Every part of it was her. Was my mom. Proud and strong, beaten and worn by the world but full of an untouched beauty that I’d remember forever. The woman on the inside of the tattered body who would always be my mother.

“Jen,” I whispered, turning to look at her with gratitude and amazement, “it’s better than I expected. I knew you had skills, but holy shit. This is…” I turned back to the image, “this is just, it’s beyond what I expected. It’s alive.”

She grinned faintly at me in the mirror, her eyes softening. “I wanted it to have a somber feel but also sections bathed in light. I kind of got the feeling that that’s how you see her. Your mom. There were dark corners, ones you didn’t understand and parts that still hurt, but mostly when you think of her it’s her life and light. It’s her being your mom and she was good at that. That part makes you happy.”

I stared at Jenna’s reflection and whispered, “How do you know all of that?”

“Because, Kel,” she said, meeting my gaze head on, “even when you don’t talk, I still listen.”

I was speechless. There were no words to describe what it felt like to be standing next to this woman who knew me so well. She did exactly what I’d hoped she’d do – she saw me, and as she did, I felt a piece of myself fall into place again. She was calling me back, lifting me up, and showing me all of the things I’d left with her that night years ago before I’d slipped under the surface and disappeared into the darkness. Those pieces were emerging, blinking in the light, and I felt my chest fill with air and my heart pumped blood, warm and vital, for the first time in four years.

I didn’t see Laney at all for almost a week after I got my tattoo. I heard from her via text, but never a call. I saw Karen talking to her on the phone one evening in the kitchen, her face pinched tight and her voice clipped with annoyance, but she smiled calmly when she saw me, quickly erasing her anger. Whatever they were fighting about, she didn’t want me knowing about it. It was a good indication it was about me.

I was going to physical therapy and trying to get stronger, trying to reach the point where I felt comfortable being in my apartment alone again. Every day I told Karen I was ready to go home, and every day she shut me down. I was getting there fast, my body bouncing back more and more the harder I pushed it. I slept like a rock at night, but during the day I walked, climbed stairs, and even took a shot at jogging with Karen one evening. Dan had had to come pick us up after less than a mile. It was embarrassing, but it was a start.

In therapy they didn’t only work on my body, they worked on my mind. I was given exercises to do when I was resting. Brain teasers. Puzzles that would have been a breeze for me before the accident, but now I had to stop and really think them through. I didn’t struggle with them, but I couldn’t solve them as easily as I used to. My MENSA status was probably in serious jeopardy, but even in that respect I was getting stronger. Faster.

A couple afternoons during that week, Callum came by to pick me up and take me to his dad’s restaurant where I sat and filled salt and pepper shakers or married catsup bottles. I’d talk with their wait staff, joke around with Cal and his dad, and generally feel like a functioning human being again. It made it so clear to me what my life had been missing.

Everything.

It was only now sitting up high on the cliffs above the ocean that I could see the fog I’d been living in for years. I’d been skimming the surface of my life, never delving too deep, never seeing or feeling too much, and never caring because what did it matter? Where did it get me?

Since the accident, I felt like I could see forever in every direction. I saw where my past had landed me and where my future was taking me, and I hated all of it. I didn’t want to marry Laney and I didn’t want to be an attorney. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I needed to make some changes. Big ones.

For the first time in my life, I considered going to therapy.

The idea horrified me. It threatened to throw open every locked door inside me and let my demons run rampant, something I didn’t know if I could survive, but I knew I had to try. Time was a bitch, I understood that better than anyone, but it was also giving me another shot and I had to make the most of it. Life only gives you so many chances. When you squander them, you only have yourself to blame, and I couldn’t live with the regret of knowing I’d never even tried.

Finally, eight days after I’d flown back to California, I moved back into my own apartment. It felt
good
. It was dirty and stuffy and my fridge was empty as hell, but it was mine. Every inch of it was entirely mine. After Karen and Dan left, I was truly alone for the first time since I’d woken up. No one was going to be walking through the room unexpectedly. I could do as I pleased again, and what I pleased was to strip down to my boxers and roam around my apartment eating peanut butter from the jar. It was my jam. It was what I did and it was the best feeling in the world.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I frowned at my image. I was small. Not by average standards, but by mine I was definitely shrinking. I needed to get back to the gym and back to boxing. The animal was surprisingly quiet, but I knew it couldn’t last. I was on borrowed time and the clock was running out.

***

The next night I went back to the Monroe’s house for dinner. Laney was going to be there. Jenna too.

And that wasn’t going to be awkward at all.

I wished Jenna would stay away for the night. I wanted to talk to Laney alone because I was finally going to do it. I was going to end things with her, once and for all.

Laney surprised me when she ambushed me in the entryway, kissing me before I could stop her. It was the first time her mouth had been on mine since I’d woken up in the hospital and it felt foreign to me, like I hadn’t been kissing her for most of my adult life. That was weird. I ended it as quickly and smoothly as I could, telling her I needed to talk to her, but she insisted she had a surprise for me.

“You’ll be so excited,” she squealed, yanking me into the living room behind her. “Isn’t it so cute?”

I looked down at the shit brown couch with the weird white stitching and wondered where the hell it’d come from. “Where did you buy this thing?”

“We bought it together, baby. You remember. Come sit on it.” She pulled me down on the couch with her, snuggling in close. “It was at that funky little shop in San Francisco.”

“I don’t remember a funky little shop and I definitely don’t remember this couch.”

“Are you kidding me?” Laney laughed. “We picked it out together.”

I scooted a little farther down the couch away from her, running my hand over the rough material. “Are you sure it was me?”

She slumped in her seat, casting me an icy glare. “I didn’t couch shop with another man, Kellen. Yes, it was you.”

“I didn’t mean another guy,” I said with worn patience stretching thin. “I meant did you maybe buy it with your mom the way you two bought those horrible dishes without me?”

“Horrible dishes?!”

I nodded. “They’re yellow and ugly. They look dirty. They’re not as bad as this couch, but they’re pretty fuckin’ bad.”

“What exactly do you have against this couch?”

“Everything.”

“That’s specific,” she spat angrily.

“I don’t know why, but I hate it.”

I didn’t know, but it made me angry. Everything about. The color, the shape, the texture, but most of all I hated the way she was presenting it to me. As though I should be flipping my shit about how perfect it was for us when it was obvious she had picked it out and not me. Nothing with Laney was ever about me.

“You liked it well enough in the show room,” she complained.

“I don’t remember that.”

“Isn’t that convenient?”

“For me? Not really,” I replied crossly. “I don’t remember everything, Lane. That’s pretty annoying.”

“Well, I’ll help you remember. This couch? You loved it.”

I looked at her and the couch dubiously. “I doubt it seeing as I hate it now.”

“You have to be kidding me! It’s already delivered!”

“We can take it back. Besides, why was it delivered here? We don’t have a house yet.”

She calmed immediately, her face going smooth the way it did when she was about to seriously piss me off. “I figured we’d put the house thing on old while you recovered. We don’t know what your work situation will be like or how much house we can afford. Mom and dad agreed that we could live here in the meantime.”

I jumped to my feet, shaking my head angrily. “Seriously? No, Laney,” I said, using the word that could have saved me so many times before. “Absolutely not, no.”

“Then where are we supposed to live?” she demanded, getting in my face. “I gave up my apartment. I’m out at the end of the month because I thought we were getting a place. What am I supposed to do? Move in with you in your tiny apartment?”

“No.”

Her eyes widened with shock. “No? Just no?” I shook my head silently. “Okay, I was joking because that place is a shit hole and I will not live there, but you’re serious aren’t you? You won’t let
me
, your homeless fiancé, move in with you?”

I gestured dispassionately to the huge house surrounding us. “You’re hardly homeless, princess. You live in a palace.”

“Oh don’t get like this again. Yes, we have money. I’m sooooo sorry, Kellen. How dare we be well off?!”

“Your dad is well off. You don’t have a job. Your income is nothing.”

“I’ve been going to school!” she cried indignantly.

“To do what? Become your mother?”

“You should be so lucky.”

“Really? ‘Cause being married to your mom is kind of my worst fucking nightmare.”

I regretted it the second I said it. It was hateful and cruel against a woman who had been like a parent to me. She smothered me, frustrated me, babied me, and talked down to me the same way Laney loved to do, but she was a kind person who had spent a lot of her love on me. To say what I said, even in anger, it wasn’t right. It wasn’t me.

“Kellen!” Laney exclaimed, appalled.

I pointed to the hideous couch. “Take the couch back.”

“No.”

“Then pay for it yourself.”

“What is with you lately? Ever since you got back here you’ve been nothing but angry and mean.”

How would you know?
I wondered.
This is the first I’ve seen you.

And the break had been unbearably sweet.

“I’m not mean, Laney, I’m just not letting you have your way on everything anymore. If that’s a problem for you, then we should take care of that.”

She didn’t react the way I expected her to, which is to say like a human being with normal emotions. Instead of asking what I meant or reading between the lines, Laney stepped closer to me. The air around her changed as her eyes became hooded. She licked her lips slowly, smiling faintly as she crept closer and closer.

Realizing what she was doing, I backed up, but she followed me.

“Take care of it?” she purred as she ran her hands over my stomach lightly. Gently, she pushed up my shirt and gathered it in her fists to expose my skin, her eyes always steady on mine. “Do you want me to take care of it, Kellen? It hasn’t been taken care of since you woke up. Maybe that’s why you’re so grouchy.”

I grabbed her hands just as they started dipping down over my jeans. “No,” I said firmly.

She giggled, fighting against my hold. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. I mean it. No.”

She shook her head faintly. “You don’t mean it,” she whispered softly. “You don’t know what you mean or what you want, but I do. You want me. You need me.” She got one hand free and slid it over the front of my pants – over the part of me that always sent me running to the darkness. “I’m the only one you need, remember? I’m the one who makes you feel good, baby.”

You’re gonna feel so good, baby. You’ll see.

I ran from her. From both of them. From Laney and the memory. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t stand her touching me. I couldn’t stand to be in my own skin. I wanted to claw it off, to flay myself alive so I could die feeling clean for just one tiny second of my life.

I ran straight into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind me, my chest heaving with lungful’s of air that felt like they were scorching me on the inside. Like I was breathing smoke and fire and I wished I could burn.

Then I saw Jenna.

She was standing in the middle of the small room, her mouth open wide in surprise.

I fell into her eyes. Those clear, calm, gorgeous pools of gray that saw every part of me, even the ugly, and made me clean again.

She opened her mouth to speak, but I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stop it.

I ran to her.

My mouth claimed hers, covering it and devouring her breath that sunk into my lungs and doused the fire. I drove my hands into the cold, thick tresses of her hair and the itch died inside them. Everywhere her body touched mine, it cooled it, calmed it, even as she gripped my hips and crushed me against her, pinning herself between me and the wall. Still, it wasn’t enough. I needed more. I needed all of her. I’d wanted her and dreamed of her for so fucking long and now here she was in my hands, pulling me against her, sliding her tongue into my mouth with the sweet taste of mint that burst clean and strong across my tongue.

I drug my fingers down her chin and traced the long counters of her neck. I found the threaded cords of the muscles and followed them down to her breastplate, along the line of the bone on her collar, tripping my fingers over it and memorizing the length. The ridges. I touched her shoulders, her back, her spine – the structure that held her up against the weight of the world with impossible strength and poise. Everything that had been denied me for so many years. I made a map of her in my head. I followed her hip to where it dipped down in the front, and I felt her breath hitch in her throat, the gasp sending my body into overdrive, but I didn’t push. That’s not what this was. I wanted to know her. Every rugged, rough inch of the bones in her body that moved like water with fluid grace. The impossible magic that was Jenna – I wanted to learn it so I could always remember it.

I traced her fingers that held tightly to my hips, her long elegant hands, her thin, delicate wrists. The skin on the flat of her stomach.

She gripped me harder, her mouth moving slowly over mine like a caress in a way that made me groan in my throat and ache in my body, but still I moved with meticulous leisure over her. I drifted up her long, lean stomach until I reached her ribs. I ran my fingers along each one of them, mesmerized by the soft skin that rested over the hard bone beneath. She was a contradiction of everything. Soft and supple, resilient and firm. Every part of her unapologetic and so accepting. She let my hands wander over her, sighing and shivering against me, giving me so much peace in the measure of her making that I lost track of myself. Of time.